A Survey of Automatic Protocol Reverse Engineering Approaches, Methods, and Tools on the Inputs and Outputs View

OpenAIRE

Baraka D. Sija; Young-Hoon Goo; Kyu-Seok Shim; Huru Hasanova; Myung-Sup Kim

2018-01-01

A network protocol defines rules that control communications between two or more machines on the Internet, whereas Automatic Protocol Reverse Engineering (APRE) defines the way of extracting the structure of a network protocol without accessing its specifications. Enough knowledge on undocumented protocols is essential for security purposes, network policy implementation, and management of network resources. This paper reviews and analyzes a total of 39 approaches, methods, and tools towards ...

Analyzing the effect of routing protocols on media access control protocols in radio networks

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Barrett, C. L. (Christopher L.); Drozda, M. (Martin); Marathe, A. (Achla); Marathe, M. V. (Madhav V.)

2002-01-01

We study the effect of routing protocols on the performance of media access control (MAC) protocols in wireless radio networks. Three well known MAC protocols: 802.11, CSMA, and MACA are considered. Similarly three recently proposed routing protocols: AODV, DSR and LAR scheme 1 are considered. The experimental analysis was carried out using GloMoSim: a tool for simulating wireless networks. The main focus of our experiments was to study how the routing protocols affect the performance of the MAC protocols when the underlying network and traffic parameters are varied. The performance of the protocols was measured w.r.t. five important parameters: (i) number of received packets, (ii) average latency of each packet, (iii) throughput (iv) long term fairness and (v) number of control packets at the MAC layer level. Our results show that combinations of routing and MAC protocols yield varying performance under varying network topology and traffic situations. The result has an important implication; no combination of routing protocol and MAC protocol is the best over all situations. Also, the performance analysis of protocols at a given level in the protocol stack needs to be studied not locally in isolation but as a part of the complete protocol stack. A novel aspect of our work is the use of statistical technique, ANOVA (Analysis of Variance) to characterize the effect of routing protocols on MAC protocols. This technique is of independent interest and can be utilized in several other simulation and empirical studies.

Integrating usability testing and think-aloud protocol analysis with "near-live" clinical simulations in evaluating clinical decision support.

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Alice C; Kannry, Joseph L; Kushniruk, Andre; Chrimes, Dillon; McGinn, Thomas G; Edonyabo, Daniel; Mann, Devin M

2012-11-01

Usability evaluations can improve the usability and workflow integration of clinical decision support (CDS). Traditional usability testing using scripted scenarios with think-aloud protocol analysis provide a useful but incomplete assessment of how new CDS tools interact with users and clinical workflow. "Near-live" clinical simulations are a newer usability evaluation tool that more closely mimics clinical workflow and that allows for a complementary evaluation of CDS usability as well as impact on workflow. This study employed two phases of testing a new CDS tool that embedded clinical prediction rules (an evidence-based medicine tool) into primary care workflow within a commercial electronic health record. Phase I applied usability testing involving "think-aloud" protocol analysis of 8 primary care providers encountering several scripted clinical scenarios. Phase II used "near-live" clinical simulations of 8 providers interacting with video clips of standardized trained patient actors enacting the clinical scenario. In both phases, all sessions were audiotaped and had screen-capture software activated for onscreen recordings. Transcripts were coded using qualitative analysis methods. In Phase I, the impact of the CDS on navigation and workflow were associated with the largest volume of negative comments (accounting for over 90% of user raised issues) while the overall usability and the content of the CDS were associated with the most positive comments. However, usability had a positive-to-negative comment ratio of only 0.93 reflecting mixed perceptions about the usability of the CDS. In Phase II, the duration of encounters with simulated patients was approximately 12 min with 71% of the clinical prediction rules being activated after half of the visit had already elapsed. Upon activation, providers accepted the CDS tool pathway 82% of times offered and completed all of its elements in 53% of all simulation cases. Only 12.2% of encounter time was spent using the

A Logical Analysis of Quantum Voting Protocols

Science.gov (United States)

Rad, Soroush Rafiee; Shirinkalam, Elahe; Smets, Sonja

2017-12-01

In this paper we provide a logical analysis of the Quantum Voting Protocol for Anonymous Surveying as developed by Horoshko and Kilin in (Phys. Lett. A 375, 1172-1175 2011). In particular we make use of the probabilistic logic of quantum programs as developed in (Int. J. Theor. Phys. 53, 3628-3647 2014) to provide a formal specification of the protocol and to derive its correctness. Our analysis is part of a wider program on the application of quantum logics to the formal verification of protocols in quantum communication and quantum computation.

A Survey of Automatic Protocol Reverse Engineering Approaches, Methods, and Tools on the Inputs and Outputs View

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Baraka D. Sija

2018-01-01

Full Text Available A network protocol defines rules that control communications between two or more machines on the Internet, whereas Automatic Protocol Reverse Engineering (APRE defines the way of extracting the structure of a network protocol without accessing its specifications. Enough knowledge on undocumented protocols is essential for security purposes, network policy implementation, and management of network resources. This paper reviews and analyzes a total of 39 approaches, methods, and tools towards Protocol Reverse Engineering (PRE and classifies them into four divisions, approaches that reverse engineer protocol finite state machines, protocol formats, and both protocol finite state machines and protocol formats to approaches that focus directly on neither reverse engineering protocol formats nor protocol finite state machines. The efficiency of all approaches’ outputs based on their selected inputs is analyzed in general along with appropriate reverse engineering inputs format. Additionally, we present discussion and extended classification in terms of automated to manual approaches, known and novel categories of reverse engineered protocols, and a literature of reverse engineered protocols in relation to the seven layers’ OSI (Open Systems Interconnection model.

Security Protocols: Specification, Verification, Implementation, and Composition

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Almousa, Omar

An important aspect of Internet security is the security of cryptographic protocols that it deploys. We need to make sure that such protocols achieve their goals, whether in isolation or in composition, i.e., security protocols must not suffer from any aw that enables hostile intruders to break...... results. The most important generalization is the support for all security properties of the geometric fragment proposed by [Gut14]....... their security. Among others, tools like OFMC [MV09b] and Proverif [Bla01] are quite efficient for the automatic formal verification of a large class of protocols. These tools use different approaches such as symbolic model checking or static analysis. Either approach has its own pros and cons, and therefore, we...

Special Section on "Tools and Algorithms for the Construction and Analysis of Systems"

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

2006-01-01

in the Lecture Notes in Computer Science series published by Springer. TACAS is a forum for researchers, developers and users interested in rigorously based tools for the construction and analysis of systems. The conference serves to bridge the gaps between different communities – including but not limited......This special section contains the revised and expanded versions of eight of the papers from the 10th International Conference on Tools and Algorithms for the Construction and Analysis of Systems (TACAS) held in March/April 2004 in Barcelona, Spain. The conference proceedings appeared as volume 2988...... to those devoted to formal methods, software and hardware verification, static analysis, programming languages, software engineering, real-time systems, and communications protocols – that share common interests in, and techniques for, tool development. Other more theoretical papers from the conference...

Authentication Test-Based the RFID Authentication Protocol with Security Analysis

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Minghui Wang

2014-08-01

Full Text Available To the problem of many recently proposed RFID authentication protocol was soon find security holes, we analyzed the main reason, which is that protocol design is not rigorous, and the correctness of the protocol cannot be guaranteed. To this end, authentication test method was adopted in the process of the formal analysis and strict proof to the proposed RFID protocol in this paper. Authentication Test is a new type of analysis and design method of security protocols based on Strand space model, and it can be used for most types of the security protocols. After analysis the security, the proposed protocol can meet the RFID security demand: information confidentiality, data integrity and identity authentication.

An Evaluation Methodology for Protocol Analysis Systems

Science.gov (United States)

2007-03-01

Main Memory Requirement NS: Needham-Schroeder NSL: Needham-Schroeder-Lowe OCaml : Objective Caml POSIX: Portable Operating System...methodology is needed. A. PROTOCOL ANALYSIS FIELD As with any field, there is a specialized language used within the protocol analysis community. Figure...ProVerif requires that Objective Caml ( OCaml ) be installed on the system, OCaml version 3.09.3 was installed. C. WINDOWS CONFIGURATION OS

The Additional Protocol as an important tool for the strengthening of the safeguards system

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Loosch, Reinhard

2001-01-01

Full text: The following main points will be dealt with and underlined by illustrative examples: 0. A preliminary clarification: Contrary to the title's short-hand language, it is of course, not the Additional Protocols entered into by the Agency and States and other Parties to Safeguards Agreements since 1997 nor the Model Additional Protocol adopted by the Board of Governors and endorsed by the General Conference in 1997 that are, by themselves, an important tool for the strengthening of the Agency's safeguards system. They are, however, the necessary legal prerequisite as well as a strong political and moral boost for enabling the Agency to develop and apply additional tools in order to make the international nuclear non-proliferation regime more effective and, therefore, more reassuring and at the same time, more efficient and therefore, more widely accepted. 1. The importance of the new tools cannot be assessed yet. Hopefully, it will grow quickly and consistently. This will depend primarily on two factors: - The extent to which Additional Protocols are entered into force and at what speed this is achieved, and the extent to which these Protocols cover all important peaceful nuclear activities and resources, whether these exist in states with comprehensive safeguards agreements or not; - The extent to which the Agency succeeds in merging the new measures with those applicable before into an optimized, integrated toolbox. 2. The first factor tends to increase effectiveness by permitting the collection of safeguards- relevant data provided not only in reports from countries in which such activities are conducted or such resources exist but also in information coming from other sources such as publications in. or intelligence made available by, other countries. Cross-checking all those data against each other may, in the best case, reinforce their credibility or, in the worst case, reveal gaps and inconsistencies, but will at any rate, in one way or other, help

Protocols for Improvement of Black Pepper (Piper nigrum L.) Utilizing Biotechnological Tools.

Science.gov (United States)

Nirmal Babu, K; Divakaran, Minoo; Yamuna, G; Ravindran, P N; Peter, K V

2016-01-01

Black pepper, Piper nigrum L., the "King of spices" is the most widely used spice growing in the South-Western region of India. The humid tropical evergreen forest bordering the Malabar Coast (Western Ghats is one of the hot spot areas of plant bio-diversity on earth) is its center of origin and diversity. However, the crop faces constraints like rampant fungal and viral diseases, lack of disease free planting material, hence biotechnological tools can be utilized to address these problems and strides have been made successfully. The standardization of micropropagation, somatic embryogenesis, in vitro conservation, protoplast isolation, and genetic transformation protocols are described here. The protocols could be utilized to achieve similar goals in the related species of Piper too.

Enhancement of Local Climate Analysis Tool

Science.gov (United States)

Horsfall, F. M.; Timofeyeva, M. M.; Dutton, J.

2012-12-01

The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Weather Service (NWS) will enhance its Local Climate Analysis Tool (LCAT) to incorporate specific capabilities to meet the needs of various users including energy, health, and other communities. LCAT is an online interactive tool that provides quick and easy access to climate data and allows users to conduct analyses at the local level such as time series analysis, trend analysis, compositing, correlation and regression techniques, with others to be incorporated as needed. LCAT uses principles of Artificial Intelligence in connecting human and computer perceptions on application of data and scientific techniques in multiprocessing simultaneous users' tasks. Future development includes expanding the type of data currently imported by LCAT (historical data at stations and climate divisions) to gridded reanalysis and General Circulation Model (GCM) data, which are available on global grids and thus will allow for climate studies to be conducted at international locations. We will describe ongoing activities to incorporate NOAA Climate Forecast System (CFS) reanalysis data (CFSR), NOAA model output data, including output from the National Multi Model Ensemble Prediction System (NMME) and longer term projection models, and plans to integrate LCAT into the Earth System Grid Federation (ESGF) and its protocols for accessing model output and observational data to ensure there is no redundancy in development of tools that facilitate scientific advancements and use of climate model information in applications. Validation and inter-comparison of forecast models will be included as part of the enhancement to LCAT. To ensure sustained development, we will investigate options for open sourcing LCAT development, in particular, through the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR).

Constructing Benchmark Databases and Protocols for Medical Image Analysis: Diabetic Retinopathy

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tomi Kauppi

2013-01-01

Full Text Available We address the performance evaluation practices for developing medical image analysis methods, in particular, how to establish and share databases of medical images with verified ground truth and solid evaluation protocols. Such databases support the development of better algorithms, execution of profound method comparisons, and, consequently, technology transfer from research laboratories to clinical practice. For this purpose, we propose a framework consisting of reusable methods and tools for the laborious task of constructing a benchmark database. We provide a software tool for medical image annotation helping to collect class label, spatial span, and expert's confidence on lesions and a method to appropriately combine the manual segmentations from multiple experts. The tool and all necessary functionality for method evaluation are provided as public software packages. As a case study, we utilized the framework and tools to establish the DiaRetDB1 V2.1 database for benchmarking diabetic retinopathy detection algorithms. The database contains a set of retinal images, ground truth based on information from multiple experts, and a baseline algorithm for the detection of retinopathy lesions.

Modelling and Analysis of a Collision Avoidance Protocol using SPIN and UPPAAL

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Skou, Arne; Larsen, Kim Guldstrand; Jensen, Henrik Ejersbo

1997-01-01

, the modelling of the media becomes ackward due to the lack of broadcast communication in the PROMELA language. On the other hand we find it easy to model the timed aspects using the UPPAAL tool. Especially, the notion of committed locations supports the modelling of broadcast communication. However......This paper compares the tools SPIN and UPPAAL by modelling and verifying a Collision Avoidance Protocol for an Ethernet-like medium. We find that SPIN is well suited for modelling the untimed aspects of the protocol processes and for expressing the relevant (untimed) properties. However...

Analysis and Verification of a Key Agreement Protocol over Cloud Computing Using Scyther Tool

OpenAIRE

Hazem A Elbaz

2015-01-01

The mostly cloud computing authentication mechanisms use public key infrastructure (PKI). Hierarchical Identity Based Cryptography (HIBC) has several advantages that sound well align with the demands of cloud computing. The main objectives of cloud computing authentication protocols are security and efficiency. In this paper, we clarify Hierarchical Identity Based Authentication Key Agreement (HIB-AKA) protocol, providing lightweight key management approach for cloud computing users. Then, we...

A Calculus for Control Flow Analysis of Security Protocols

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Buchholtz, Mikael; Nielson, Hanne Riis; Nielson, Flemming

2004-01-01

The design of a process calculus for anaysing security protocols is governed by three factors: how to express the security protocol in a precise and faithful manner, how to accommodate the variety of attack scenarios, and how to utilise the strengths (and limit the weaknesses) of the underlying...... analysis methodology. We pursue an analysis methodology based on control flow analysis in flow logic style and we have previously shown its ability to analyse a variety of security protocols. This paper develops a calculus, LysaNS that allows for much greater control and clarity in the description...

Design and analysis of communication protocols for quantum repeater networks

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Jones, Cody; Kim, Danny; Rakher, Matthew T; Ladd, Thaddeus D; Kwiat, Paul G

2016-01-01

We analyze how the performance of a quantum-repeater network depends on the protocol employed to distribute entanglement, and we find that the choice of repeater-to-repeater link protocol has a profound impact on entanglement-distribution rate as a function of hardware parameters. We develop numerical simulations of quantum networks using different protocols, where the repeater hardware is modeled in terms of key performance parameters, such as photon generation rate and collection efficiency. These parameters are motivated by recent experimental demonstrations in quantum dots, trapped ions, and nitrogen-vacancy centers in diamond. We find that a quantum-dot repeater with the newest protocol (‘MidpointSource’) delivers the highest entanglement-distribution rate for typical cases where there is low probability of establishing entanglement per transmission, and in some cases the rate is orders of magnitude higher than other schemes. Our simulation tools can be used to evaluate communication protocols as part of designing a large-scale quantum network. (paper)

[Professional divers: analysis of critical issues and proposal of a health protocol for work fitness].

Science.gov (United States)

Pedata, Paola; Corvino, Anna Rita; Napolitano, Raffaele Carmine; Garzillo, Elpidio Maria; Furfaro, Ciro; Lamberti, Monica

2016-01-20

From many years now, thanks to the development of modern diving techniques, there has been a rapid spread of diving activities everywhere. In fact, divers are ever more numerous both among the Armed Forces and civilians who dive for work, like fishing, biological research and archeology. The aim of the study was to propose a health protocol for work fitness of professional divers keeping in mind the peculiar work activity, existing Italian legislation that is almost out of date and the technical and scientific evolution in this occupational field. We performed an analysis of the most frequently occurring diseases among professional divers and of the clinical investigation and imaging techniques used for work fitness assessment of professional divers. From analysis of the health protocol recommended by D.M. 13 January 1979 (Ministerial Decree), that is most used by occupational health physician, several critical issues emerged. Very often the clinical investigation and imaging techniques still used are almost obsolete, ignoring the execution of simple and inexpensive investigations that are more useful for work fitness assessment. Considering the out-dated legislation concerning diving disciplines, it is necessary to draw up a common health protocol that takes into account clinical and scientific knowledge and skills acquired in this area. This protocol's aim is to propose a useful tool for occupational health physicians who work in this sector.

Scoring Tools for the Analysis of Infant Respiratory Inductive Plethysmography Signals.

Science.gov (United States)

Robles-Rubio, Carlos Alejandro; Bertolizio, Gianluca; Brown, Karen A; Kearney, Robert E

2015-01-01

Infants recovering from anesthesia are at risk of life threatening Postoperative Apnea (POA). POA events are rare, and so the study of POA requires the analysis of long cardiorespiratory records. Manual scoring is the preferred method of analysis for these data, but it is limited by low intra- and inter-scorer repeatability. Furthermore, recommended scoring rules do not provide a comprehensive description of the respiratory patterns. This work describes a set of manual scoring tools that address these limitations. These tools include: (i) a set of definitions and scoring rules for 6 mutually exclusive, unique patterns that fully characterize infant respiratory inductive plethysmography (RIP) signals; (ii) RIPScore, a graphical, manual scoring software to apply these rules to infant data; (iii) a library of data segments representing each of the 6 patterns; (iv) a fully automated, interactive formal training protocol to standardize the analysis and establish intra- and inter-scorer repeatability; and (v) a quality control method to monitor scorer ongoing performance over time. To evaluate these tools, three scorers from varied backgrounds were recruited and trained to reach a performance level similar to that of an expert. These scorers used RIPScore to analyze data from infants at risk of POA in two separate, independent instances. Scorers performed with high accuracy and consistency, analyzed data efficiently, had very good intra- and inter-scorer repeatability, and exhibited only minor confusion between patterns. These results indicate that our tools represent an excellent method for the analysis of respiratory patterns in long data records. Although the tools were developed for the study of POA, their use extends to any study of respiratory patterns using RIP (e.g., sleep apnea, extubation readiness). Moreover, by establishing and monitoring scorer repeatability, our tools enable the analysis of large data sets by multiple scorers, which is essential for

Scoring Tools for the Analysis of Infant Respiratory Inductive Plethysmography Signals.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Carlos Alejandro Robles-Rubio

Full Text Available Infants recovering from anesthesia are at risk of life threatening Postoperative Apnea (POA. POA events are rare, and so the study of POA requires the analysis of long cardiorespiratory records. Manual scoring is the preferred method of analysis for these data, but it is limited by low intra- and inter-scorer repeatability. Furthermore, recommended scoring rules do not provide a comprehensive description of the respiratory patterns. This work describes a set of manual scoring tools that address these limitations. These tools include: (i a set of definitions and scoring rules for 6 mutually exclusive, unique patterns that fully characterize infant respiratory inductive plethysmography (RIP signals; (ii RIPScore, a graphical, manual scoring software to apply these rules to infant data; (iii a library of data segments representing each of the 6 patterns; (iv a fully automated, interactive formal training protocol to standardize the analysis and establish intra- and inter-scorer repeatability; and (v a quality control method to monitor scorer ongoing performance over time. To evaluate these tools, three scorers from varied backgrounds were recruited and trained to reach a performance level similar to that of an expert. These scorers used RIPScore to analyze data from infants at risk of POA in two separate, independent instances. Scorers performed with high accuracy and consistency, analyzed data efficiently, had very good intra- and inter-scorer repeatability, and exhibited only minor confusion between patterns. These results indicate that our tools represent an excellent method for the analysis of respiratory patterns in long data records. Although the tools were developed for the study of POA, their use extends to any study of respiratory patterns using RIP (e.g., sleep apnea, extubation readiness. Moreover, by establishing and monitoring scorer repeatability, our tools enable the analysis of large data sets by multiple scorers, which is essential

Physics analysis tools

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kunz, P.F.

1991-04-01

There are many tools used in analysis in High Energy Physics (HEP). They range from low level tools such as a programming language to high level such as a detector simulation package. This paper will discuss some aspects of these tools that are directly associated with the process of analyzing HEP data. Physics analysis tools cover the whole range from the simulation of the interactions of particles to the display and fitting of statistical data. For purposes of this paper, the stages of analysis is broken down to five main stages. The categories are also classified as areas of generation, reconstruction, and analysis. Different detector groups use different terms for these stages thus it is useful to define what is meant by them in this paper. The particle generation stage is a simulation of the initial interaction, the production of particles, and the decay of the short lived particles. The detector simulation stage simulates the behavior of an event in a detector. The track reconstruction stage does pattern recognition on the measured or simulated space points, calorimeter information, etc., and reconstructs track segments of the original event. The event reconstruction stage takes the reconstructed tracks, along with particle identification information and assigns masses to produce 4-vectors. Finally the display and fit stage displays statistical data accumulated in the preceding stages in the form of histograms, scatter plots, etc. The remainder of this paper will consider what analysis tools are available today, and what one might expect in the future. In each stage, the integration of the tools with other stages and the portability of the tool will be analyzed

Design and Analysis of an Enhanced Patient-Server Mutual Authentication Protocol for Telecare Medical Information System.

Science.gov (United States)

Amin, Ruhul; Islam, S K Hafizul; Biswas, G P; Khan, Muhammad Khurram; Obaidat, Mohammad S

2015-11-01

In order to access remote medical server, generally the patients utilize smart card to login to the server. It has been observed that most of the user (patient) authentication protocols suffer from smart card stolen attack that means the attacker can mount several common attacks after extracting smart card information. Recently, Lu et al.'s proposes a session key agreement protocol between the patient and remote medical server and claims that the same protocol is secure against relevant security attacks. However, this paper presents several security attacks on Lu et al.'s protocol such as identity trace attack, new smart card issue attack, patient impersonation attack and medical server impersonation attack. In order to fix the mentioned security pitfalls including smart card stolen attack, this paper proposes an efficient remote mutual authentication protocol using smart card. We have then simulated the proposed protocol using widely-accepted AVISPA simulation tool whose results make certain that the same protocol is secure against active and passive attacks including replay and man-in-the-middle attacks. Moreover, the rigorous security analysis proves that the proposed protocol provides strong security protection on the relevant security attacks including smart card stolen attack. We compare the proposed scheme with several related schemes in terms of computation cost and communication cost as well as security functionalities. It has been observed that the proposed scheme is comparatively better than related existing schemes.

Protocol vulnerability detection based on network traffic analysis and binary reverse engineering.

Science.gov (United States)

Wen, Shameng; Meng, Qingkun; Feng, Chao; Tang, Chaojing

2017-01-01

Network protocol vulnerability detection plays an important role in many domains, including protocol security analysis, application security, and network intrusion detection. In this study, by analyzing the general fuzzing method of network protocols, we propose a novel approach that combines network traffic analysis with the binary reverse engineering method. For network traffic analysis, the block-based protocol description language is introduced to construct test scripts, while the binary reverse engineering method employs the genetic algorithm with a fitness function designed to focus on code coverage. This combination leads to a substantial improvement in fuzz testing for network protocols. We build a prototype system and use it to test several real-world network protocol implementations. The experimental results show that the proposed approach detects vulnerabilities more efficiently and effectively than general fuzzing methods such as SPIKE.

Protocol vulnerability detection based on network traffic analysis and binary reverse engineering.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Shameng Wen

Full Text Available Network protocol vulnerability detection plays an important role in many domains, including protocol security analysis, application security, and network intrusion detection. In this study, by analyzing the general fuzzing method of network protocols, we propose a novel approach that combines network traffic analysis with the binary reverse engineering method. For network traffic analysis, the block-based protocol description language is introduced to construct test scripts, while the binary reverse engineering method employs the genetic algorithm with a fitness function designed to focus on code coverage. This combination leads to a substantial improvement in fuzz testing for network protocols. We build a prototype system and use it to test several real-world network protocol implementations. The experimental results show that the proposed approach detects vulnerabilities more efficiently and effectively than general fuzzing methods such as SPIKE.

Tabhu: tools for antibody humanization.

KAUST Repository

Olimpieri, Pier Paolo; Marcatili, Paolo; Tramontano, Anna

2014-01-01

for antibody humanization. Tabhu includes tools for human template selection, grafting, back-mutation evaluation, antibody modelling and structural analysis, helping the user in all the critical steps of the humanization experiment protocol. AVAILABILITY: http

A Web-Based Decision Tool to Improve Contraceptive Counseling for Women With Chronic Medical Conditions: Protocol For a Mixed Methods Implementation Study.

Science.gov (United States)

Wu, Justine P; Damschroder, Laura J; Fetters, Michael D; Zikmund-Fisher, Brian J; Crabtree, Benjamin F; Hudson, Shawna V; Ruffin, Mack T; Fucinari, Juliana; Kang, Minji; Taichman, L Susan; Creswell, John W

2018-04-18

Women with chronic medical conditions, such as diabetes and hypertension, have a higher risk of pregnancy-related complications compared with women without medical conditions and should be offered contraception if desired. Although evidence based guidelines for contraceptive selection in the presence of medical conditions are available via the United States Medical Eligibility Criteria (US MEC), these guidelines are underutilized. Research also supports the use of decision tools to promote shared decision making between patients and providers during contraceptive counseling. The overall goal of the MiHealth, MiChoice project is to design and implement a theory-driven, Web-based tool that incorporates the US MEC (provider-level intervention) within the vehicle of a contraceptive decision tool for women with chronic medical conditions (patient-level intervention) in community-based primary care settings (practice-level intervention). This will be a 3-phase study that includes a predesign phase, a design phase, and a testing phase in a randomized controlled trial. This study protocol describes phase 1 and aim 1, which is to determine patient-, provider-, and practice-level factors that are relevant to the design and implementation of the contraceptive decision tool. This is a mixed methods implementation study. To customize the delivery of the US MEC in the decision tool, we selected high-priority constructs from the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research and the Theoretical Domains Framework to drive data collection and analysis at the practice and provider level, respectively. A conceptual model that incorporates constructs from the transtheoretical model and the health beliefs model undergirds patient-level data collection and analysis and will inform customization of the decision tool for this population. We will recruit 6 community-based primary care practices and conduct quantitative surveys and semistructured qualitative interviews with women who

Oscillation Baselining and Analysis Tool

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

2017-03-27

PNNL developed a new tool for oscillation analysis and baselining. This tool has been developed under a new DOE Grid Modernization Laboratory Consortium (GMLC) Project (GM0072 - “Suite of open-source applications and models for advanced synchrophasor analysis”) and it is based on the open platform for PMU analysis. The Oscillation Baselining and Analysis Tool (OBAT) performs the oscillation analysis and identifies modes of oscillations (frequency, damping, energy, and shape). The tool also does oscillation event baselining (fining correlation between oscillations characteristics and system operating conditions).

Protocol Implementation Generator

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Carvalho Quaresma, Jose Nuno; Probst, Christian W.

2010-01-01

Users expect communication systems to guarantee, amongst others, privacy and integrity of their data. These can be ensured by using well-established protocols; the best protocol, however, is useless if not all parties involved in a communication have a correct implementation of the protocol and a...... Generator framework based on the LySatool and a translator from the LySa language into C or Java....... necessary tools. In this paper, we present the Protocol Implementation Generator (PiG), a framework that can be used to add protocol generation to protocol negotiation, or to easily share and implement new protocols throughout a network. PiG enables the sharing, verification, and translation...

Mean-Field Analysis for the Evaluation of Gossip Protocols

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Bakshi, Rena; Cloth, L.; Fokkink, Wan; Haverkort, Boudewijn R.H.M.

Gossip protocols are designed to operate in very large, decentralised networks. A node in such a network bases its decision to interact (gossip) with another node on its partial view of the global system. Because of the size of these networks, analysis of gossip protocols is mostly done using

Mean-field analysis for the evaluation of gossip protocols

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Bakhshi, Rena; Cloth, L.; Fokkink, Wan; Haverkort, Boudewijn R.H.M.

2008-01-01

Gossip protocols are designed to operate in very large, decentralised networks. A node in such a network bases its decision to interact (gossip) with another node on its partial view of the global system. Because of the size of these networks, analysis of gossip protocols is mostly done using

A new aid to decision-making tool for the elaboration of treatment protocols by the DTPA after dose calculations

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Fritsch, P.; Poncy, J.L.; Berard, P.; Grappin, L.; Blanchin, N.; Breustedt, B.; Blanchardon, E.

2010-01-01

The authors summarize the presentation of a new tool aimed at the assessment of the reduction of doses associated with different therapeutic protocols after an internal contamination by some Pu (by inhalation or injury). This tool couples a dissolution model and a model describing the evolution of the diethylene triamine penta acetate (DTPA) and of Pu-DTPA compounds. Some recent experimental data are used for validation purposes

RCRA groundwater data analysis protocol for the Hanford Site, Washington

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chou, C.J.; Jackson, R.L.

1992-04-01

The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976 (RCRA) groundwater monitoring program currently involves site-specific monitoring of 20 facilities on the Hanford Site in southeastern Washington. The RCRA groundwater monitoring program has collected abundant data on groundwater quality. These data are used to assess the impact of a facility on groundwater quality or whether remediation efforts under RCRA corrective action programs are effective. Both evaluations rely on statistical analysis of groundwater monitoring data. The need for information on groundwater quality by regulators and environmental managers makes statistical analysis of monitoring data an important part of RCRA groundwater monitoring programs. The complexity of groundwater monitoring programs and variabilities (spatial, temporal, and analytical) exhibited in groundwater quality variables indicate the need for a data analysis protocol to guide statistical analysis. A data analysis protocol was developed from the perspective of addressing regulatory requirements, data quality, and management information needs. This data analysis protocol contains four elements: data handling methods; graphical evaluation techniques; statistical tests for trend, central tendency, and excursion analysis; and reporting procedures for presenting results to users

Caries risk assessment tool and prevention protocol for public health nurses in mother and child health centers, Israel.

Science.gov (United States)

Natapov, Lena; Dekel-Markovich, Dan; Granit-Palmon, Hadas; Aflalo, Efrat; Zusman, Shlomo Paul

2018-01-01

Dental caries is the most prevalent chronic disease in children. Caries risk assessment tools enable the dentists, physicians, and nondental health care providers to assess the individual's risk. Intervention by nurses in primary care settings can contribute to the establishment of oral health habits and prevention of dental disease. In Israel, Mother and Child Health Centers provide free preventive services for pregnant women and children by public health nurses. A caries prevention program in health centers started in 2015. Nurses underwent special training regarding caries prevention. A customized Caries Risk Assessment tool and Prevention Protocol for nurses, based on the AAPD tool, was introduced. A two-step evaluation was conducted which included a questionnaire and in-depth phone interviews. Twenty-eight (out of 46) health centers returned a completed questionnaire. Most nurses believed that oral health preventive services should be incorporated into their daily work. In the in-depth phone interviews, nurses stated that the integration of the program into their busy daily schedule was realistic and appropriate. The lack of specific dental module for computer program was mentioned as an implementation difficulty. The wide use of our tool by nurses supports its simplicity and feasibility which enables quick calculation and informed decision making. The nurses readily embraced the tool and it became an integral part of their toolkit. We provide public health nurses with a caries risk assessment tool and prevention protocol thus integrating oral health into general health of infants and toddlers. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Analysis of quality control protocol implementation of equipment in radiotherapy services

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Calcina, Carmen S. Guzman; Lima, Luciana P. de; Rubo, Rodrigo A.; Ferraz, Eduardo; Almeida, Adelaide de

2000-01-01

Considering the importance of the Quality Assurance in the radiotherapy services, there was an interest to make tests' evaluation for a Quality Control for the cobalt equipment, linear accelerator and simulator as a classification and comparison. The work proposed is a suggestion that can serve as tool for medical physicists that are starting to work in the radiotherapy area and for the most experts. The discussions were made by the gathering of local tests and official protocols, resulting in a minimum protocol as a suggestion for a routine work, emphasizing the periodicity and level of tolerance of each one of the tests. (author)

Economic and Financial Analysis Tools | Energy Analysis | NREL

Science.gov (United States)

Economic and Financial Analysis Tools Economic and Financial Analysis Tools Use these economic and . Job and Economic Development Impact (JEDI) Model Use these easy-to-use, spreadsheet-based tools to analyze the economic impacts of constructing and operating power generation and biofuel plants at the

Communicating systems with UML 2 modeling and analysis of network protocols

CERN Document Server

Barrera, David Garduno

2013-01-01

This book gives a practical approach to modeling and analyzing communication protocols using UML 2. Network protocols are always presented with a point of view focusing on partial mechanisms and starting models. This book aims at giving the basis needed for anybody to model and validate their own protocols. It follows a practical approach and gives many examples for the description and analysis of well known basic network mechanisms for protocols.The book firstly shows how to describe and validate the main protocol issues (such as synchronization problems, client-server interactions, layer

An approach to standardization of urine sediment analysis via suggestion of a common manual protocol.

Science.gov (United States)

Ko, Dae-Hyun; Ji, Misuk; Kim, Sollip; Cho, Eun-Jung; Lee, Woochang; Yun, Yeo-Min; Chun, Sail; Min, Won-Ki

2016-01-01

The results of urine sediment analysis have been reported semiquantitatively. However, as recent guidelines recommend quantitative reporting of urine sediment, and with the development of automated urine sediment analyzers, there is an increasing need for quantitative analysis of urine sediment. Here, we developed a protocol for urine sediment analysis and quantified the results. Based on questionnaires, various reports, guidelines, and experimental results, we developed a protocol for urine sediment analysis. The results of this new protocol were compared with those obtained with a standardized chamber and an automated sediment analyzer. Reference intervals were also estimated using new protocol. We developed a protocol with centrifugation at 400 g for 5 min, with the average concentration factor of 30. The correlation between quantitative results of urine sediment analysis, the standardized chamber, and the automated sediment analyzer were generally good. The conversion factor derived from the new protocol showed a better fit with the results of manual count than the default conversion factor in the automated sediment analyzer. We developed a protocol for manual urine sediment analysis to quantitatively report the results. This protocol may provide a mean for standardization of urine sediment analysis.

A Protocol for the Comprehensive Flow Cytometric Analysis of Immune Cells in Normal and Inflamed Murine Non-Lymphoid Tissues

Science.gov (United States)

Yu, Yen-Rei A.; O’Koren, Emily G.; Hotten, Danielle F.; Kan, Matthew J.; Kopin, David; Nelson, Erik R.; Que, Loretta; Gunn, Michael D.

2016-01-01

Flow cytometry is used extensively to examine immune cells in non-lymphoid tissues. However, a method of flow cytometric analysis that is both comprehensive and widely applicable has not been described. We developed a protocol for the flow cytometric analysis of non-lymphoid tissues, including methods of tissue preparation, a 10-fluorochrome panel for cell staining, and a standardized gating strategy, that allows the simultaneous identification and quantification of all major immune cell types in a variety of normal and inflamed non-lymphoid tissues. We demonstrate that our basic protocol minimizes cell loss, reliably distinguishes macrophages from dendritic cells (DC), and identifies all major granulocytic and mononuclear phagocytic cell types. This protocol is able to accurately quantify 11 distinct immune cell types, including T cells, B cells, NK cells, neutrophils, eosinophils, inflammatory monocytes, resident monocytes, alveolar macrophages, resident/interstitial macrophages, CD11b- DC, and CD11b+ DC, in normal lung, heart, liver, kidney, intestine, skin, eyes, and mammary gland. We also characterized the expression patterns of several commonly used myeloid and macrophage markers. This basic protocol can be expanded to identify additional cell types such as mast cells, basophils, and plasmacytoid DC, or perform detailed phenotyping of specific cell types. In examining models of primary and metastatic mammary tumors, this protocol allowed the identification of several distinct tumor associated macrophage phenotypes, the appearance of which was highly specific to individual tumor cell lines. This protocol provides a valuable tool to examine immune cell repertoires and follow immune responses in a wide variety of tissues and experimental conditions. PMID:26938654

Large-scale hydrological simulations using the soil water assessment tool, protocol development, and application in the danube basin.

Science.gov (United States)

Pagliero, Liliana; Bouraoui, Fayçal; Willems, Patrick; Diels, Jan

2014-01-01

The Water Framework Directive of the European Union requires member states to achieve good ecological status of all water bodies. A harmonized pan-European assessment of water resources availability and quality, as affected by various management options, is necessary for a successful implementation of European environmental legislation. In this context, we developed a methodology to predict surface water flow at the pan-European scale using available datasets. Among the hydrological models available, the Soil Water Assessment Tool was selected because its characteristics make it suitable for large-scale applications with limited data requirements. This paper presents the results for the Danube pilot basin. The Danube Basin is one of the largest European watersheds, covering approximately 803,000 km and portions of 14 countries. The modeling data used included land use and management information, a detailed soil parameters map, and high-resolution climate data. The Danube Basin was divided into 4663 subwatersheds of an average size of 179 km. A modeling protocol is proposed to cope with the problems of hydrological regionalization from gauged to ungauged watersheds and overparameterization and identifiability, which are usually present during calibration. The protocol involves a cluster analysis for the determination of hydrological regions and multiobjective calibration using a combination of manual and automated calibration. The proposed protocol was successfully implemented, with the modeled discharges capturing well the overall hydrological behavior of the basin. Copyright © by the American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America, and Soil Science Society of America, Inc.

Protocol design and analysis for cooperative wireless networks

CERN Document Server

Song, Wei; Jin, A-Long

2017-01-01

This book focuses on the design and analysis of protocols for cooperative wireless networks, especially at the medium access control (MAC) layer and for crosslayer design between the MAC layer and the physical layer. It highlights two main points that are often neglected in other books: energy-efficiency and spatial random distribution of wireless devices. Effective methods in stochastic geometry for the design and analysis of wireless networks are also explored. After providing a comprehensive review of existing studies in the literature, the authors point out the challenges that are worth further investigation. Then, they introduce several novel solutions for cooperative wireless network protocols that reduce energy consumption and address spatial random distribution of wireless nodes. For each solution, the book offers a clear system model and problem formulation, details of the proposed cooperative schemes, comprehensive performance analysis, and extensive numerical and simulation results that validate th...

Power Tools for Talking: Custom Protocols Enrich Coaching Conversations

Science.gov (United States)

Pomerantz, Francesca; Ippolito, Jacy

2015-01-01

Discussion-based protocols--an "agreed upon set of discussion or observation rules that guide coach/teacher/student work, discussion, and interactions" (Ippolito & Lieberman, 2012, p. 79)--can help focus and structure productive professional learning discussions. However, while protocols are slowly growing into essential elements of…

Galaxy tools and workflows for sequence analysis with applications in molecular plant pathology.

Science.gov (United States)

Cock, Peter J A; Grüning, Björn A; Paszkiewicz, Konrad; Pritchard, Leighton

2013-01-01

The Galaxy Project offers the popular web browser-based platform Galaxy for running bioinformatics tools and constructing simple workflows. Here, we present a broad collection of additional Galaxy tools for large scale analysis of gene and protein sequences. The motivating research theme is the identification of specific genes of interest in a range of non-model organisms, and our central example is the identification and prediction of "effector" proteins produced by plant pathogens in order to manipulate their host plant. This functional annotation of a pathogen's predicted capacity for virulence is a key step in translating sequence data into potential applications in plant pathology. This collection includes novel tools, and widely-used third-party tools such as NCBI BLAST+ wrapped for use within Galaxy. Individual bioinformatics software tools are typically available separately as standalone packages, or in online browser-based form. The Galaxy framework enables the user to combine these and other tools to automate organism scale analyses as workflows, without demanding familiarity with command line tools and scripting. Workflows created using Galaxy can be saved and are reusable, so may be distributed within and between research groups, facilitating the construction of a set of standardised, reusable bioinformatic protocols. The Galaxy tools and workflows described in this manuscript are open source and freely available from the Galaxy Tool Shed (http://usegalaxy.org/toolshed or http://toolshed.g2.bx.psu.edu).

Rethinking Protocol Analysis from a Cultural Perspective.

Science.gov (United States)

Smagorinsky, Peter

2001-01-01

Outlines a cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT) perspective that accounts for protocol analysis along three key dimensions: the relationship between thinking and speech from a representational standpoint; the social role of speech in research methodology; and the influence of speech on thinking and data collection. (Author/VWL)

Ocean Optics Protocols for Satellite Ocean Color Sensor Validation, Revision 4, Volume IV: Inherent Optical Properties: Instruments, Characterizations, Field Measurements and Data Analysis Protocols

Science.gov (United States)

Mueller, J. L.; Fargion, G. S.; McClain, C. R. (Editor); Pegau, S.; Zanefeld, J. R. V.; Mitchell, B. G.; Kahru, M.; Wieland, J.; Stramska, M.

2003-01-01

This document stipulates protocols for measuring bio-optical and radiometric data for the Sensor Intercomparision and Merger for Biological and Interdisciplinary Oceanic Studies (SIMBIOS) Project activities and algorithm development. The document is organized into 6 separate volumes as Ocean Optics Protocols for Satellite Ocean Color Sensor Validation, Revision 4. Volume I: Introduction, Background, and Conventions; Volume II: Instrument Specifications, Characterization and Calibration; Volume III: Radiometric Measurements and Data Analysis Methods; Volume IV: Inherent Optical Properties: Instruments, Characterization, Field Measurements and Data Analysis Protocols; Volume V: Biogeochemical and Bio-Optical Measurements and Data Analysis Methods; Volume VI: Special Topics in Ocean Optics Protocols and Appendices. The earlier version of Ocean Optics Protocols for Satellite Ocean Color Sensor Validation, Revision 3 is entirely superseded by the six volumes of Revision 4 listed above.

Design and Analysis of Transport Protocols for Reliable High-Speed Communications

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Oláh, A.

1997-01-01

The design and analysis of transport protocols for reliable communications constitutes the topic of this dissertation. These transport protocols guarantee the sequenced and complete delivery of user data over networks which may lose, duplicate and reorder packets. Reliable transport services are

Analysis of the LTE Access Reservation Protocol for Real-Time Traffic

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Thomsen, Henning; Kiilerich Pratas, Nuno; Stefanovic, Cedomir

2013-01-01

LTE is increasingly seen as a system for serving real-time Machine-to-Machine (M2M) communication needs. The asynchronous M2M user access in LTE is obtained through a two-phase access reservation protocol (contention and data phase). Existing analysis related to these protocols is based...... of the two-phase LTE reservation protocol and asses its performance, when assumptions (1) and (2) do not hold....

Extended Testability Analysis Tool

Science.gov (United States)

Melcher, Kevin; Maul, William A.; Fulton, Christopher

2012-01-01

The Extended Testability Analysis (ETA) Tool is a software application that supports fault management (FM) by performing testability analyses on the fault propagation model of a given system. Fault management includes the prevention of faults through robust design margins and quality assurance methods, or the mitigation of system failures. Fault management requires an understanding of the system design and operation, potential failure mechanisms within the system, and the propagation of those potential failures through the system. The purpose of the ETA Tool software is to process the testability analysis results from a commercial software program called TEAMS Designer in order to provide a detailed set of diagnostic assessment reports. The ETA Tool is a command-line process with several user-selectable report output options. The ETA Tool also extends the COTS testability analysis and enables variation studies with sensor sensitivity impacts on system diagnostics and component isolation using a single testability output. The ETA Tool can also provide extended analyses from a single set of testability output files. The following analysis reports are available to the user: (1) the Detectability Report provides a breakdown of how each tested failure mode was detected, (2) the Test Utilization Report identifies all the failure modes that each test detects, (3) the Failure Mode Isolation Report demonstrates the system s ability to discriminate between failure modes, (4) the Component Isolation Report demonstrates the system s ability to discriminate between failure modes relative to the components containing the failure modes, (5) the Sensor Sensor Sensitivity Analysis Report shows the diagnostic impact due to loss of sensor information, and (6) the Effect Mapping Report identifies failure modes that result in specified system-level effects.

Channel CAT: A Tactical Link Analysis Tool

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Coleman, Michael

1997-01-01

.... This thesis produced an analysis tool, the Channel Capacity Analysis Tool (Channel CAT), designed to provide an automated tool for the analysis of design decisions in developing client-server software...

Interoperability science cases with the CDPP tools

Science.gov (United States)

Nathanaël, J.; Cecconi, B.; André, N.; Bouchemit, M.; Gangloff, M.; Budnik, E.; Jacquey, C.; Pitout, F.; Durand, J.; Rouillard, A.; Lavraud, B.; Genot, V. N.; Popescu, D.; Beigbeder, L.; Toniutti, J. P.; Caussarieu, S.

2017-12-01

Data exchange protocols are never as efficient as when they are invisible for the end user who is then able to discover data, to cross compare observations and modeled data and finally to perform in depth analysis. Over the years these protocols, including SAMP from IVOA, EPN-TAP from the Europlanet 2020 RI community, backed by standard web-services, have been deployed in tools designed by the French Centre de Données de la Physique des Plasmas (CDPP) including AMDA, the Propagation Tool, 3DView, ... . This presentation will focus on science cases which show the capability of interoperability in the planetary and heliophysics contexts, involving both CDPP and companion tools. Europlanet 2020 RI has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 654208.

IMPLEMENTATION AND VALIDATION OF STATISTICAL TESTS IN RESEARCH'S SOFTWARE HELPING DATA COLLECTION AND PROTOCOLS ANALYSIS IN SURGERY.

Science.gov (United States)

Kuretzki, Carlos Henrique; Campos, Antônio Carlos Ligocki; Malafaia, Osvaldo; Soares, Sandramara Scandelari Kusano de Paula; Tenório, Sérgio Bernardo; Timi, Jorge Rufino Ribas

2016-03-01

The use of information technology is often applied in healthcare. With regard to scientific research, the SINPE(c) - Integrated Electronic Protocols was created as a tool to support researchers, offering clinical data standardization. By the time, SINPE(c) lacked statistical tests obtained by automatic analysis. Add to SINPE(c) features for automatic realization of the main statistical methods used in medicine . The study was divided into four topics: check the interest of users towards the implementation of the tests; search the frequency of their use in health care; carry out the implementation; and validate the results with researchers and their protocols. It was applied in a group of users of this software in their thesis in the strict sensu master and doctorate degrees in one postgraduate program in surgery. To assess the reliability of the statistics was compared the data obtained both automatically by SINPE(c) as manually held by a professional in statistics with experience with this type of study. There was concern for the use of automatic statistical tests, with good acceptance. The chi-square, Mann-Whitney, Fisher and t-Student were considered as tests frequently used by participants in medical studies. These methods have been implemented and thereafter approved as expected. The incorporation of the automatic SINPE (c) Statistical Analysis was shown to be reliable and equal to the manually done, validating its use as a research tool for medical research.

Physics Analysis Tools Workshop 2007

CERN Multimedia

Elizabeth Gallas,

The ATLAS PAT (Physics Analysis Tools) group evaluates, develops and tests software tools for the analysis of physics data, consistent with the ATLAS analysis and event data models. Following on from earlier PAT workshops in London (2004), Tucson (2005) and Tokyo (2006), this year's workshop was hosted by the University of Bergen in Norway on April 23-28 with more than 60 participants. The workshop brought together PAT developers and users to discuss the available tools with an emphasis on preparing for data taking. At the start of the week, workshop participants, laptops and power converters in-hand, jumped headfirst into tutorials, learning how to become trigger-aware and how to use grid computing resources via the distributed analysis tools Panda and Ganga. The well organised tutorials were well attended and soon the network was humming, providing rapid results to the users and ample feedback to the developers. A mid-week break was provided by a relaxing and enjoyable cruise through the majestic Norwegia...

Methodological tools for the collection and analysis of participant observation data using grounded theory.

Science.gov (United States)

Laitinen, Heleena; Kaunonen, Marja; Astedt-Kurki, Päivi

2014-11-01

To give clarity to the analysis of participant observation in nursing when implementing the grounded theory method. Participant observation (PO) is a method of collecting data that reveals the reality of daily life in a specific context. In grounded theory, interviews are the primary method of collecting data but PO gives a distinctive insight, revealing what people are really doing, instead of what they say they are doing. However, more focus is needed on the analysis of PO. An observational study carried out to gain awareness of nursing care and its electronic documentation in four acute care wards in hospitals in Finland. Discussion of using the grounded theory method and PO as a data collection tool. The following methodological tools are discussed: an observational protocol, jotting of notes, microanalysis, the use of questioning, constant comparison, and writing and illustrating. Each tool has specific significance in collecting and analysing data, working in constant interaction. Grounded theory and participant observation supplied rich data and revealed the complexity of the daily reality of acute care. In this study, the methodological tools provided a base for the study at the research sites and outside. The process as a whole was challenging. It was time-consuming and it required rigorous and simultaneous data collection and analysis, including reflective writing. Using these methodological tools helped the researcher stay focused from data collection and analysis to building theory. Using PO as a data collection method in qualitative nursing research provides insights. It is not commonly discussed in nursing research and therefore this study can provide insight, which cannot be seen or revealed by using other data collection methods. Therefore, this paper can produce a useful tool for those who intend to use PO and grounded theory in their nursing research.

A Web-Based Decision Tool to Improve Contraceptive Counseling for Women With Chronic Medical Conditions: Protocol For a Mixed Methods Implementation Study

Science.gov (United States)

Damschroder, Laura J; Fetters, Michael D; Zikmund-Fisher, Brian J; Crabtree, Benjamin F; Hudson, Shawna V; Ruffin IV, Mack T; Fucinari, Juliana; Kang, Minji; Taichman, L Susan; Creswell, John W

2018-01-01

Background Women with chronic medical conditions, such as diabetes and hypertension, have a higher risk of pregnancy-related complications compared with women without medical conditions and should be offered contraception if desired. Although evidence based guidelines for contraceptive selection in the presence of medical conditions are available via the United States Medical Eligibility Criteria (US MEC), these guidelines are underutilized. Research also supports the use of decision tools to promote shared decision making between patients and providers during contraceptive counseling. Objective The overall goal of the MiHealth, MiChoice project is to design and implement a theory-driven, Web-based tool that incorporates the US MEC (provider-level intervention) within the vehicle of a contraceptive decision tool for women with chronic medical conditions (patient-level intervention) in community-based primary care settings (practice-level intervention). This will be a 3-phase study that includes a predesign phase, a design phase, and a testing phase in a randomized controlled trial. This study protocol describes phase 1 and aim 1, which is to determine patient-, provider-, and practice-level factors that are relevant to the design and implementation of the contraceptive decision tool. Methods This is a mixed methods implementation study. To customize the delivery of the US MEC in the decision tool, we selected high-priority constructs from the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research and the Theoretical Domains Framework to drive data collection and analysis at the practice and provider level, respectively. A conceptual model that incorporates constructs from the transtheoretical model and the health beliefs model undergirds patient-level data collection and analysis and will inform customization of the decision tool for this population. We will recruit 6 community-based primary care practices and conduct quantitative surveys and semistructured qualitative

Channel CAT: A Tactical Link Analysis Tool

Science.gov (United States)

1997-09-01

NAVAL POSTGRADUATE SCHOOL Monterey, California THESIS CHANNEL CAT : A TACTICAL LINK ANALYSIS TOOL by Michael Glenn Coleman September 1997 Thesis...REPORT TYPE AND DATES COVERED September 1997 Master’s Thesis 4. TITLE AND SUBTITLE CHANNEL CAT : A TACTICAL LINK ANALYSIS TOOL 5. FUNDING NUMBERS 6...tool, the Channel Capacity Analysis Tool (Channel CAT ), designed to provide an automated tool for the anlysis of design decisions in developing client

System analysis: Developing tools for the future

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

De Jong, K.; clever, J.; Draper, J.V.; Davies, B.; Lonks, A.

1996-02-01

This report introduces and evaluates system analysis tools that were developed, or are under development, for the Robotics Technology Development Program (RTDP). Additionally, it discusses system analysis work completed using these tools aimed at completing a system analysis of the retrieval of waste from underground storage tanks on the Hanford Reservation near Richland, Washington. The tools developed and evaluated include a mixture of commercially available tools adapted to RTDP requirements, and some tools developed in house. The tools that are included in this report include: a Process Diagramming Tool, a Cost Modeling Tool, an Amortization Modeling Tool, a graphical simulation linked to the Cost Modeling Tool, a decision assistance tool, and a system thinking tool. Additionally, the importance of performance testing to the RTDP and the results of such testing executed is discussed. Further, the results of the Tank Waste Retrieval (TWR) System Diagram, the TWR Operations Cost Model, and the TWR Amortization Model are presented, and the implication of the results are discussed. Finally, the RTDP system analysis tools are assessed and some recommendations are made regarding continuing development of the tools and process.

Formal Analysis of SET and NSL Protocols Using the Interpretation Functions-Based Method

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hanane Houmani

2012-01-01

Full Text Available Most applications in the Internet such as e-banking and e-commerce use the SET and the NSL protocols to protect the communication channel between the client and the server. Then, it is crucial to ensure that these protocols respect some security properties such as confidentiality, authentication, and integrity. In this paper, we analyze the SET and the NSL protocols with respect to the confidentiality (secrecy property. To perform this analysis, we use the interpretation functions-based method. The main idea behind the interpretation functions-based technique is to give sufficient conditions that allow to guarantee that a cryptographic protocol respects the secrecy property. The flexibility of the proposed conditions allows the verification of daily-life protocols such as SET and NSL. Also, this method could be used under different assumptions such as a variety of intruder abilities including algebraic properties of cryptographic primitives. The NSL protocol, for instance, is analyzed with and without the homomorphism property. We show also, using the SET protocol, the usefulness of this approach to correct weaknesses and problems discovered during the analysis.

Formal Security Analysis of the MaCAN Protocol

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Bruni, Alessandro; Sojka, Michal; Nielson, Flemming

2014-01-01

analysis identifies two flaws in the original protocol: one creates unavailability concerns during key establishment, and the other allows re-using authenticated signals for different purposes. We propose and analyse a modification that improves its behaviour while fitting the constraints of CAN bus...

Beyond protocols

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Vanderhoeven, Sonia; Branquart, Etienne; Casaer, Jim

2017-01-01

Risk assessment tools for listing invasive alien species need to incorporate all available evidence and expertise. Beyond the wealth of protocols developed to date, we argue that the current way of performing risk analysis has several shortcomings. In particular, lack of data on ecological impact...... information on risk and the exploration of improved methods for decision making on biodiversity management. This is crucial for efficient conservation resource allocation and uptake by stakeholders and the public......., transparency and repeatability of assessments as well as the incorporation of uncertainty should all be explicitly considered. We recommend improved quality control of risk assessments through formalized peer review with clear feedback between assessors and reviewers. Alternatively, a consensus building...

Physics Analysis Tools Workshop Report

CERN Multimedia

Assamagan, K A

A Physics Analysis Tools (PAT) workshop was held at the University of Tokyo in Tokyo Japan on May 15-19, 2006. Unlike the previous ones, this workshop brought together the core PAT developers and ATLAS users. The workshop was attended by 69 people from various institutions: Australia 5 Canada 1 China 6 CERN 4 Europe 7 Japan 32 Taiwan 3 USA 11 The agenda consisted of a 2-day tutorial for users, a 0.5-day user feedback discussion session between users and developers, and a 2-day core PAT workshop devoted to issues in Physics Analysis Tools activities. The tutorial, attended by users and developers, covered the following grounds: Event Selection with the TAG Event Selection Using the Athena-Aware NTuple Event Display Interactive Analysis within ATHENA Distributed Analysis Monte Carlo Truth Tools Trigger-Aware Analysis Event View By many accounts, the tutorial was useful. This workshop was the first time that the ATLAS Asia-Pacific community (Taiwan, Japan, China and Australia) go...

Building energy analysis tool

Science.gov (United States)

Brackney, Larry; Parker, Andrew; Long, Nicholas; Metzger, Ian; Dean, Jesse; Lisell, Lars

2016-04-12

A building energy analysis system includes a building component library configured to store a plurality of building components, a modeling tool configured to access the building component library and create a building model of a building under analysis using building spatial data and using selected building components of the plurality of building components stored in the building component library, a building analysis engine configured to operate the building model and generate a baseline energy model of the building under analysis and further configured to apply one or more energy conservation measures to the baseline energy model in order to generate one or more corresponding optimized energy models, and a recommendation tool configured to assess the one or more optimized energy models against the baseline energy model and generate recommendations for substitute building components or modifications.

MSP-Tool: a VBA-based software tool for the analysis of multispecimen paleointensity data

Science.gov (United States)

Monster, Marilyn; de Groot, Lennart; Dekkers, Mark

2015-12-01

The multispecimen protocol (MSP) is a method to estimate the Earth's magnetic field's past strength from volcanic rocks or archeological materials. By reducing the amount of heating steps and aligning the specimens parallel to the applied field, thermochemical alteration and multi-domain effects are minimized. We present a new software tool, written for Microsoft Excel 2010 in Visual Basic for Applications (VBA), that evaluates paleointensity data acquired using this protocol. In addition to the three ratios (standard, fraction-corrected and domain-state-corrected) calculated following Dekkers and Böhnel (2006) and Fabian and Leonhardt (2010) and a number of other parameters proposed by Fabian and Leonhardt (2010), it also provides several reliability criteria. These include an alteration criterion, whether or not the linear regression intersects the y axis within the theoretically prescribed range, and two directional checks. Overprints and misalignment are detected by isolating the remaining natural remanent magnetization (NRM) and the partial thermoremanent magnetization (pTRM) gained and comparing their declinations and inclinations. The NRM remaining and pTRM gained are then used to calculate alignment-corrected multispecimen plots. Data are analyzed using bootstrap statistics. The program was tested on lava samples that were given a full TRM and that acquired their pTRMs at angles of 0, 15, 30 and 90° with respect to their NRMs. MSP-Tool adequately detected and largely corrected these artificial alignment errors.

Performance Analysis of Untraceability Protocols for Mobile Agents Using an Adaptable Framework

OpenAIRE

LESZCZYNA RAFAL; GORSKI Janusz Kazimierz

2006-01-01

Recently we had proposed two untraceability protocols for mobile agents and began investigating their quality. We believe that quality evaluation of security protocols should extend a sole validation of their security and cover other quality aspects, primarily their efficiency. Thus after conducting a security analysis, we wanted to complement it with a performance analysis. For this purpose we developed a performance evaluation framework, which, as we realised, with certain adjustments, can ...

Barberry rust survey – developing tools for diagnosis, analysis and data management

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Justesen, Annemarie Fejer; Hansen, Jens Grønbech; Hovmøller, Mogens Støvring

Barberry (Berberis spp.) may serve as alternate host of several Puccinia species including Puccinia graminis and P. striiformis causing stem and yellow rust on cereals and grasses, respectively. In order to study the importance of barberry in the epidemiology of Puccinia species in the CWANA regi...... a rust survey was initiated. The aim was to 1) develop a surveillance protocol 2) develop molecular diagnostic tools for identifying Puccinia spp. from aecial samples, and 3) develop a data management and display system of results as part of the Wheat Rust ToolBox (http....... Due to variable quality of aecial samples DNA extraction was not successful for 40% of the samples. Sequences of EF1α, β-tubulin or ITS were analysed and compared to reference sequences of rust fungi infecting cereals and grasses. The analysis supported the presence of P. graminis s.l., P....... arrhenatheri and P. striiformoides on barberry species. Survey and DNA sample maps with species designation were displayed in the Wheat Rust ToolBox. The future aim is to integrate barberry rust survey data based on molecular diagnostics and infection assays from research groups world-wide in order to gain...

A markerless protocol for genetic analysis of Aggregatibacter actinomycetemcomitans

Science.gov (United States)

Cheng, Ya-An; Jee, Jason; Hsu, Genie; Huang, Yanyan; Chen, Casey; Lin, Chun-Pin

2015-01-01

Background/Purpose The genomes of different Aggregatibacter actinomycetemcomitans strains contain many strain-specific genes and genomic islands (defined as DNA found in some but not all strains) of unknown functions. Genetic analysis for the functions of these islands will be constrained by the limited availability of genetic markers and vectors for A. actinomycetemcomitans. In this study we tested a novel genetic approach of gene deletion and restoration in a naturally competent A. actinomycetemcomitans strain D7S-1. Methods Specific genes’ deletion mutants and mutants restored with the deleted genes were constructed by a markerless loxP/Cre system. In mutants with sequential deletion of multiple genes loxP with different spacer regions were used to avoid unwanted recombinations between loxP sites. Results Eight single-gene deletion mutants, four multiple-gene deletion mutants, and two mutants with restored genes were constructed. No unintended non-specific deletion mutants were generated by this protocol. The protocol did not negatively affect the growth and biofilm formation of A. actinomycetemcomitans. Conclusion The protocol described in this study is efficient and specific for genetic manipulation of A. actinomycetemcomitans, and will be amenable for functional analysis of multiple genes in A. actinomycetemcomitans. PMID:24530245

Bioinspired Security Analysis of Wireless Protocols

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Petrocchi, Marinella; Spognardi, Angelo; Santi, Paolo

2016-01-01

work, this paper investigates feasibility of adopting fraglets as model for specifying security protocols and analysing their properties. In particular, we give concrete sample analyses over a secure RFID protocol, showing evolution of the protocol run as chemical dynamics and simulating an adversary...

Performance Analysis of an Enhanced PRMA-HS Protocol for LEO Satellite Communication

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

ZHUO Yong-ning; YAN Shao-hu; WU Shi-qi

2005-01-01

The packet reservation multiple access with hindering state (PRMA-HS) is a protocol suitable for LEO satellite mobile communication. Although working well with light system payload (amount of user terminals), the protocol imposes high channel congestion on system with heavy payload, thus degrades the system's quality of service. To controlling the channel congestion, a scheme of enhanced PRMA-HS protocol is proposed, which aims to reduce the collision of voice packets by adopting a mechanism of access control. Through theoretic analysis, the system's mathematic model is presented and the packet drop probability of the scheme is deduced. To testify the performance of the scheme, a simulation is performed and the results support our analysis.

Performance Analysis of On-Demand Routing Protocols in Wireless Mesh Networks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Arafatur RAHMAN

2009-01-01

Full Text Available Wireless Mesh Networks (WMNs have recently gained a lot of popularity due to their rapid deployment and instant communication capabilities. WMNs are dynamically self-organizing, self-configuring and self-healing with the nodes in the network automatically establishing an adiej hoc network and preserving the mesh connectivity. Designing a routing protocol for WMNs requires several aspects to consider, such as wireless networks, fixed applications, mobile applications, scalability, better performance metrics, efficient routing within infrastructure, load balancing, throughput enhancement, interference, robustness etc. To support communication, various routing protocols are designed for various networks (e.g. ad hoc, sensor, wired etc.. However, all these protocols are not suitable for WMNs, because of the architectural differences among the networks. In this paper, a detailed simulation based performance study and analysis is performed on the reactive routing protocols to verify the suitability of these protocols over such kind of networks. Ad Hoc On-Demand Distance Vector (AODV, Dynamic Source Routing (DSR and Dynamic MANET On-demand (DYMO routing protocol are considered as the representative of reactive routing protocols. The performance differentials are investigated using varying traffic load and number of source. Based on the simulation results, how the performance of each protocol can be improved is also recommended.

Improving an Anonymous and Provably Secure Authentication Protocol for a Mobile User

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jongho Moon

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Recently many authentication protocols using an extended chaotic map were suggested for a mobile user. Many researchers demonstrated that authentication protocol needs to provide key agreement, mutual authentication, and user anonymity between mobile user and server and resilience to many possible attacks. In this paper, we cautiously analyzed chaotic-map-based authentication scheme and proved that it is still insecure to off-line identity guessing, user and server impersonation, and on-line identity guessing attacks. To address these vulnerabilities, we proposed an improved protocol based on an extended chaotic map and a fuzzy extractor. We proved the security of the proposed protocol using a random oracle and AVISPA (Automated Validation of Internet Security Protocols and Applications tool. Furthermore, we present an informal security analysis to make sure that the improved protocol is invulnerable to possible attacks. The proposed protocol is also computationally efficient when compared to other previous protocols.

IPv4 and IPv6 protocol compatibility options analysis

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Regina Misevičienė

2013-09-01

Full Text Available The popularity of the internet has led to a very rapid growth of IPv4 (Internet Protocol v4 users. This caused a shortage of IP addresses, so it was created a new version – IPv6 (Internet Protocol v6. Currently, there are two versions of IP for IPv4 and IPv6. Due to the large differences in addressing the protocols IPv4 and IPv6 are incompatible. It is therefore necessary to find ways to move from IPv4 to IPv6. To facilitate the transition from one version to another are developed various mechanisms and strategies. Comparative analysis is done for dual stack, 6to4 tunnel and NAT64 mechanisms in this work. It has helped to reveal the shortcomings of these mechanisms and their application in selection of realization decisions.

Dynamic federations: storage aggregation using open tools and protocols

CERN Document Server

Fabrizio Furano, F F; Ricardo Brito da Rocha, R R; Adrien Devresse, A D; Oliver Keeble, O K; Alejandro Alvarez Ayllon, A A

2012-01-01

A number of storage elements now offer standard protocol interfaces like NFS 4.1/pNFS and WebDAV, for access to their data repositories, in line with the standardization effort of the European Middleware Initiative (EMI). Also the LCG FileCatalogue (LFC) can offer such features. Here we report on work that seeks to exploit the federation potential of these protocols and build a system that offers a unique view of the storage and metadata ensemble and the possibility of integration of other compatible resources such as those from cloud providers. The challenge, here undertaken by the providers of dCache and DPM, and pragmatically open to other Grid and Cloud storage solutions, is to build such a system while being able to accommodate name translations from existing catalogues (e.g. LFCs), experiment- based metadata catalogues, or stateless algorithmic name translations, also known as ”trivial file catalogues”. Such so-called storage federations of standard protocols-based storage elements give a unique vie...

Network protocols and sockets

OpenAIRE

BALEJ, Marek

2010-01-01

My work will deal with network protocols and sockets and their use in programming language C#. It will therefore deal programming network applications on the platform .NET from Microsoft and instruments, which C# provides to us. There will describe the tools and methods for programming network applications, and shows a description and sample applications that work with sockets and application protocols.

Performance Analysis of the Mobile IP Protocol (RFC 3344 and Related RFCS)

Science.gov (United States)

2006-12-01

field of 9 identifies the ICMP message as an adverstisement . Code Mobile IP home agents and foreign agents use the value of 16 to prevent any nodes...ANALYSIS OF THE MOBILE IP PROTOCOL (RFC 3344 AND RELATED RFCS) by Chin Chin Ng December 2006 Thesis Co-Advisors: George W. Dinolt J. D...December 2006 3. REPORT TYPE AND DATES COVERED Master’s Thesis 4. TITLE AND SUBTITLE Performance Analysis of the Mobile IP Protocol (RFC 3344 and

Analysis of transmission speed of AX.25 Protocol implemented in satellital earth station UPTC

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Oscar Fernando Vera Cely

2015-11-01

Full Text Available One of the important parameters for the proper functioning of satellital ground station projected on Pedagogical and Technological University of Colombia (UPTC is the efficiency in transmission speed on communications protocol. This paper shows the results of analysis of the transmission speed of the AX.25 protocol implemented in the communication system of the satellital ground station UPTC. It begins with a brief description of the implemented hardware; the behavior of the transmission rate is evaluated using a theoretical analysis based on equations to estimate this parameter in the operation of the protocol, then tests are performed using the hardware that the satellital ground station UPTC has and finally, the conclusions are presented. Based on comparison of the theoretical analysis results obtained experimentally, it became apparent that AX.25 protocol efficiency is higher when increasing the number of frames.

A Formal Analysis of the Web Services Atomic Transaction Protocol with UPPAAL

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Ravn, Anders Peter; Srba, Jiri; Vighio, Saleem

2010-01-01

We present a formal analysis of the Web Services Atomic Transaction (WS-AT) protocol. WS-AT is a part of the WS-Coordination framework and describes an algorithm for reaching agreement on the outcome of a distributed transaction. The protocol is modelled and verified using the model checker UPPAAL...

The effect of personalized versus standard patient protocols for radiostereometric analysis (RSA)

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Muharemovic, O; Troelsen, A; Thomsen, M G

2018-01-01

INTRODUCTION: Increasing pressure in the clinic requires a more standardized approach to radiostereometric analysis (RSA) imaging. The aim of this study was to investigate whether implementation of personalized RSA patient protocols could increase image quality and decrease examination time...... imaging. Radiographers in the control group used a standard RSA protocol. RESULTS: At three months, radiographers in the case group significantly reduced (p .... No significant improvements were found in the control group at any time point. CONCLUSION: There is strong evidence that personalized RSA patient protocols have a positive effect on image quality and radiation dose savings. Implementation of personal patient protocols as a RSA standard will contribute...

Software reference for SaTool - a Tool for Structural Analysis of Automated Systems

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Lorentzen, Torsten; Blanke, Mogens

2004-01-01

This software reference details the functions of SaTool – a tool for structural analysis of technical systems. SaTool is intended used as part of an industrial systems design cycle. Structural analysis is a graph-based technique where principal relations between variables express the system’s...... of the graph. SaTool makes analysis of the structure graph to provide knowledge about fundamental properties of the system in normal and faulty conditions. Salient features of SaTool include rapid analysis of possibility to diagnose faults and ability to make autonomous recovery should faults occur........ The list of such variables and functional relations constitute the system’s structure graph. Normal operation means all functional relations are intact. Should faults occur, one or more functional relations cease to be valid. In a structure graph, this is seen as the disappearance of one or more nodes...

A Software Tool to Visualize Verbal Protocols to Enhance Strategic and Metacognitive Abilities in Basic Programming

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Carlos A. Arévalo

2011-07-01

Full Text Available Learning to program is difficult for many first year undergraduate students. Instructional strategies of traditional programming courses tend to focus on syntactic issues and assigning practice exercises using the presentation-examples-practice formula and by showing the verbal and visual explanation of a teacher during the “step by step” process of writing a computer program. Cognitive literature regarding the mental processes involved in programming suggests that the explicit teaching of certain aspects such as mental models, strategic knowledge and metacognitive abilities, are critical issues of how to write and assemble the pieces of a computer program. Verbal protocols are often used in software engineering as a technique to record the short term cognitive process of a user or expert in evaluation or problem solving scenarios. We argue that verbal protocols can be used as a mechanism to explicitly show the strategic and metacognitive process of an instructor when writing a program. In this paper we present an Information System Prototype developed to store and visualize worked examples derived from transcribed verbal protocols during the process of writing introductory level programs. Empirical data comparing the grades obtained by two groups of novice programming students, using ANOVA, indicates a statistically positive difference in performance in the group using the tool, even though these results still cannot be extrapolated to general population, given the reported limitations of this study.

PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS OF DISTINCT SECURED AUTHENTICATION PROTOCOLS USED IN THE RESOURCE CONSTRAINED PLATFORM

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

S. Prasanna

2014-03-01

Full Text Available Most of the e-commerce and m-commerce applications in the current e-business world, has adopted asymmetric key cryptography technique in their authentication protocol to provide an efficient authentication of the involved parties. This paper exhibits the performance analysis of distinct authentication protocol which implements the public key cryptography like RSA, ECC and HECC. The comparison is made based on key generation, sign generation and sign verification processes. The results prove that the performance achieved through HECC based authentication protocol is better than the ECC- and RSA based authentication protocols.

IEEE 802.11 Wireless LANs: Performance Analysis and Protocol Refinement

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Chatzimisios P.

2005-01-01

Full Text Available The IEEE 802.11 protocol is emerging as a widely used standard and has become the most mature technology for wireless local area networks (WLANs. In this paper, we focus on the tuning of the IEEE 802.11 protocol parameters taking into consideration, in addition to throughput efficiency, performance metrics such as the average packet delay, the probability of a packet being discarded when it reaches the maximum retransmission limit, the average time to drop a packet, and the packet interarrival time. We present an analysis, which has been validated by simulation that is based on a Markov chain model commonly used in the literature. We further study the improvement on these performance metrics by employing suitable protocol parameters according to the specific communication needs of the IEEE 802.11 protocol for both basic access and RTS/CTS access schemes. We show that the use of a higher initial contention window size does not considerably degrade performance in small networks and performs significantly better in any other scenario. Moreover, we conclude that the combination of a lower maximum contention window size and a higher retry limit considerably improves performance. Results indicate that the appropriate adjustment of the protocol parameters enhances performance and improves the services that the IEEE 802.11 protocol provides to various communication applications.

An Authentication Protocol for Future Sensor Networks.

Science.gov (United States)

Bilal, Muhammad; Kang, Shin-Gak

2017-04-28

Authentication is one of the essential security services in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) for ensuring secure data sessions. Sensor node authentication ensures the confidentiality and validity of data collected by the sensor node, whereas user authentication guarantees that only legitimate users can access the sensor data. In a mobile WSN, sensor and user nodes move across the network and exchange data with multiple nodes, thus experiencing the authentication process multiple times. The integration of WSNs with Internet of Things (IoT) brings forth a new kind of WSN architecture along with stricter security requirements; for instance, a sensor node or a user node may need to establish multiple concurrent secure data sessions. With concurrent data sessions, the frequency of the re-authentication process increases in proportion to the number of concurrent connections. Moreover, to establish multiple data sessions, it is essential that a protocol participant have the capability of running multiple instances of the protocol run, which makes the security issue even more challenging. The currently available authentication protocols were designed for the autonomous WSN and do not account for the above requirements. Hence, ensuring a lightweight and efficient authentication protocol has become more crucial. In this paper, we present a novel, lightweight and efficient key exchange and authentication protocol suite called the Secure Mobile Sensor Network (SMSN) Authentication Protocol. In the SMSN a mobile node goes through an initial authentication procedure and receives a re-authentication ticket from the base station. Later a mobile node can use this re-authentication ticket when establishing multiple data exchange sessions and/or when moving across the network. This scheme reduces the communication and computational complexity of the authentication process. We proved the strength of our protocol with rigorous security analysis (including formal analysis using the BAN

Paediatric Automatic Phonological Analysis Tools (APAT).

Science.gov (United States)

Saraiva, Daniela; Lousada, Marisa; Hall, Andreia; Jesus, Luis M T

2017-12-01

To develop the pediatric Automatic Phonological Analysis Tools (APAT) and to estimate inter and intrajudge reliability, content validity, and concurrent validity. The APAT were constructed using Excel spreadsheets with formulas. The tools were presented to an expert panel for content validation. The corpus used in the Portuguese standardized test Teste Fonético-Fonológico - ALPE produced by 24 children with phonological delay or phonological disorder was recorded, transcribed, and then inserted into the APAT. Reliability and validity of APAT were analyzed. The APAT present strong inter- and intrajudge reliability (>97%). The content validity was also analyzed (ICC = 0.71), and concurrent validity revealed strong correlations between computerized and manual (traditional) methods. The development of these tools contributes to fill existing gaps in clinical practice and research, since previously there were no valid and reliable tools/instruments for automatic phonological analysis, which allowed the analysis of different corpora.

Technical Analysis of SSP-21 Protocol

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Bromberger, S. [Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)

2017-06-09

As part of the California Energy Systems for the Twenty-First Century (CES-21) program, in December 2016 San Diego Gas and Electric (SDG&E) contracted with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) to perform an independent verification and validation (IV&V) of a white paper describing their Secure SCADA Protocol for the Twenty-First Century (SSP-21) in order to analyze the effectiveness and propriety of cryptographic protocol use within the SSP-21 specification. SSP-21 is designed to use cryptographic protocols to provide (optional) encryption, authentication, and nonrepudiation, among other capabilities. The cryptographic protocols to be used reflect current industry standards; future versions of SSP-21 will use other advanced technologies to provide a subset of security services.

Structural analysis of ITER sub-assembly tools

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Nam, K.O.; Park, H.K.; Kim, D.J.; Ahn, H.J.; Lee, J.H.; Kim, K.K.; Im, K.; Shaw, R.

2011-01-01

The ITER Tokamak assembly tools are purpose-built assembly tools to complete the ITER Tokamak machine which includes the cryostat and the components contained therein. The sector sub-assembly tools descried in this paper are main assembly tools to assemble vacuum vessel, thermal shield and toroidal filed coils into a complete 40 o sector. The 40 o sector sub-assembly tools are composed of sector sub-assembly tool, including radial beam, vacuum vessel supports and mid-plane brace tools. These tools shall have sufficient strength to transport and handle heavy weight of the ITER Tokamak machine reached several hundred tons. Therefore these tools should be designed and analyzed to confirm both the strength and structural stability even in the case of conservative assumptions. To verify structural stabilities of the sector sub-assembly tools in terms of strength and deflection, ANSYS code was used for linear static analysis. The results of the analysis show that these tools are designed with sufficient strength and stiffness. The conceptual designs of these tools are briefly described in this paper also.

Security analysis of standards-driven communication protocols for healthcare scenarios.

Science.gov (United States)

Masi, Massimiliano; Pugliese, Rosario; Tiezzi, Francesco

2012-12-01

The importance of the Electronic Health Record (EHR), that stores all healthcare-related data belonging to a patient, has been recognised in recent years by governments, institutions and industry. Initiatives like the Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE) have been developed for the definition of standard methodologies for secure and interoperable EHR exchanges among clinics and hospitals. Using the requisites specified by these initiatives, many large scale projects have been set up for enabling healthcare professionals to handle patients' EHRs. The success of applications developed in these contexts crucially depends on ensuring such security properties as confidentiality, authentication, and authorization. In this paper, we first propose a communication protocol, based on the IHE specifications, for authenticating healthcare professionals and assuring patients' safety. By means of a formal analysis carried out by using the specification language COWS and the model checker CMC, we reveal a security flaw in the protocol thus demonstrating that to simply adopt the international standards does not guarantee the absence of such type of flaws. We then propose how to emend the IHE specifications and modify the protocol accordingly. Finally, we show how to tailor our protocol for application to more critical scenarios with no assumptions on the communication channels. To demonstrate feasibility and effectiveness of our protocols we have fully implemented them.

The RUBA Watchdog Video Analysis Tool

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Bahnsen, Chris Holmberg; Madsen, Tanja Kidholm Osmann; Jensen, Morten Bornø

We have developed a watchdog video analysis tool called RUBA (Road User Behaviour Analysis) to use for processing of traffic video. This report provides an overview of the functions of RUBA and gives a brief introduction into how analyses can be made in RUBA.......We have developed a watchdog video analysis tool called RUBA (Road User Behaviour Analysis) to use for processing of traffic video. This report provides an overview of the functions of RUBA and gives a brief introduction into how analyses can be made in RUBA....

Virtual observatory tools and amateur radio observations supporting scientific analysis of Jupiter radio emissions

Science.gov (United States)

Cecconi, Baptiste; Hess, Sebastien; Le Sidaner, Pierre; Savalle, Renaud; Stéphane, Erard; Coffre, Andrée; Thétas, Emmanuel; André, Nicolas; Génot, Vincent; Thieman, Jim; Typinski, Dave; Sky, Jim; Higgins, Chuck; Imai, Masafumi

2016-04-01

In the frame of the preparation of the NASA/JUNO and ESA/JUICE (Jupiter Icy Moon Explorer) missions, and the development of a planetary sciences virtual observatory (VO), we are proposing a new set of tools directed to data providers as well as users, in order to ease data sharing and discovery. We will focus on ground based planetary radio observations (thus mainly Jupiter radio emissions), trying for instance to enhance the temporal coverage of jovian decametric emission. The data service we will be using is EPN-TAP, a planetary science data access protocol developed by Europlanet-VESPA (Virtual European Solar and Planetary Access). This protocol is derived from IVOA (International Virtual Observatory Alliance) standards. The Jupiter Routine Observations from the Nancay Decameter Array are already shared on the planetary science VO using this protocol, as well as data from the Iitate Low Frquency Radio Antenna, in Japan. Amateur radio data from the RadioJOVE project is also available. The attached figure shows data from those three providers. We will first introduce the VO tools and concepts of interest for the planetary radioastronomy community. We will then present the various data formats now used for such data services, as well as their associated metadata. We will finally show various prototypical tools that make use of this shared datasets.

Contamination Analysis Tools

Science.gov (United States)

Brieda, Lubos

2015-01-01

This talk presents 3 different tools developed recently for contamination analysis:HTML QCM analyzer: runs in a web browser, and allows for data analysis of QCM log filesJava RGA extractor: can load in multiple SRS.ana files and extract pressure vs. time dataC++ Contamination Simulation code: 3D particle tracing code for modeling transport of dust particulates and molecules. Uses residence time to determine if molecules stick. Particulates can be sampled from IEST-STD-1246 and be accelerated by aerodynamic forces.

Integrated Radiation Analysis and Design Tools

Data.gov (United States)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — The Integrated Radiation Analysis and Design Tools (IRADT) Project develops and maintains an integrated tool set that collects the current best practices, databases,...

CSReport: A New Computational Tool Designed for Automatic Analysis of Class Switch Recombination Junctions Sequenced by High-Throughput Sequencing.

Science.gov (United States)

Boyer, François; Boutouil, Hend; Dalloul, Iman; Dalloul, Zeinab; Cook-Moreau, Jeanne; Aldigier, Jean-Claude; Carrion, Claire; Herve, Bastien; Scaon, Erwan; Cogné, Michel; Péron, Sophie

2017-05-15

B cells ensure humoral immune responses due to the production of Ag-specific memory B cells and Ab-secreting plasma cells. In secondary lymphoid organs, Ag-driven B cell activation induces terminal maturation and Ig isotype class switch (class switch recombination [CSR]). CSR creates a virtually unique IgH locus in every B cell clone by intrachromosomal recombination between two switch (S) regions upstream of each C region gene. Amount and structural features of CSR junctions reveal valuable information about the CSR mechanism, and analysis of CSR junctions is useful in basic and clinical research studies of B cell functions. To provide an automated tool able to analyze large data sets of CSR junction sequences produced by high-throughput sequencing (HTS), we designed CSReport, a software program dedicated to support analysis of CSR recombination junctions sequenced with a HTS-based protocol (Ion Torrent technology). CSReport was assessed using simulated data sets of CSR junctions and then used for analysis of Sμ-Sα and Sμ-Sγ1 junctions from CH12F3 cells and primary murine B cells, respectively. CSReport identifies junction segment breakpoints on reference sequences and junction structure (blunt-ended junctions or junctions with insertions or microhomology). Besides the ability to analyze unprecedentedly large libraries of junction sequences, CSReport will provide a unified framework for CSR junction studies. Our results show that CSReport is an accurate tool for analysis of sequences from our HTS-based protocol for CSR junctions, thereby facilitating and accelerating their study. Copyright © 2017 by The American Association of Immunologists, Inc.

Portfolio: a prototype workstation for development and evaluation of tools for analysis and management of digital portal images

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Boxwala, Aziz A.; Chaney, Edward L.; Fritsch, Daniel S.; Friedman, Charles P.; Rosenman, Julian G.

1998-01-01

Purpose: The purpose of this investigation was to design and implement a prototype physician workstation, called PortFolio, as a platform for developing and evaluating, by means of controlled observer studies, user interfaces and interactive tools for analyzing and managing digital portal images. The first observer study was designed to measure physician acceptance of workstation technology, as an alternative to a view box, for inspection and analysis of portal images for detection of treatment setup errors. Methods and Materials: The observer study was conducted in a controlled experimental setting to evaluate physician acceptance of the prototype workstation technology exemplified by PortFolio. PortFolio incorporates a windows user interface, a compact kit of carefully selected image analysis tools, and an object-oriented data base infrastructure. The kit evaluated in the observer study included tools for contrast enhancement, registration, and multimodal image visualization. Acceptance was measured in the context of performing portal image analysis in a structured protocol designed to simulate clinical practice. The acceptability and usage patterns were measured from semistructured questionnaires and logs of user interactions. Results: Radiation oncologists, the subjects for this study, perceived the tools in PortFolio to be acceptable clinical aids. Concerns were expressed regarding user efficiency, particularly with respect to the image registration tools. Conclusions: The results of our observer study indicate that workstation technology is acceptable to radiation oncologists as an alternative to a view box for clinical detection of setup errors from digital portal images. Improvements in implementation, including more tools and a greater degree of automation in the image analysis tasks, are needed to make PortFolio more clinically practical

Rapid analysis of vessel elements (RAVE: a tool for studying physiologic, pathologic and tumor angiogenesis.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Marc E Seaman

Full Text Available Quantification of microvascular network structure is important in a myriad of emerging research fields including microvessel remodeling in response to ischemia and drug therapy, tumor angiogenesis, and retinopathy. To mitigate analyst-specific variation in measurements and to ensure that measurements represent actual changes in vessel network structure and morphology, a reliable and automatic tool for quantifying microvascular network architecture is needed. Moreover, an analysis tool capable of acquiring and processing large data sets will facilitate advanced computational analysis and simulation of microvascular growth and remodeling processes and enable more high throughput discovery. To this end, we have produced an automatic and rapid vessel detection and quantification system using a MATLAB graphical user interface (GUI that vastly reduces time spent on analysis and greatly increases repeatability. Analysis yields numerical measures of vessel volume fraction, vessel length density, fractal dimension (a measure of tortuosity, and radii of murine vascular networks. Because our GUI is open sourced to all, it can be easily modified to measure parameters such as percent coverage of non-endothelial cells, number of loops in a vascular bed, amount of perfusion and two-dimensional branch angle. Importantly, the GUI is compatible with standard fluorescent staining and imaging protocols, but also has utility analyzing brightfield vascular images, obtained, for example, in dorsal skinfold chambers. A manually measured image can be typically completed in 20 minutes to 1 hour. In stark comparison, using our GUI, image analysis time is reduced to around 1 minute. This drastic reduction in analysis time coupled with increased repeatability makes this tool valuable for all vessel research especially those requiring rapid and reproducible results, such as anti-angiogenic drug screening.

RTP/I Payload Type Definition for Chat Tools

OpenAIRE

Vogel, Jürgen

2001-01-01

This document specifies an application-level protocol (i.e., payload type) for chat tools using the Real Time Protocol for Distributed Interactive Media (RTP/I). RTP/I defines a standardized framing for the transmission of application data and provides protocol mechanisms that are universally needed for the class of distributed interactive media. A chat tool provides an instant messaging service among an arbitrary number of users. This documents specifies how to employ a chat tool with RTP/I ...

Formal analysis of a fair payment protocol

NARCIS (Netherlands)

J.G. Cederquist; M.T. Dashti (Mohammad)

2004-01-01

textabstractWe formally specify a payment protocol. This protocol is intended for fair exchange of time-sensitive data. Here the ?-CRL language is used to formalize the protocol. Fair exchange properties are expressed in the regular alternation-free ?-calculus. These properties are then verified

The effect of personalized versus standard patient protocols for radiostereometric analysis (RSA).

Science.gov (United States)

Muharemovic, O; Troelsen, A; Thomsen, M G; Kallemose, T; Gosvig, K K

2018-05-01

Increasing pressure in the clinic requires a more standardized approach to radiostereometric analysis (RSA) imaging. The aim of this study was to investigate whether implementation of personalized RSA patient protocols could increase image quality and decrease examination time and the number of exposure repetitions. Forty patients undergoing primary total hip arthroplasty were equally randomized to either a case or a control group. Radiographers in the case group were assisted by personalized patient protocols containing information about each patient's post-operative RSA imaging. Radiographers in the control group used a standard RSA protocol. At three months, radiographers in the case group significantly reduced (p RSA patient protocols have a positive effect on image quality and radiation dose savings. Implementation of personal patient protocols as a RSA standard will contribute to the reduction of examination time, thus ensuring a cost benefit for department and patient safety. Copyright © 2017 The College of Radiographers. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Modelling the protocol stack in NCS with deterministic and stochastic petri net

Science.gov (United States)

Hui, Chen; Chunjie, Zhou; Weifeng, Zhu

2011-06-01

Protocol stack is the basis of the networked control systems (NCS). Full or partial reconfiguration of protocol stack offers both optimised communication service and system performance. Nowadays, field testing is unrealistic to determine the performance of reconfigurable protocol stack; and the Petri net formal description technique offers the best combination of intuitive representation, tool support and analytical capabilities. Traditionally, separation between the different layers of the OSI model has been a common practice. Nevertheless, such a layered modelling analysis framework of protocol stack leads to the lack of global optimisation for protocol reconfiguration. In this article, we proposed a general modelling analysis framework for NCS based on the cross-layer concept, which is to establish an efficiency system scheduling model through abstracting the time constraint, the task interrelation, the processor and the bus sub-models from upper and lower layers (application, data link and physical layer). Cross-layer design can help to overcome the inadequacy of global optimisation based on information sharing between protocol layers. To illustrate the framework, we take controller area network (CAN) as a case study. The simulation results of deterministic and stochastic Petri-net (DSPN) model can help us adjust the message scheduling scheme and obtain better system performance.

Formal Analysis of a Fair Payment Protocol

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Cederquist, J.G.; Dashti, M.T.

2004-01-01

We formally specify a payment protocol. This protocol is intended for fair exchange of timesensitive data. Here the μCRL language is used to formalize the protocol. Fair exchange properties are expressed in the regular alternation-free μ-calculus. These properties are then verified using the finite

Use of Virtual Reality Tools for Vestibular Disorders Rehabilitation: A Comprehensive Analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

Bergeron, Mathieu; Lortie, Catherine L; Guitton, Matthieu J

2015-01-01

Classical peripheral vestibular disorders rehabilitation is a long and costly process. While virtual reality settings have been repeatedly suggested to represent possible tools to help the rehabilitation process, no systematic study had been conducted so far. We systematically reviewed the current literature to analyze the published protocols documenting the use of virtual reality settings for peripheral vestibular disorders rehabilitation. There is an important diversity of settings and protocols involving virtual reality settings for the treatment of this pathology. Evaluation of the symptoms is often not standardized. However, our results unveil a clear effect of virtual reality settings-based rehabilitation of the patients' symptoms, assessed by objectives tools such as the DHI (mean decrease of 27 points), changing symptoms handicap perception from moderate to mild impact on life. Furthermore, we detected a relationship between the duration of the exposure to virtual reality environments and the magnitude of the therapeutic effects, suggesting that virtual reality treatments should last at least 150 minutes of cumulated exposure to ensure positive outcomes. Virtual reality offers a pleasant and safe environment for the patient. Future studies should standardize evaluation tools, document putative side effects further, compare virtual reality to conventional physical therapy, and evaluate economical costs/benefits of such strategies.

Use of Virtual Reality Tools for Vestibular Disorders Rehabilitation: A Comprehensive Analysis

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mathieu Bergeron

2015-01-01

Full Text Available Classical peripheral vestibular disorders rehabilitation is a long and costly process. While virtual reality settings have been repeatedly suggested to represent possible tools to help the rehabilitation process, no systematic study had been conducted so far. We systematically reviewed the current literature to analyze the published protocols documenting the use of virtual reality settings for peripheral vestibular disorders rehabilitation. There is an important diversity of settings and protocols involving virtual reality settings for the treatment of this pathology. Evaluation of the symptoms is often not standardized. However, our results unveil a clear effect of virtual reality settings-based rehabilitation of the patients’ symptoms, assessed by objectives tools such as the DHI (mean decrease of 27 points, changing symptoms handicap perception from moderate to mild impact on life. Furthermore, we detected a relationship between the duration of the exposure to virtual reality environments and the magnitude of the therapeutic effects, suggesting that virtual reality treatments should last at least 150 minutes of cumulated exposure to ensure positive outcomes. Virtual reality offers a pleasant and safe environment for the patient. Future studies should standardize evaluation tools, document putative side effects further, compare virtual reality to conventional physical therapy, and evaluate economical costs/benefits of such strategies.

Formal Analysis of a Fair Payment Protocol

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Cederquist, J.G.; Dashti, Muhammad Torabi; Dimitrakos, Theo; Martinelli, Fabio

We formally specify a payment protocol described by Vogt et al. This protocol is intended for fair exchange of time-sensitive data. Here the mCRL language is used to formalize the protocol. Fair exchange properties are expressed in the regular alternation-free mu-calculus. These properties are then

Mobile Health Technology Interventions for Suicide Prevention: Protocol for a Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

Melia, Ruth; Francis, Kady; Duggan, Jim; Bogue, John; O'Sullivan, Mary; Chambers, Derek; Young, Karen

2018-01-26

Previous research has reported that two of the major barriers to help-seeking for individuals at risk of suicide are stigma and geographical isolation. Mobile technology offers a potential means of delivering evidence-based interventions with greater specificity to the individual, and at the time that it is needed. Despite documented motivation by at-risk individuals to use mobile technology to track mental health and to support psychological interventions, there is a shortfall of outcomes data on the efficacy of mobile health (mHealth) technology on suicide-specific outcomes. The objective of this study is to develop a protocol for a systematic review and meta-analysis that aims to evaluate the effectiveness of mobile technology-based interventions for suicide prevention. The search includes the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL: The Cochrane Library), MEDLINE, Embase, PsycINFO, CRESP and relevant sources of gray literature. Studies that have evaluated psychological or nonpsychological interventions delivered via mobile computing and communication technology, and have suicidality as an outcome measure will be included. Two authors will independently extract data and assess the study suitability in accordance with the Cochrane Collaboration Risk of Bias Tool. Studies will be included if they measure at least one suicide outcome variable (ie, suicidal ideation, suicidal intent, nonsuicidal self-injurious behavior, suicidal behavior). Secondary outcomes will be measures of symptoms of depression. Where studies are sufficiently homogenous and reported outcomes are amenable for pooled synthesis, meta-analysis will be performed. A narrative synthesis will be conducted if the data is unsuitable for a meta-analysis. The review is in progress, with findings expected by summer 2018. To date, evaluations of mobile technology-based interventions in suicide prevention have focused on evaluating content as opposed to efficacy. Indeed, previous research has

A class-chest for deriving transport protocols

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Strayer, W.T.

1996-10-01

Development of new transport protocols or protocol algorithms suffers from the complexity of the environment in which they are intended to run. Modeling techniques attempt to avoid this by simulating the environment. Another approach to promoting rapid prototyping of protocols and protocol algorithms is to provide a pre-built infrastructure that is common to transport protocols, so that the focus is placed on the protocol-specific aspects. The Meta-Transport Library is a library of C++ base classes that implement or abstract out the mundane functions of a protocol, new protocol implementations are derived from base classes. The result is a fully viable user- level transport protocol implementation, with emphasis on modularity. The collection of base classes form a ``class-chest`` of tools .from which protocols can be developed and studied with as little change to a normal UNIX environment as possible.

MultiSense: A Multimodal Sensor Tool Enabling the High-Throughput Analysis of Respiration.

Science.gov (United States)

Keil, Peter; Liebsch, Gregor; Borisjuk, Ljudmilla; Rolletschek, Hardy

2017-01-01

The high-throughput analysis of respiratory activity has become an important component of many biological investigations. Here, a technological platform, denoted the "MultiSense tool," is described. The tool enables the parallel monitoring of respiration in 100 samples over an extended time period, by dynamically tracking the concentrations of oxygen (O 2 ) and/or carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) and/or pH within an airtight vial. Its flexible design supports the quantification of respiration based on either oxygen consumption or carbon dioxide release, thereby allowing for the determination of the physiologically significant respiratory quotient (the ratio between the quantities of CO 2 released and the O 2 consumed). It requires an LED light source to be mounted above the sample, together with a CCD camera system, adjusted to enable the capture of analyte-specific wavelengths, and fluorescent sensor spots inserted into the sample vial. Here, a demonstration is given of the use of the MultiSense tool to quantify respiration in imbibing plant seeds, for which an appropriate step-by-step protocol is provided. The technology can be easily adapted for a wide range of applications, including the monitoring of gas exchange in any kind of liquid culture system (algae, embryo and tissue culture, cell suspensions, microbial cultures).

Ontology-based configuration of problem-solving methods and generation of knowledge-acquisition tools: application of PROTEGE-II to protocol-based decision support.

Science.gov (United States)

Tu, S W; Eriksson, H; Gennari, J H; Shahar, Y; Musen, M A

1995-06-01

PROTEGE-II is a suite of tools and a methodology for building knowledge-based systems and domain-specific knowledge-acquisition tools. In this paper, we show how PROTEGE-II can be applied to the task of providing protocol-based decision support in the domain of treating HIV-infected patients. To apply PROTEGE-II, (1) we construct a decomposable problem-solving method called episodic skeletal-plan refinement, (2) we build an application ontology that consists of the terms and relations in the domain, and of method-specific distinctions not already captured in the domain terms, and (3) we specify mapping relations that link terms from the application ontology to the domain-independent terms used in the problem-solving method. From the application ontology, we automatically generate a domain-specific knowledge-acquisition tool that is custom-tailored for the application. The knowledge-acquisition tool is used for the creation and maintenance of domain knowledge used by the problem-solving method. The general goal of the PROTEGE-II approach is to produce systems and components that are reusable and easily maintained. This is the rationale for constructing ontologies and problem-solving methods that can be composed from a set of smaller-grained methods and mechanisms. This is also why we tightly couple the knowledge-acquisition tools to the application ontology that specifies the domain terms used in the problem-solving systems. Although our evaluation is still preliminary, for the application task of providing protocol-based decision support, we show that these goals of reusability and easy maintenance can be achieved. We discuss design decisions and the tradeoffs that have to be made in the development of the system.

Dynamic Channel Slot Allocation Scheme and Performance Analysis of Cyclic Quorum Multichannel MAC Protocol

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Xing Hu

2017-01-01

Full Text Available In high diversity node situation, multichannel MAC protocol can improve the frequency efficiency, owing to fewer collisions compared with single-channel MAC protocol. And the performance of cyclic quorum-based multichannel (CQM MAC protocol is outstanding. Based on cyclic quorum system and channel slot allocation, it can avoid the bottleneck that others suffered from and can be easily realized with only one transceiver. To obtain the accurate performance of CQM MAC protocol, a Markov chain model, which combines the channel-hopping strategy of CQM protocol and IEEE 802.11 distributed coordination function (DCF, is proposed. The results of numerical analysis show that the optimal performance of CQM protocol can be obtained in saturation bound situation. And then we obtain the saturation bound of CQM system by bird swarm algorithm. In addition, to improve the performance of CQM protocol in unsaturation situation, a dynamic channel slot allocation of CQM (DCQM protocol is proposed, based on wavelet neural network. Finally, the performance of CQM protocol and DCQM protocol is simulated by Qualnet platform. And the simulation results show that the analytic and simulation results match very well; the DCQM performs better in unsaturation situation.

A protocol for chemical mutagenesis in Strongyloides ratti.

Science.gov (United States)

Guo, Li; Chang, Zisong; Dieterich, Christoph; Streit, Adrian

2015-11-01

Genetic analysis using experimentally induced mutations has been a most valuable tool in the analysis of various organisms. However, genetic analysis of endoparasitic organisms tends to be difficult because of the limited accessibility of the sexually reproducing adults, which are normally located within the host. Nematodes of the genera Strogyloides and Parastrongyloides represent an exception to this because they can form facultative free-living sexually reproducing generations in between parasitic generations. Here we present a protocol for the chemical mutagenesis of Strongyloides ratti. Further we evaluate the feasibility of identifying the induced mutations by whole genome re-sequencing. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Protocol Analysis as a Method for Analyzing Conversational Data.

Science.gov (United States)

Aleman, Carlos G.; Vangelisti, Anita L.

Protocol analysis, a technique that uses people's verbal reports about their cognitions as they engage in an assigned task, has been used in a number of applications to provide insight into how people mentally plan, assess, and carry out those assignments. Using a system of networked computers where actors communicate with each other over…

Analysis of the differential-phase-shift-keying protocol in the quantum-key-distribution system

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Rong-Zhen, Jiao; Chen-Xu, Feng; Hai-Qiang, Ma

2009-01-01

The analysis is based on the error rate and the secure communication rate as functions of distance for three quantum-key-distribution (QKD) protocols: the Bennett–Brassard 1984, the Bennett–Brassard–Mermin 1992, and the coherent differential-phase-shift keying (DPSK) protocols. We consider the secure communication rate of the DPSK protocol against an arbitrary individual attack, including the most commonly considered intercept-resend and photon-number splitting attacks, and concluded that the simple and efficient differential-phase-shift-keying protocol allows for more than 200 km of secure communication distance with high communication rates. (general)

Analysis of logging data from nuclear borehole tools

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hovgaard, J.; Oelgaard, P.L.

1989-12-01

The processing procedure for logging data from a borehole of the Stenlille project of Dansk Naturgas A/S has been analysed. The tools considered in the analysis were an integral, natural-gamma tool, a neutron porosity tool, a gamma density tool and a caliper tool. It is believed that in most cases the processing procedure used by the logging company in the interpretation of the raw data is fully understood. An exception is the epithermal part of the neutron porosity tool where all data needed for an interpretation were not available. The analysis has shown that some parts of the interpretation procedure may not be consistent with the physical principle of the tools. (author)

Hypersensitivity and desensitization to antineoplastic agents: outcomes of 189 procedures with a new short protocol and novel diagnostic tools assessment.

Science.gov (United States)

Madrigal-Burgaleta, R; Berges-Gimeno, M P; Angel-Pereira, D; Ferreiro-Monteagudo, R; Guillen-Ponce, C; Pueyo, C; Gomez de Salazar, E; Alvarez-Cuesta, E

2013-07-01

Desensitization to antineoplastic agents is becoming a standard of care. Efforts to establish and improve these techniques are being made at many institutions. Our aims are to evaluate a new rapid desensitization protocol designed to be shorter (approximately 4 h) and safer (reducing hazardous drugs exposure risks) and to assess the oxaliplatin-specific immunoglobulin E (IgE) as a novel diagnostic tool. Prospective, observational, longitudinal study with patients who, for a 1-year period, suffered reactions to antineoplastic agents and were referred to the Desensitization Program at Ramon y Cajal University Hospital (RCUH). Patients were included or excluded as desensitization candidates after anamnesis, skin testing, risk assessment, and graded challenge. Specific IgE was determined in oxaliplatin-reactive patients. Candidate patients were desensitized using the new RCUH rapid desensitization protocol. Of 189 intravenous rapid desensitizations, 188 were successfully accomplished in the 23 patients who met inclusion criteria for desensitization (of 58 referred patients). No breakthrough reactions occurred in 94% of desensitizations, and most breakthrough reactions were mild. In 10 oxaliplatin-reactive patients, 38 desensitizations were successfully accomplished. Sensitivity for oxaliplatin-specific IgE was 38% (0.35UI/l cutoff point) and 54% (0.10UI/l cutoff point); specificity was 100% for both cutoff points. In the hands of a Desensitization Program, managed by drug desensitization experts, this new protocol has proven an effective therapeutic tool for hypersensitivity to several antineoplastic agents (oxaliplatin, carboplatin, paclitaxel, docetaxel, cyclophosphamide, and rituximab); moreover, it improves safety handling of hazardous drugs. We report the first large series of oxaliplatin desensitizations. Oxaliplatin-specific IgE determination could be helpful. © 2013 John Wiley & Sons A/S. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Pointer Analysis for JavaScript Programming Tools

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Feldthaus, Asger

Tools that can assist the programmer with tasks, such as, refactoring or code navigation, have proven popular for Java, C#, and other programming languages. JavaScript is a widely used programming language, and its users could likewise benefit from such tools, but the dynamic nature of the language...... is an obstacle for the development of these. Because of this, tools for JavaScript have long remained ineffective compared to those for many other programming languages. Static pointer analysis can provide a foundation for more powerful tools, although the design of this analysis is itself a complicated endeavor....... In this work, we explore techniques for performing pointer analysis of JavaScript programs, and we find novel applications of these techniques. In particular, we demonstrate how these can be used for code navigation, automatic refactoring, semi-automatic refactoring of incomplete programs, and checking of type...

The CANDU alarm analysis tool (CAAT)

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Davey, E C; Feher, M P; Lupton, L R [Control Centre Technology Branch, ON (Canada)

1997-09-01

AECL undertook the development of a software tool to assist alarm system designers and maintainers based on feedback from several utilities and design groups. The software application is called the CANDU Alarm Analysis Tool (CAAT) and is being developed to: Reduce by one half the effort required to initially implement and commission alarm system improvements; improve the operational relevance, consistency and accuracy of station alarm information; record the basis for alarm-related decisions; provide printed reports of the current alarm configuration; and, make day-to-day maintenance of the alarm database less tedious and more cost-effective. The CAAT assists users in accessing, sorting and recording relevant information, design rules, decisions, and provides reports in support of alarm system maintenance, analysis of design changes, or regulatory inquiry. The paper discusses the need for such a tool, outlines the application objectives and principles used to guide tool development, describes the how specific tool features support user design and maintenance tasks, and relates the lessons learned from early application experience. (author). 4 refs, 2 figs.

The CANDU alarm analysis tool (CAAT)

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Davey, E.C.; Feher, M.P.; Lupton, L.R.

1997-01-01

AECL undertook the development of a software tool to assist alarm system designers and maintainers based on feedback from several utilities and design groups. The software application is called the CANDU Alarm Analysis Tool (CAAT) and is being developed to: Reduce by one half the effort required to initially implement and commission alarm system improvements; improve the operational relevance, consistency and accuracy of station alarm information; record the basis for alarm-related decisions; provide printed reports of the current alarm configuration; and, make day-to-day maintenance of the alarm database less tedious and more cost-effective. The CAAT assists users in accessing, sorting and recording relevant information, design rules, decisions, and provides reports in support of alarm system maintenance, analysis of design changes, or regulatory inquiry. The paper discusses the need for such a tool, outlines the application objectives and principles used to guide tool development, describes the how specific tool features support user design and maintenance tasks, and relates the lessons learned from early application experience. (author). 4 refs, 2 figs

NADA Protocol for Behavioral Health. Putting Tools in the Hands of Behavioral Health Providers: The Case for Auricular Detoxification Specialists

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Elizabeth B Stuyt

2018-02-01

Full Text Available Background: The National Acupuncture Detoxification Association (NADA protocol, a simple standardized auricular treatment has the potential to provide vast public health relief on issues currently challenging our world. This includes but is not limited to addiction, such as the opioid epidemic, but also encompasses mental health, trauma, PTSD, chronic stress, and the symptoms associated with these conditions. Simple accessible tools that improve outcomes can make profound differences. We assert that the NADA protocol can have greatest impact when broadly applied by behavioral health professionals, Auricular Detoxification Specialists (ADSes. Methods: The concept of ADS is described and how current laws vary from state to state. Using available national data, a survey of practitioners in three selected states with vastly different laws regarding ADSes, and interviews of publicly funded programs which are successfully incorporating the NADA protocol, we consider possible effects of ADS-friendly conditions. Results: Data presented supports the idea that conditions conducive to ADS practice lead to greater implementation. Program interviews reflect settings in which adding ADSes can in turn lead to improved outcomes. Discussion: The primary purpose of non-acupuncturist ADSes is to expand the access of this simple but effective treatment to all who are suffering from addictions, stress, or trauma and to allow programs to incorporate acupuncture in the form of the NADA protocol at minimal cost, when and where it is needed. States that have changed laws to allow ADS practice for this standardized ear acupuncture protocol have seen increased access to this treatment, benefiting both patients and the programs.

NADA Protocol for Behavioral Health. Putting Tools in the Hands of Behavioral Health Providers: The Case for Auricular Detoxification Specialists.

Science.gov (United States)

Stuyt, Elizabeth B; Voyles, Claudia A; Bursac, Sara

2018-02-07

Background: The National Acupuncture Detoxification Association (NADA) protocol, a simple standardized auricular treatment has the potential to provide vast public health relief on issues currently challenging our world. This includes but is not limited to addiction, such as the opioid epidemic, but also encompasses mental health, trauma, PTSD, chronic stress, and the symptoms associated with these conditions. Simple accessible tools that improve outcomes can make profound differences. We assert that the NADA protocol can have greatest impact when broadly applied by behavioral health professionals, Auricular Detoxification Specialists (ADSes). Methods: The concept of ADS is described and how current laws vary from state to state. Using available national data, a survey of practitioners in three selected states with vastly different laws regarding ADSes, and interviews of publicly funded programs which are successfully incorporating the NADA protocol, we consider possible effects of ADS-friendly conditions. Results: Data presented supports the idea that conditions conducive to ADS practice lead to greater implementation. Program interviews reflect settings in which adding ADSes can in turn lead to improved outcomes. Discussion: The primary purpose of non-acupuncturist ADSes is to expand the access of this simple but effective treatment to all who are suffering from addictions, stress, or trauma and to allow programs to incorporate acupuncture in the form of the NADA protocol at minimal cost, when and where it is needed. States that have changed laws to allow ADS practice for this standardized ear acupuncture protocol have seen increased access to this treatment, benefiting both patients and the programs.

Affordances of agricultural systems analysis tools

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Ditzler, Lenora; Klerkx, Laurens; Chan-Dentoni, Jacqueline; Posthumus, Helena; Krupnik, Timothy J.; Ridaura, Santiago López; Andersson, Jens A.; Baudron, Frédéric; Groot, Jeroen C.J.

2018-01-01

The increasingly complex challenges facing agricultural systems require problem-solving processes and systems analysis (SA) tools that engage multiple actors across disciplines. In this article, we employ the theory of affordances to unravel what tools may furnish users, and how those affordances

Analysis of security protocols based on challenge-response

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

LUO JunZhou; YANG Ming

2007-01-01

Security protocol is specified as the procedure of challenge-response, which uses applied cryptography to confirm the existence of other principals and fulfill some data negotiation such as session keys. Most of the existing analysis methods,which either adopt theorem proving techniques such as state exploration or logic reasoning techniques such as authentication logic, face the conflicts between analysis power and operability. To solve the problem, a new efficient method is proposed that provides SSM semantics-based definition of secrecy and authentication goals and applies authentication logic as fundamental analysis techniques,in which secrecy analysis is split into two parts: Explicit-Information-Leakage and Implicit-Information-Leakage, and correspondence analysis is concluded as the analysis of the existence relationship of Strands and the agreement of Strand parameters. This new method owns both the power of the Strand Space Model and concision of authentication logic.

msBiodat analysis tool, big data analysis for high-throughput experiments.

Science.gov (United States)

Muñoz-Torres, Pau M; Rokć, Filip; Belužic, Robert; Grbeša, Ivana; Vugrek, Oliver

2016-01-01

Mass spectrometry (MS) are a group of a high-throughput techniques used to increase knowledge about biomolecules. They produce a large amount of data which is presented as a list of hundreds or thousands of proteins. Filtering those data efficiently is the first step for extracting biologically relevant information. The filtering may increase interest by merging previous data with the data obtained from public databases, resulting in an accurate list of proteins which meet the predetermined conditions. In this article we present msBiodat Analysis Tool, a web-based application thought to approach proteomics to the big data analysis. With this tool, researchers can easily select the most relevant information from their MS experiments using an easy-to-use web interface. An interesting feature of msBiodat analysis tool is the possibility of selecting proteins by its annotation on Gene Ontology using its Gene Id, ensembl or UniProt codes. The msBiodat analysis tool is a web-based application that allows researchers with any programming experience to deal with efficient database querying advantages. Its versatility and user-friendly interface makes easy to perform fast and accurate data screening by using complex queries. Once the analysis is finished, the result is delivered by e-mail. msBiodat analysis tool is freely available at http://msbiodata.irb.hr.

A Machine-to-Machine protocol benchmark for eHealth applications - Use case: Respiratory rehabilitation.

Science.gov (United States)

Talaminos-Barroso, Alejandro; Estudillo-Valderrama, Miguel A; Roa, Laura M; Reina-Tosina, Javier; Ortega-Ruiz, Francisco

2016-06-01

M2M (Machine-to-Machine) communications represent one of the main pillars of the new paradigm of the Internet of Things (IoT), and is making possible new opportunities for the eHealth business. Nevertheless, the large number of M2M protocols currently available hinders the election of a suitable solution that satisfies the requirements that can demand eHealth applications. In the first place, to develop a tool that provides a benchmarking analysis in order to objectively select among the most relevant M2M protocols for eHealth solutions. In the second place, to validate the tool with a particular use case: the respiratory rehabilitation. A software tool, called Distributed Computing Framework (DFC), has been designed and developed to execute the benchmarking tests and facilitate the deployment in environments with a large number of machines, with independence of the protocol and performance metrics selected. DDS, MQTT, CoAP, JMS, AMQP and XMPP protocols were evaluated considering different specific performance metrics, including CPU usage, memory usage, bandwidth consumption, latency and jitter. The results obtained allowed to validate a case of use: respiratory rehabilitation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients in two scenarios with different types of requirement: Home-Based and Ambulatory. The results of the benchmark comparison can guide eHealth developers in the choice of M2M technologies. In this regard, the framework presented is a simple and powerful tool for the deployment of benchmark tests under specific environments and conditions. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Dynamic Contingency Analysis Tool

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

2016-01-14

The Dynamic Contingency Analysis Tool (DCAT) is an open-platform and publicly available methodology to help develop applications that aim to improve the capabilities of power system planning engineers to assess the impact and likelihood of extreme contingencies and potential cascading events across their systems and interconnections. Outputs from the DCAT will help find mitigation solutions to reduce the risk of cascading outages in technically sound and effective ways. The current prototype DCAT implementation has been developed as a Python code that accesses the simulation functions of the Siemens PSS/E planning tool (PSS/E). It has the following features: It uses a hybrid dynamic and steady-state approach to simulating the cascading outage sequences that includes fast dynamic and slower steady-state events. It integrates dynamic models with protection scheme models for generation, transmission, and load. It models special protection systems (SPSs)/remedial action schemes (RASs) and automatic and manual corrective actions. Overall, the DCAT attempts to bridge multiple gaps in cascading-outage analysis in a single, unique prototype tool capable of automatically simulating and analyzing cascading sequences in real systems using multiprocessor computers.While the DCAT has been implemented using PSS/E in Phase I of the study, other commercial software packages with similar capabilities can be used within the DCAT framework.

Biometrics based authentication scheme for session initiation protocol.

Science.gov (United States)

Xie, Qi; Tang, Zhixiong

2016-01-01

Many two-factor challenge-response based session initiation protocol (SIP) has been proposed, but most of them are vulnerable to smart card stolen attacks and password guessing attacks. In this paper, we propose a novel three-factor SIP authentication scheme using biometrics, password and smart card, and utilize the pi calculus-based formal verification tool ProVerif to prove that the proposed protocol achieves security and authentication. Furthermore, our protocol is highly efficient when compared to other related protocols.

Implementation and Analysis of Real-Time Streaming Protocols.

Science.gov (United States)

Santos-González, Iván; Rivero-García, Alexandra; Molina-Gil, Jezabel; Caballero-Gil, Pino

2017-04-12

Communication media have become the primary way of interaction thanks to the discovery and innovation of many new technologies. One of the most widely used communication systems today is video streaming, which is constantly evolving. Such communications are a good alternative to face-to-face meetings, and are therefore very useful for coping with many problems caused by distance. However, they suffer from different issues such as bandwidth limitation, network congestion, energy efficiency, cost, reliability and connectivity. Hence, the quality of service and the quality of experience are considered the two most important issues for this type of communication. This work presents a complete comparative study of two of the most used protocols of video streaming, Real Time Streaming Protocol (RTSP) and the Web Real-Time Communication (WebRTC). In addition, this paper proposes two new mobile applications that implement those protocols in Android whose objective is to know how they are influenced by the aspects that most affect the streaming quality of service, which are the connection establishment time and the stream reception time. The new video streaming applications are also compared with the most popular video streaming applications for Android, and the experimental results of the analysis show that the developed WebRTC implementation improves the performance of the most popular video streaming applications with respect to the stream packet delay.

Practical security analysis of a quantum stream cipher by the Yuen 2000 protocol

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hirota, Osamu

2007-01-01

There exists a great gap between one-time pad with perfect secrecy and conventional mathematical encryption. The Yuen 2000 (Y00) protocol or αη scheme may provide a protocol which covers from the conventional security to the ultimate one, depending on implementations. This paper presents the complexity-theoretic security analysis on some models of the Y00 protocol with nonlinear pseudo-random-number-generator and quantum noise diffusion mapping (QDM). Algebraic attacks and fast correlation attacks are applied with a model of the Y00 protocol with nonlinear filtering like the Toyocrypt stream cipher as the running key generator, and it is shown that these attacks in principle do not work on such models even when the mapping between running key and quantum state signal is fixed. In addition, a security property of the Y00 protocol with QDM is clarified. Consequently, we show that the Y00 protocol has a potential which cannot be realized by conventional cryptography and that it goes beyond mathematical encryption with physical encryption

Mobile Internet Protocol Analysis

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Brachfeld, Lawrence

1999-01-01

...) and User Datagram Protocol (UDP). Mobile IP allows mobile computers to send and receive packets addressed with their home network IP address, regardless of the IP address of their current point of attachment on the Internet...

Symbolic Analysis of Cryptographic Protocols

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Dahl, Morten

We present our work on using abstract models for formally analysing cryptographic protocols: First, we present an ecient method for verifying trace-based authenticity properties of protocols using nonces, symmetric encryption, and asymmetric encryption. The method is based on a type system...... of Gordon et al., which we modify to support fully-automated type inference. Tests conducted via an implementation of our algorithm found it to be very ecient. Second, we show how privacy may be captured in a symbolic model using an equivalencebased property and give a formal denition. We formalise...

Software Users Manual (SUM): Extended Testability Analysis (ETA) Tool

Science.gov (United States)

Maul, William A.; Fulton, Christopher E.

2011-01-01

This software user manual describes the implementation and use the Extended Testability Analysis (ETA) Tool. The ETA Tool is a software program that augments the analysis and reporting capabilities of a commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) testability analysis software package called the Testability Engineering And Maintenance System (TEAMS) Designer. An initial diagnostic assessment is performed by the TEAMS Designer software using a qualitative, directed-graph model of the system being analyzed. The ETA Tool utilizes system design information captured within the diagnostic model and testability analysis output from the TEAMS Designer software to create a series of six reports for various system engineering needs. The ETA Tool allows the user to perform additional studies on the testability analysis results by determining the detection sensitivity to the loss of certain sensors or tests. The ETA Tool was developed to support design and development of the NASA Ares I Crew Launch Vehicle. The diagnostic analysis provided by the ETA Tool was proven to be valuable system engineering output that provided consistency in the verification of system engineering requirements. This software user manual provides a description of each output report generated by the ETA Tool. The manual also describes the example diagnostic model and supporting documentation - also provided with the ETA Tool software release package - that were used to generate the reports presented in the manual

The physics analysis tools project for the ATLAS experiment

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lenzi, Bruno

2012-01-01

The Large Hadron Collider is expected to start colliding proton beams in 2009. The enormous amount of data produced by the ATLAS experiment (≅1 PB per year) will be used in searches for the Higgs boson and Physics beyond the standard model. In order to meet this challenge, a suite of common Physics Analysis Tools has been developed as part of the Physics Analysis software project. These tools run within the ATLAS software framework, ATHENA, covering a wide range of applications. There are tools responsible for event selection based on analysed data and detector quality information, tools responsible for specific physics analysis operations including data quality monitoring and physics validation, and complete analysis tool-kits (frameworks) with the goal to aid the physicist to perform his analysis hiding the details of the ATHENA framework. (authors)

A Protocol for Advanced Psychometric Assessment of Surveys

Science.gov (United States)

Squires, Janet E.; Hayduk, Leslie; Hutchinson, Alison M.; Cranley, Lisa A.; Gierl, Mark; Cummings, Greta G.; Norton, Peter G.; Estabrooks, Carole A.

2013-01-01

Background and Purpose. In this paper, we present a protocol for advanced psychometric assessments of surveys based on the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing. We use the Alberta Context Tool (ACT) as an exemplar survey to which this protocol can be applied. Methods. Data mapping, acceptability, reliability, and validity are addressed. Acceptability is assessed with missing data frequencies and the time required to complete the survey. Reliability is assessed with internal consistency coefficients and information functions. A unitary approach to validity consisting of accumulating evidence based on instrument content, response processes, internal structure, and relations to other variables is taken. We also address assessing performance of survey data when aggregated to higher levels (e.g., nursing unit). Discussion. In this paper we present a protocol for advanced psychometric assessment of survey data using the Alberta Context Tool (ACT) as an exemplar survey; application of the protocol to the ACT survey is underway. Psychometric assessment of any survey is essential to obtaining reliable and valid research findings. This protocol can be adapted for use with any nursing survey. PMID:23401759

Preston and Park-Sanders protocols adapted for semi-quantitative isolation of thermotolerant Campylobacter from chicken rinse

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Josefsen, Mathilde Hartmann; Lübeck, Peter Stephensen; Aalbaek, B.

2003-01-01

Human campylobacteriosis has become the major cause of foodborne gastrointestinal diseases in several European countries. In order to implement effective control measures in the primary production, and as a tool in risk assessment studies, it is necessary to have sensitive and quantitative...... detection methods. Thus, semi-quantitative detection of thermophilic Campylobacter spp. in 20 naturally contaminated chicken rinse samples was carried out using the two most common standard protocols: Preston and Park-Sanders, as proposed by Nordic Committee on Food Analysis (NMKL) and International...... Standard Organization (ISO), respectively. For both protocols, the chicken rinse samples were prepared in 500 ml buffered peptone water, as recommended in the ISO protocol no. 6887-2. The results indicated that the Preston protocol was superior to the Park-Sanders protocol in supporting growth...

Automated Analysis of Infinite Scenarios

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Buchholtz, Mikael

2005-01-01

The security of a network protocol crucially relies on the scenario in which the protocol is deployed. This paper describes syntactic constructs for modelling network scenarios and presents an automated analysis tool, which can guarantee that security properties hold in all of the (infinitely many...

A content analysis of posthumous sperm procurement protocols with considerations for developing an institutional policy.

Science.gov (United States)

Bahm, Sarah M; Karkazis, Katrina; Magnus, David

2013-09-01

To identify and analyze existing posthumous sperm procurement (PSP) protocols in order to outline central themes for institutions to consider when developing future policies. Qualitative content analysis. Large academic institutions across the United States. We performed a literature search and contacted 40 institutions to obtain nine full PSP protocols. We then performed a content analysis on these policies to identify major themes and factors to consider when developing a PSP protocol. Presence of a PSP policy. We identified six components of a thorough PSP protocol: Standard of Evidence, Terms of Eligibility, Sperm Designee, Restrictions on Use in Reproduction, Logistics, and Contraindications. We also identified two different approaches to policy structure. In the Limited Role approach, institutions have stricter consent requirements and limit their involvement to the time of procurement. In the Family-Centered approach, substituted judgment is permitted but a mandatory wait period is enforced before sperm use in reproduction. Institutions seeking to implement a PSP protocol will benefit from considering the six major building blocks of a thorough protocol and where they would like to fall on the spectrum from a Limited Role to a Family-Centered approach. Copyright © 2013 American Society for Reproductive Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Abstract interfaces for data analysis - component architecture for data analysis tools

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Barrand, G.; Binko, P.; Doenszelmann, M.; Pfeiffer, A.; Johnson, A.

2001-01-01

The fast turnover of software technologies, in particular in the domain of interactivity (covering user interface and visualisation), makes it difficult for a small group of people to produce complete and polished software-tools before the underlying technologies make them obsolete. At the HepVis'99 workshop, a working group has been formed to improve the production of software tools for data analysis in HENP. Beside promoting a distributed development organisation, one goal of the group is to systematically design a set of abstract interfaces based on using modern OO analysis and OO design techniques. An initial domain analysis has come up with several categories (components) found in typical data analysis tools: Histograms, Ntuples, Functions, Vectors, Fitter, Plotter, analyzer and Controller. Special emphasis was put on reducing the couplings between the categories to a minimum, thus optimising re-use and maintainability of any component individually. The interfaces have been defined in Java and C++ and implementations exist in the form of libraries and tools using C++ (Anaphe/Lizard, OpenScientist) and Java (Java Analysis Studio). A special implementation aims at accessing the Java libraries (through their Abstract Interfaces) from C++. The authors give an overview of the architecture and design of the various components for data analysis as discussed in AIDA

SBAT. A stochastic BPMN analysis tool

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Herbert, Luke Thomas; Hansen, Zaza Nadja Lee; Jacobsen, Peter

2014-01-01

This paper presents SBAT, a tool framework for the modelling and analysis of complex business workflows. SBAT is applied to analyse an example from the Danish baked goods industry. Based upon the Business Process Modelling and Notation (BPMN) language for business process modelling, we describe...... a formalised variant of this language extended to support the addition of intention preserving stochastic branching and parameterised reward annotations. Building on previous work, we detail the design of SBAT, a software tool which allows for the analysis of BPMN models. Within SBAT, properties of interest...

PROMOTION OF PRODUCTS AND ANALYSIS OF MARKET OF POWER TOOLS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sergey S. Rakhmanov

2014-01-01

Full Text Available The article describes the general situation of power tools on the market, both in Russia and in the world. A comparative analysis of competitors, market structure analysis of power tools, as well as assessment of competitiveness of some major product lines. Also the analysis methods of promotion used by companies selling tools, competitive analysis range Bosch, the leader in its segment, power tools available on the market in Russia.

Vehicle Technology Simulation and Analysis Tools | Transportation Research

Science.gov (United States)

Analysis Tools NREL developed the following modeling, simulation, and analysis tools to investigate novel design goals (e.g., fuel economy versus performance) to find cost-competitive solutions. ADOPT Vehicle Simulator to analyze the performance and fuel economy of conventional and advanced light- and

Decision Analysis Tools for Volcano Observatories

Science.gov (United States)

Hincks, T. H.; Aspinall, W.; Woo, G.

2005-12-01

Staff at volcano observatories are predominantly engaged in scientific activities related to volcano monitoring and instrumentation, data acquisition and analysis. Accordingly, the academic education and professional training of observatory staff tend to focus on these scientific functions. From time to time, however, staff may be called upon to provide decision support to government officials responsible for civil protection. Recognizing that Earth scientists may have limited technical familiarity with formal decision analysis methods, specialist software tools that assist decision support in a crisis should be welcome. A review is given of two software tools that have been under development recently. The first is for probabilistic risk assessment of human and economic loss from volcanic eruptions, and is of practical use in short and medium-term risk-informed planning of exclusion zones, post-disaster response, etc. A multiple branch event-tree architecture for the software, together with a formalism for ascribing probabilities to branches, have been developed within the context of the European Community EXPLORIS project. The second software tool utilizes the principles of the Bayesian Belief Network (BBN) for evidence-based assessment of volcanic state and probabilistic threat evaluation. This is of practical application in short-term volcano hazard forecasting and real-time crisis management, including the difficult challenge of deciding when an eruption is over. An open-source BBN library is the software foundation for this tool, which is capable of combining synoptically different strands of observational data from diverse monitoring sources. A conceptual vision is presented of the practical deployment of these decision analysis tools in a future volcano observatory environment. Summary retrospective analyses are given of previous volcanic crises to illustrate the hazard and risk insights gained from use of these tools.

Protein analysis tools and services at IBIVU

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Brandt Bernd W.

2011-06-01

Full Text Available During the last years several new tools applicable to protein analysis have made available on the IBIVU web site. Recently, a number of tools, ranging from multiple sequence alignment construction to domain prediction, have been updated and/or extended with services for programmatic access using SOAP. We provide an overview of these tools and their application.

Tools for Performance Assessment of OLSR Protocol

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Makoto Ikeda

2009-01-01

Full Text Available In this paper, we evaluate the performance of Optimized Link State Routing (OLSR protocol by experimental and simulation results. The experiments are carried out by using our implemented testbed and the simulations by using ns-2 simulator. We also designed and implemented a new interface for the ad-hoc network testbed in order to make more easier the experiments. The comparison between experimental and simulation results shows that for the same parameters set, in the simulation we did not notice any packet loss. On the other hand, in the experiments we experienced packet loss because of the environment effects and traffic interference.

Human Schedule Performance, Protocol Analysis, and the "Silent Dog" Methodology

Science.gov (United States)

Cabello, Francisco; Luciano, Carmen; Gomez, Inmaculada; Barnes-Holmes, Dermot

2004-01-01

The purpose of the current experiment was to investigate the role of private verbal behavior on the operant performances of human adults, using a protocol analysis procedure with additional methodological controls (the "silent dog" method). Twelve subjects were exposed to fixed ratio 8 and differential reinforcement of low rate 3-s schedules. For…

Medical decision making tools: Bayesian analysis and ROC analysis

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lee, Byung Do

2006-01-01

During the diagnostic process of the various oral and maxillofacial lesions, we should consider the following: 'When should we order diagnostic tests? What tests should be ordered? How should we interpret the results clinically? And how should we use this frequently imperfect information to make optimal medical decision?' For the clinicians to make proper judgement, several decision making tools are suggested. This article discusses the concept of the diagnostic accuracy (sensitivity and specificity values) with several decision making tools such as decision matrix, ROC analysis and Bayesian analysis. The article also explain the introductory concept of ORAD program

A Tool for Estimating Variability in Wood Preservative Treatment Retention

Science.gov (United States)

Patricia K. Lebow; Adam M. Taylor; Timothy M. Young

2015-01-01

Composite sampling is standard practice for evaluation of preservative retention levels in preservative-treated wood. Current protocols provide an average retention value but no estimate of uncertainty. Here we describe a statistical method for calculating uncertainty estimates using the standard sampling regime with minimal additional chemical analysis. This tool can...

Nutrition screening tools: an analysis of the evidence.

Science.gov (United States)

Skipper, Annalynn; Ferguson, Maree; Thompson, Kyle; Castellanos, Victoria H; Porcari, Judy

2012-05-01

In response to questions about tools for nutrition screening, an evidence analysis project was developed to identify the most valid and reliable nutrition screening tools for use in acute care and hospital-based ambulatory care settings. An oversight group defined nutrition screening and literature search criteria. A trained analyst conducted structured searches of the literature for studies of nutrition screening tools according to predetermined criteria. Eleven nutrition screening tools designed to detect undernutrition in patients in acute care and hospital-based ambulatory care were identified. Trained analysts evaluated articles for quality using criteria specified by the American Dietetic Association's Evidence Analysis Library. Members of the oversight group assigned quality grades to the tools based on the quality of the supporting evidence, including reliability and validity data. One tool, the NRS-2002, received a grade I, and 4 tools-the Simple Two-Part Tool, the Mini-Nutritional Assessment-Short Form (MNA-SF), the Malnutrition Screening Tool (MST), and Malnutrition Universal Screening Tool (MUST)-received a grade II. The MST was the only tool shown to be both valid and reliable for identifying undernutrition in the settings studied. Thus, validated nutrition screening tools that are simple and easy to use are available for application in acute care and hospital-based ambulatory care settings.

Dual-use tools and systematics-aware analysis workflows in the ATLAS Run-II analysis model

CERN Document Server

FARRELL, Steven; The ATLAS collaboration

2015-01-01

The ATLAS analysis model has been overhauled for the upcoming run of data collection in 2015 at 13 TeV. One key component of this upgrade was the Event Data Model (EDM), which now allows for greater flexibility in the choice of analysis software framework and provides powerful new features that can be exploited by analysis software tools. A second key component of the upgrade is the introduction of a dual-use tool technology, which provides abstract interfaces for analysis software tools to run in either the Athena framework or a ROOT-based framework. The tool interfaces, including a new interface for handling systematic uncertainties, have been standardized for the development of improved analysis workflows and consolidation of high-level analysis tools. This presentation will cover the details of the dual-use tool functionality, the systematics interface, and how these features fit into a centrally supported analysis environment.

Dual-use tools and systematics-aware analysis workflows in the ATLAS Run-2 analysis model

CERN Document Server

FARRELL, Steven; The ATLAS collaboration; Calafiura, Paolo; Delsart, Pierre-Antoine; Elsing, Markus; Koeneke, Karsten; Krasznahorkay, Attila; Krumnack, Nils; Lancon, Eric; Lavrijsen, Wim; Laycock, Paul; Lei, Xiaowen; Strandberg, Sara Kristina; Verkerke, Wouter; Vivarelli, Iacopo; Woudstra, Martin

2015-01-01

The ATLAS analysis model has been overhauled for the upcoming run of data collection in 2015 at 13 TeV. One key component of this upgrade was the Event Data Model (EDM), which now allows for greater flexibility in the choice of analysis software framework and provides powerful new features that can be exploited by analysis software tools. A second key component of the upgrade is the introduction of a dual-use tool technology, which provides abstract interfaces for analysis software tools to run in either the Athena framework or a ROOT-based framework. The tool interfaces, including a new interface for handling systematic uncertainties, have been standardized for the development of improved analysis workflows and consolidation of high-level analysis tools. This paper will cover the details of the dual-use tool functionality, the systematics interface, and how these features fit into a centrally supported analysis environment.

Dynamic federations: storage aggregation using open tools and protocols

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Furano, Fabrizio; Brito da Rocha, Ricardo; Devresse, Adrien; Keeble, Oliver; Álvarez Ayllón, Alejandro; Fuhrmann, Patrick

2012-01-01

A number of storage elements now offer standard protocol interfaces like NFS 4.1/pNFS and WebDAV, for access to their data repositories, in line with the standardization effort of the European Middleware Initiative (EMI). Also the LCG FileCatalogue (LFC) can offer such features. Here we report on work that seeks to exploit the federation potential of these protocols and build a system that offers a unique view of the storage and metadata ensemble and the possibility of integration of other compatible resources such as those from cloud providers. The challenge, here undertaken by the providers of dCache and DPM, and pragmatically open to other Grid and Cloud storage solutions, is to build such a system while being able to accommodate name translations from existing catalogues (e.g. LFCs), experiment-based metadata catalogues, or stateless algorithmic name translations, also known as “trivial file catalogues”. Such so-called storage federations of standard protocols-based storage elements give a unique view of their content, thus promoting simplicity in accessing the data they contain and offering new possibilities for resilience and data placement strategies. The goal is to consider HTTP and NFS4.1-based storage elements and metadata catalogues and make them able to cooperate through an architecture that properly feeds the redirection mechanisms that they are based upon, thus giving the functionalities of a “loosely coupled” storage federation. One of the key requirements is to use standard clients (provided by OS'es or open source distributions, e.g. Web browsers) to access an already aggregated system; this approach is quite different from aggregating the repositories at the client side through some wrapper API, like for instance GFAL, or by developing new custom clients. Other technical challenges that will determine the success of this initiative include performance, latency and scalability, and the ability to create worldwide storage federations that

Analysis of a security protocol in ?CRL

NARCIS (Netherlands)

J. Pang

2002-01-01

textabstractNeedham-Schroeder public-key protocol; With the growth and commercialization of the Internet, the security of communication between computers becomes a crucial point. A variety of security protocols based on cryptographic primitives are used to establish secure communication over

Comparative Testing for Corporate Impact Assessment Tools

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Farsang, Andrea; Reisch, Lucia A.

of our study are: poverty, water and sanitation, education, food and agriculture, climate change, and human rights in three industries, namely: footwear, coffee, and paper and pulp. The paper develops a protocol for the selection and quantification of indicators that can be used in selecting...... the appropriate tools for measuring impacts in the selected sectors on SDGs. Background: In the Global Value Project, a long list of indicators was compiled covering the main thematic areas and challenges of sustainability. In a second step, this long list was reduced using predefined criteria as well as other...... criteria, such as the feasibility and scalability of different tools. As a result, a protocol was developed to help compare the different tools that measure corporate impact and to interpret the results in relation to the SDGs. The protocol was pre-tested with a limited number of tools in two case studies...

Biometrics based authentication scheme for session initiation protocol

OpenAIRE

Xie, Qi; Tang, Zhixiong

2016-01-01

Many two-factor challenge-response based session initiation protocol (SIP) has been proposed, but most of them are vulnerable to smart card stolen attacks and password guessing attacks. In this paper, we propose a novel three-factor SIP authentication scheme using biometrics, password and smart card, and utilize the pi calculus-based formal verification tool ProVerif to prove that the proposed protocol achieves security and authentication. Furthermore, our protocol is highly efficient when co...

Protocol for Microplastics Sampling on the Sea Surface and Sample Analysis

Science.gov (United States)

Kovač Viršek, Manca; Palatinus, Andreja; Koren, Špela; Peterlin, Monika; Horvat, Petra; Kržan, Andrej

2016-01-01

Microplastic pollution in the marine environment is a scientific topic that has received increasing attention over the last decade. The majority of scientific publications address microplastic pollution of the sea surface. The protocol below describes the methodology for sampling, sample preparation, separation and chemical identification of microplastic particles. A manta net fixed on an »A frame« attached to the side of the vessel was used for sampling. Microplastic particles caught in the cod end of the net were separated from samples by visual identification and use of stereomicroscopes. Particles were analyzed for their size using an image analysis program and for their chemical structure using ATR-FTIR and micro FTIR spectroscopy. The described protocol is in line with recommendations for microplastics monitoring published by the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) Technical Subgroup on Marine Litter. This written protocol with video guide will support the work of researchers that deal with microplastics monitoring all over the world. PMID:28060297

A novel tool for continuous fracture aftercare - Clinical feasibility and first results of a new telemetric gait analysis insole.

Science.gov (United States)

Braun, Benedikt J; Bushuven, Eva; Hell, Rebecca; Veith, Nils T; Buschbaum, Jan; Holstein, Joerg H; Pohlemann, Tim

2016-02-01

Weight bearing after lower extremity fractures still remains a highly controversial issue. Even in ankle fractures, the most common lower extremity injury no standard aftercare protocol has been established. Average non weight bearing times range from 0 to 7 weeks, with standardised, radiological healing controls at fixed time intervals. Recent literature calls for patient-adapted aftercare protocols based on individual fracture and load scenarios. We show the clinical feasibility and first results of a new, insole embedded gait analysis tool for continuous monitoring of gait, load and activity. Ten patients were monitored with a new, independent gait analysis insole for up to 3 months postoperatively. Strict 20 kg partial weight bearing was ordered for 6 weeks. Overall activity, load spectrum, ground reaction forces, clinical scoring and general health data were recorded and correlated. Statistical analysis with power analysis, t-test and Spearman correlation was performed. Only one patient completely adhered to the set weight bearing limit. Average time in minutes over the limit was 374 min. Based on the parameters load, activity, gait time over 20 kg weight bearing and maximum ground reaction force high and low performers were defined after 3 weeks. Significant difference in time to painless full weight bearing between high and low performers was shown. Correlation analysis revealed a significant correlation between weight bearing and clinical scoring as well as pain (American Orthopaedic Foot and Ankle Society (AOFAS) Score rs=0.74; Olerud-Molander Score rs=0.93; VAS pain rs=-0.95). Early, continuous gait analysis is able to define aftercare performers with significant differences in time to full painless weight bearing where clinical or radiographic controls could not. Patient compliance to standardised weight bearing limits and protocols is low. Highly individual rehabilitation patterns were seen in all patients. Aftercare protocols should be adjusted to real

Sustainability Tools Inventory - Initial Gaps Analysis | Science ...

Science.gov (United States)

This report identifies a suite of tools that address a comprehensive set of community sustainability concerns. The objective is to discover whether "gaps" exist in the tool suite’s analytic capabilities. These tools address activities that significantly influence resource consumption, waste generation, and hazard generation including air pollution and greenhouse gases. In addition, the tools have been evaluated using four screening criteria: relevance to community decision making, tools in an appropriate developmental stage, tools that may be transferrable to situations useful for communities, and tools with requiring skill levels appropriate to communities. This document provides an initial gap analysis in the area of community sustainability decision support tools. It provides a reference to communities for existing decision support tools, and a set of gaps for those wishing to develop additional needed tools to help communities to achieve sustainability. It contributes to SHC 1.61.4

SaTool - a Software Tool for Structural Analysis of Complex Automation Systems

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Blanke, Mogens; Lorentzen, Torsten

2006-01-01

The paper introduces SaTool, a tool for structural analysis, the use of the Matlab (R)-based implementation is presented and special features are introduced, which were motivated by industrial users. Salient features of tool are presented, including the ability to specify the behavior of a complex...... system at a high level of functional abstraction, analyze single and multiple fault scenarios and automatically generate parity relations for diagnosis for the system in normal and impaired conditions. User interface and algorithmic details are presented....

SECIMTools: a suite of metabolomics data analysis tools.

Science.gov (United States)

Kirpich, Alexander S; Ibarra, Miguel; Moskalenko, Oleksandr; Fear, Justin M; Gerken, Joseph; Mi, Xinlei; Ashrafi, Ali; Morse, Alison M; McIntyre, Lauren M

2018-04-20

Metabolomics has the promise to transform the area of personalized medicine with the rapid development of high throughput technology for untargeted analysis of metabolites. Open access, easy to use, analytic tools that are broadly accessible to the biological community need to be developed. While technology used in metabolomics varies, most metabolomics studies have a set of features identified. Galaxy is an open access platform that enables scientists at all levels to interact with big data. Galaxy promotes reproducibility by saving histories and enabling the sharing workflows among scientists. SECIMTools (SouthEast Center for Integrated Metabolomics) is a set of Python applications that are available both as standalone tools and wrapped for use in Galaxy. The suite includes a comprehensive set of quality control metrics (retention time window evaluation and various peak evaluation tools), visualization techniques (hierarchical cluster heatmap, principal component analysis, modular modularity clustering), basic statistical analysis methods (partial least squares - discriminant analysis, analysis of variance, t-test, Kruskal-Wallis non-parametric test), advanced classification methods (random forest, support vector machines), and advanced variable selection tools (least absolute shrinkage and selection operator LASSO and Elastic Net). SECIMTools leverages the Galaxy platform and enables integrated workflows for metabolomics data analysis made from building blocks designed for easy use and interpretability. Standard data formats and a set of utilities allow arbitrary linkages between tools to encourage novel workflow designs. The Galaxy framework enables future data integration for metabolomics studies with other omics data.

Post-Flight Data Analysis Tool

Science.gov (United States)

George, Marina

2018-01-01

A software tool that facilitates the retrieval and analysis of post-flight data. This allows our team and other teams to effectively and efficiently analyze and evaluate post-flight data in order to certify commercial providers.

75 FR 74007 - Federal Aquatic Nuisance Species Research Risk Analysis Protocol

Science.gov (United States)

2010-11-30

... site, http://anstaskforce.gov/documents.php . To obtain a hard copy of the Protocol, see Document... aquatic species that are the target of this risk analysis. Language used in the NANPCA differentiates...: http://anstaskforce.gov/documents.php Write: Susan Pasko, National Oceanic and Atmospheric...

Selection application for platforms and security protocols suitable for wireless sensor networks

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Moeller, S; Newe, T; Lochmann, S

2009-01-01

There is a great number of platforms and security protocols which can be used for wireless sensor networks (WSN). All these platforms and protocols have different properties with certain advantages and disadvantages. For a good choice of platform and an associated protocol, these advantages and disadvantages should be compared and the best for the appropriate WSN chosen. To select a Security protocol and a wireless platform suitable for a specific application a software tool will be developed. That tool will enable wireless network deployment engineers to easily select a suitable wireless platform for their application based on their network needs and application security requirements.

The development of standard operating protocols for paediatric radiology

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hardwick, J.; Mencik, C.; McLaren, C.; Young, C.; Scadden, S.; Mashford, P.; McHugh, K.; Beckett, M.; Calvert, M.; Marsden, P.J.

2001-01-01

This paper describes how the requirement for operating protocols for standard radiological practice was expanded to provide a comprehensive aide to the operator conducting a medical exposure. The protocols adopted now include justification criteria, patient preparation, radiographic technique, standard exposure charts, diagnostic reference levels and image quality criteria. In total, the protocols have been welcomed as a tool for ensuring that medical exposures are properly optimised. (author)

Correlation dimension based nonlinear analysis of network traffics with different application protocols

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Wang Jun-Song; Yuan Jing; Li Qiang; Yuan Rui-Xi

2011-01-01

This paper uses a correlation dimension based nonlinear analysis approach to analyse the dynamics of network traffics with three different application protocols—HTTP, FTP and SMTP. First, the phase space is reconstructed and the embedding parameters are obtained by the mutual information method. Secondly, the correlation dimensions of three different traffics are calculated and the results of analysis have demonstrated that the dynamics of the three different application protocol traffics is different from each other in nature, i.e. HTTP and FTP traffics are chaotic, furthermore, the former is more complex than the later; on the other hand, SMTP traffic is stochastic. It is shown that correlation dimension approach is an efficient method to understand and to characterize the nonlinear dynamics of HTTP, FTP and SMTP protocol network traffics. This analysis provided insight into and a more accurate understanding of nonlinear dynamics of internet traffics which have a complex mixture of chaotic and stochastic components. (general)

Performance analysis of routing protocols for IoT

Science.gov (United States)

Manda, Sridhar; Nalini, N.

2018-04-01

Internet of Things (IoT) is an arrangement of advancements that are between disciplinary. It is utilized to have compelling combination of both physical and computerized things. With IoT physical things can have personal virtual identities and participate in distributed computing. Realization of IoT needs the usage of sensors based on the sector for which IoT is integrated. For instance, in healthcare domain, IoT needs to have integration with wearable sensors used by patients. As sensor devices produce huge amount of data, often called big data, there should be efficient routing protocols in place. To the extent remote systems is worried there are some current protocols, for example, OLSR, DSR and AODV. It additionally tosses light into Trust based routing protocol for low-power and lossy systems (TRPL) for IoT. These are broadly utilized remote directing protocols. As IoT is developing round the corner, it is basic to investigate routing protocols that and evaluate their execution regarding throughput, end to end delay, and directing overhead. The execution experiences can help in settling on very much educated choices while incorporating remote systems with IoT. In this paper, we analyzed different routing protocols and their performance is compared. It is found that AODV showed better performance than other routing protocols aforementioned.

The Arabidopsis co-expression tool (act): a WWW-based tool and database for microarray-based gene expression analysis

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jen, C. H.; Manfield, I. W.; Michalopoulos, D. W.

2006-01-01

be examined using the novel clique finder tool to determine the sets of genes most likely to be regulated in a similar manner. In combination, these tools offer three levels of analysis: creation of correlation lists of co-expressed genes, refinement of these lists using two-dimensional scatter plots......We present a new WWW-based tool for plant gene analysis, the Arabidopsis Co-Expression Tool (act) , based on a large Arabidopsis thaliana microarray data set obtained from the Nottingham Arabidopsis Stock Centre. The co-expression analysis tool allows users to identify genes whose expression...

An Exploratory Factor Analysis of the Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol as an Evaluation Tool to Measure Teaching Effectiveness

Science.gov (United States)

Polat, Nihat; Cepik, Saban

2016-01-01

To narrow the achievement gap between English language learners (ELLs) and their native-speaking peers in K-12 settings in the United States, effective instructional models must be identified. However, identifying valid observation protocols that can measure the effectiveness of specially designed instructional practices is not an easy task. This…

IBiSA_Tools: A Computational Toolkit for Ion-Binding State Analysis in Molecular Dynamics Trajectories of Ion Channels.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kota Kasahara

Full Text Available Ion conduction mechanisms of ion channels are a long-standing conundrum. Although the molecular dynamics (MD method has been extensively used to simulate ion conduction dynamics at the atomic level, analysis and interpretation of MD results are not straightforward due to complexity of the dynamics. In our previous reports, we proposed an analytical method called ion-binding state analysis to scrutinize and summarize ion conduction mechanisms by taking advantage of a variety of analytical protocols, e.g., the complex network analysis, sequence alignment, and hierarchical clustering. This approach effectively revealed the ion conduction mechanisms and their dependence on the conditions, i.e., ion concentration and membrane voltage. Here, we present an easy-to-use computational toolkit for ion-binding state analysis, called IBiSA_tools. This toolkit consists of a C++ program and a series of Python and R scripts. From the trajectory file of MD simulations and a structure file, users can generate several images and statistics of ion conduction processes. A complex network named ion-binding state graph is generated in a standard graph format (graph modeling language; GML, which can be visualized by standard network analyzers such as Cytoscape. As a tutorial, a trajectory of a 50 ns MD simulation of the Kv1.2 channel is also distributed with the toolkit. Users can trace the entire process of ion-binding state analysis step by step. The novel method for analysis of ion conduction mechanisms of ion channels can be easily used by means of IBiSA_tools. This software is distributed under an open source license at the following URL: http://www.ritsumei.ac.jp/~ktkshr/ibisa_tools/.

Use of Virtual Reality Tools for Vestibular Disorders Rehabilitation: A Comprehensive Analysis

OpenAIRE

Bergeron, Mathieu; Lortie, Catherine L.; Guitton, Matthieu J.

2015-01-01

Classical peripheral vestibular disorders rehabilitation is a long and costly process. While virtual reality settings have been repeatedly suggested to represent possible tools to help the rehabilitation process, no systematic study had been conducted so far. We systematically reviewed the current literature to analyze the published protocols documenting the use of virtual reality settings for peripheral vestibular disorders rehabilitation. There is an important diversity of settings and prot...

Security Protocols in a Nutshell

OpenAIRE

Toorani, Mohsen

2016-01-01

Security protocols are building blocks in secure communications. They deploy some security mechanisms to provide certain security services. Security protocols are considered abstract when analyzed, but they can have extra vulnerabilities when implemented. This manuscript provides a holistic study on security protocols. It reviews foundations of security protocols, taxonomy of attacks on security protocols and their implementations, and different methods and models for security analysis of pro...

Development of a Ground Test and Analysis Protocol for NASA's NextSTEP Phase 2 Habitation Concepts

Science.gov (United States)

Gernhardt, Michael L.; Beaton, Kara H.; Chappell, Steven P.; Bekdash, Omar S.; Abercromby, Andrew F. J.

2018-01-01

The NASA Next Space Technologies for Exploration Partnerships (NextSTEP) program is a public-private partnership model that seeks commercial development of deep space exploration capabilities to support human spaceflight missions around and beyond cislunar space. NASA first issued the Phase 1 NextSTEP Broad Agency Announcement to U.S. industries in 2014, which called for innovative cislunar habitation concepts that leveraged commercialization plans for low-Earth orbit. These habitats will be part of the Deep Space Gateway (DSG), the cislunar space station planned by NASA for construction in the 2020s. In 2016, Phase 2 of the NextSTEP program selected five commercial partners to develop ground prototypes. A team of NASA research engineers and subject matter experts (SMEs) have been tasked with developing the ground-test protocol that will serve as the primary means by which these Phase 2 prototypes will be evaluated. Since 2008, this core test team has successfully conducted multiple spaceflight analog mission evaluations utilizing a consistent set of operational tools, methods, and metrics to enable the iterative development, testing, analysis, and validation of evolving exploration architectures, operations concepts, and vehicle designs. The purpose of implementing a similar evaluation process for the Phase 2 Habitation Concepts is to consistently evaluate different commercial partner ground prototypes to provide data-driven, actionable recommendations for Phase 3. This paper describes the process by which the ground test protocol was developed and the objectives, methods, and metrics by which the NextSTEP Phase 2 Habitation Concepts will be rigorously and systematically evaluated. The protocol has been developed using both a top-down and bottom-up approach. Top-down development began with the Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate (HEOMD) exploration objectives and ISS Exploration Capability Study Team (IECST) candidate flight objectives. Strategic

Assessing health systems for type 1 diabetes in sub-Saharan Africa: developing a 'Rapid Assessment Protocol for Insulin Access'

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

de Courten Maximilian

2006-02-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background In order to improve the health of people with Type 1 diabetes in developing countries, a clear analysis of the constraints to insulin access and diabetes care is needed. We developed a Rapid Assessment Protocol for Insulin Access, comprising a series of questionnaires as well as a protocol for the gathering of other data through site visits, discussions, and document reviews. Methods The Rapid Assessment Protocol for Insulin Access draws on the principles of Rapid Assessment Protocols which have been developed and implemented in several different areas. This protocol was adapted through a thorough literature review on diabetes, chronic condition management and medicine supply in developing countries. A visit to three countries in sub-Saharan Africa and meetings with different experts in the field of diabetes helped refine the questionnaires. Following the development of the questionnaires these were tested with various people familiar with diabetes and/or healthcare in developing countries. The Protocol was piloted in Mozambique then refined and had two further iterations in Zambia and Mali. Translations of questionnaires were made into local languages when necessary, with back translation to ensure precision. Results In each country the protocol was implemented in 3 areas – the capital city, a large urban centre and a predominantly rural area and their respective surroundings. Interviews were carried out by local teams trained on how to use the tool. Data was then collected and entered into a database for analysis. Conclusion The Rapid Assessment Protocol for Insulin Access was developed to provide a situational analysis of Type 1 diabetes, in order to make recommendations to the national Ministries of Health and Diabetes Associations. It provided valuable information on patients' access to insulin, syringes, monitoring and care. It was thus able to sketch a picture of the health care system with regards to its ability to

Abstract Interfaces for Data Analysis Component Architecture for Data Analysis Tools

CERN Document Server

Barrand, G; Dönszelmann, M; Johnson, A; Pfeiffer, A

2001-01-01

The fast turnover of software technologies, in particular in the domain of interactivity (covering user interface and visualisation), makes it difficult for a small group of people to produce complete and polished software-tools before the underlying technologies make them obsolete. At the HepVis '99 workshop, a working group has been formed to improve the production of software tools for data analysis in HENP. Beside promoting a distributed development organisation, one goal of the group is to systematically design a set of abstract interfaces based on using modern OO analysis and OO design techniques. An initial domain analysis has come up with several categories (components) found in typical data analysis tools: Histograms, Ntuples, Functions, Vectors, Fitter, Plotter, Analyzer and Controller. Special emphasis was put on reducing the couplings between the categories to a minimum, thus optimising re-use and maintainability of any component individually. The interfaces have been defined in Java and C++ and i...

Frequency Response Analysis Tool

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Etingov, Pavel V. [Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States); Kosterev, Dmitry [Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States); Dai, T. [Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)

2014-12-01

Frequency response has received a lot of attention in recent years at the national level, which culminated in the development and approval of North American Electricity Reliability Corporation (NERC) BAL-003-1 Frequency Response and Frequency Bias Setting Reliability Standard. This report is prepared to describe the details of the work conducted by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) in collaboration with the Bonneville Power Administration and Western Electricity Coordinating Council (WECC) Joint Synchronized Information Subcommittee (JSIS) to develop a frequency response analysis tool (FRAT). The document provides the details on the methodology and main features of the FRAT. The tool manages the database of under-frequency events and calculates the frequency response baseline. Frequency response calculations are consistent with frequency response measure (FRM) in NERC BAL-003-1 for an interconnection and balancing authority. The FRAT can use both phasor measurement unit (PMU) data, where available, and supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) data. The tool is also capable of automatically generating NERC Frequency Response Survey (FRS) forms required by BAL-003-1 Standard.

Fuzzy Extractor and Elliptic Curve Based Efficient User Authentication Protocol for Wireless Sensor Networks and Internet of Things

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Anup Kumar Maurya

2017-10-01

Full Text Available To improve the quality of service and reduce the possibility of security attacks, a secure and efficient user authentication mechanism is required for Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs and the Internet of Things (IoT. Session key establishment between the sensor node and the user is also required for secure communication. In this paper, we perform the security analysis of A.K.Das’s user authentication scheme (given in 2015, Choi et al.’s scheme (given in 2016, and Park et al.’s scheme (given in 2016. The security analysis shows that their schemes are vulnerable to various attacks like user impersonation attack, sensor node impersonation attack and attacks based on legitimate users. Based on the cryptanalysis of these existing protocols, we propose a secure and efficient authenticated session key establishment protocol which ensures various security features and overcomes the drawbacks of existing protocols. The formal and informal security analysis indicates that the proposed protocol withstands the various security vulnerabilities involved in WSNs. The automated validation using AVISPA and Scyther tool ensures the absence of security attacks in our scheme. The logical verification using the Burrows-Abadi-Needham (BAN logic confirms the correctness of the proposed protocol. Finally, the comparative analysis based on computational overhead and security features of other existing protocol indicate that the proposed user authentication system is secure and efficient. In future, we intend to implement the proposed protocol in real-world applications of WSNs and IoT.

Security Analysis of DTN Architecture and Bundle Protocol Specification for Space-Based Networks

Science.gov (United States)

Ivancic, William D.

2009-01-01

A Delay-Tolerant Network (DTN) Architecture (Request for Comment, RFC-4838) and Bundle Protocol Specification, RFC-5050, have been proposed for space and terrestrial networks. Additional security specifications have been provided via the Bundle Security Specification (currently a work in progress as an Internet Research Task Force internet-draft) and, for link-layer protocols applicable to Space networks, the Licklider Transport Protocol Security Extensions. This document provides a security analysis of the current DTN RFCs and proposed security related internet drafts with a focus on space-based communication networks, which is a rather restricted subset of DTN networks. Note, the original focus and motivation of DTN work was for the Interplanetary Internet . This document does not address general store-and-forward network overlays, just the current work being done by the Internet Research Task Force (IRTF) and the Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems (CCSDS) Space Internetworking Services Area (SIS) - DTN working group under the DTN and Bundle umbrellas. However, much of the analysis is relevant to general store-and-forward overlays.

Optimizing Staining Protocols for Laser Microdissection of Specific Cell Types from the Testis Including Carcinoma In Situ

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Sonne, Si Brask; Dalgaard, Marlene D; Nielsen, John Erik

2009-01-01

Microarray and RT-PCR based methods are important tools for analysis of gene expression; however, in tissues containing many different cells types, such as the testis, characterization of gene expression in specific cell types can be severely hampered by noise from other cells. The laser microdis......Microarray and RT-PCR based methods are important tools for analysis of gene expression; however, in tissues containing many different cells types, such as the testis, characterization of gene expression in specific cell types can be severely hampered by noise from other cells. The laser...... protocols, and present two staining protocols for frozen sections, one for fast and specific staining of fetal germ cells, testicular carcinoma in situ cells, and other cells with embryonic stem cell-like properties that express the alkaline phosphatase, and one for specific staining of lipid droplet...

Analysis Tool Web Services from the EMBL-EBI.

Science.gov (United States)

McWilliam, Hamish; Li, Weizhong; Uludag, Mahmut; Squizzato, Silvano; Park, Young Mi; Buso, Nicola; Cowley, Andrew Peter; Lopez, Rodrigo

2013-07-01

Since 2004 the European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) has provided access to a wide range of databases and analysis tools via Web Services interfaces. This comprises services to search across the databases available from the EMBL-EBI and to explore the network of cross-references present in the data (e.g. EB-eye), services to retrieve entry data in various data formats and to access the data in specific fields (e.g. dbfetch), and analysis tool services, for example, sequence similarity search (e.g. FASTA and NCBI BLAST), multiple sequence alignment (e.g. Clustal Omega and MUSCLE), pairwise sequence alignment and protein functional analysis (e.g. InterProScan and Phobius). The REST/SOAP Web Services (http://www.ebi.ac.uk/Tools/webservices/) interfaces to these databases and tools allow their integration into other tools, applications, web sites, pipeline processes and analytical workflows. To get users started using the Web Services, sample clients are provided covering a range of programming languages and popular Web Service tool kits, and a brief guide to Web Services technologies, including a set of tutorials, is available for those wishing to learn more and develop their own clients. Users of the Web Services are informed of improvements and updates via a range of methods.

Sensitivity Analysis of Per-Protocol Time-to-Event Treatment Efficacy in Randomized Clinical Trials

Science.gov (United States)

Gilbert, Peter B.; Shepherd, Bryan E.; Hudgens, Michael G.

2013-01-01

Summary Assessing per-protocol treatment effcacy on a time-to-event endpoint is a common objective of randomized clinical trials. The typical analysis uses the same method employed for the intention-to-treat analysis (e.g., standard survival analysis) applied to the subgroup meeting protocol adherence criteria. However, due to potential post-randomization selection bias, this analysis may mislead about treatment efficacy. Moreover, while there is extensive literature on methods for assessing causal treatment effects in compliers, these methods do not apply to a common class of trials where a) the primary objective compares survival curves, b) it is inconceivable to assign participants to be adherent and event-free before adherence is measured, and c) the exclusion restriction assumption fails to hold. HIV vaccine efficacy trials including the recent RV144 trial exemplify this class, because many primary endpoints (e.g., HIV infections) occur before adherence is measured, and nonadherent subjects who receive some of the planned immunizations may be partially protected. Therefore, we develop methods for assessing per-protocol treatment efficacy for this problem class, considering three causal estimands of interest. Because these estimands are not identifiable from the observable data, we develop nonparametric bounds and semiparametric sensitivity analysis methods that yield estimated ignorance and uncertainty intervals. The methods are applied to RV144. PMID:24187408

Applied regression analysis a research tool

CERN Document Server

Pantula, Sastry; Dickey, David

1998-01-01

Least squares estimation, when used appropriately, is a powerful research tool. A deeper understanding of the regression concepts is essential for achieving optimal benefits from a least squares analysis. This book builds on the fundamentals of statistical methods and provides appropriate concepts that will allow a scientist to use least squares as an effective research tool. Applied Regression Analysis is aimed at the scientist who wishes to gain a working knowledge of regression analysis. The basic purpose of this book is to develop an understanding of least squares and related statistical methods without becoming excessively mathematical. It is the outgrowth of more than 30 years of consulting experience with scientists and many years of teaching an applied regression course to graduate students. Applied Regression Analysis serves as an excellent text for a service course on regression for non-statisticians and as a reference for researchers. It also provides a bridge between a two-semester introduction to...

Database tools for enhanced analysis of TMX-U data

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Stewart, M.E.; Carter, M.R.; Casper, T.A.; Meyer, W.H.; Perkins, D.E.; Whitney, D.M.

1986-01-01

A commercial database software package has been used to create several databases and tools that assist and enhance the ability of experimental physicists to analyze data from the Tandem Mirror Experiment-Upgrade (TMX-U) experiment. This software runs on a DEC-20 computer in M-Divisions's User Service Center at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), where data can be analyzed off line from the main TMX-U acquisition computers. When combined with interactive data analysis programs, these tools provide the capability to do batch-style processing or interactive data analysis on the computers in the USC or the supercomputers of the National Magnetic Fusion Energy Computer Center (NMFECC) in addition to the normal processing done by the TMX-U acquisition system. One database tool provides highly reduced data for searching and correlation analysis of several diagnostic signals within a single shot or over many shots. A second database tool provides retrieval and storage of unreduced data for use in detailed analysis of one or more diagnostic signals. We will show how these database tools form the core of an evolving off-line data analysis environment on the USC computers

Database tools for enhanced analysis of TMX-U data

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Stewart, M.E.; Carter, M.R.; Casper, T.A.; Meyer, W.H.; Perkins, D.E.; Whitney, D.M.

1986-01-01

A commercial database software package has been used to create several databases and tools that assist and enhance the ability of experimental physicists to analyze data from the Tandem Mirror Experiment-Upgrade (TMX-U) experiment. This software runs on a DEC-20 computer in M-Division's User Service Center at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), where data can be analyzed offline from the main TMX-U acquisition computers. When combined with interactive data analysis programs, these tools provide the capability to do batch-style processing or interactive data analysis on the computers in the USC or the supercomputers of the National Magnetic Fusion Energy Computer Center (NMFECC) in addition to the normal processing done by the TMX-U acquisition system. One database tool provides highly reduced data for searching and correlation analysis of several diagnostic signals within a single shot or over many shots. A second database tool provides retrieval and storage of unreduced data for use in detailed analysis of one or more diagnostic signals. We will show how these database tools form the core of an evolving offline data analysis environment on the USC computers

Designing a Tool for History Textbook Analysis

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Katalin Eszter Morgan

2012-11-01

Full Text Available This article describes the process by which a five-dimensional tool for history textbook analysis was conceptualized and developed in three stages. The first stage consisted of a grounded theory approach to code the content of the sampled chapters of the books inductively. After that the findings from this coding process were combined with principles of text analysis as derived from the literature, specifically focusing on the notion of semiotic mediation as theorized by Lev VYGOTSKY. We explain how we then entered the third stage of the development of the tool, comprising five dimensions. Towards the end of the article we show how the tool could be adapted to serve other disciplines as well. The argument we forward in the article is for systematic and well theorized tools with which to investigate textbooks as semiotic mediators in education. By implication, textbook authors can also use these as guidelines. URN: http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs130170

A robust ECC based mutual authentication protocol with anonymity for session initiation protocol.

Science.gov (United States)

Mehmood, Zahid; Chen, Gongliang; Li, Jianhua; Li, Linsen; Alzahrani, Bander

2017-01-01

Over the past few years, Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) is found as a substantial application-layer protocol for the multimedia services. It is extensively used for managing, altering, terminating and distributing the multimedia sessions. Authentication plays a pivotal role in SIP environment. Currently, Lu et al. presented an authentication protocol for SIP and profess that newly proposed protocol is protected against all the familiar attacks. However, the detailed analysis describes that the Lu et al.'s protocol is exposed against server masquerading attack and user's masquerading attack. Moreover, it also fails to protect the user's identity as well as it possesses incorrect login and authentication phase. In order to establish a suitable and efficient protocol, having ability to overcome all these discrepancies, a robust ECC-based novel mutual authentication mechanism with anonymity for SIP is presented in this manuscript. The improved protocol contains an explicit parameter for user to cope the issues of security and correctness and is found to be more secure and relatively effective to protect the user's privacy, user's masquerading and server masquerading as it is verified through the comprehensive formal and informal security analysis.

A robust ECC based mutual authentication protocol with anonymity for session initiation protocol.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Zahid Mehmood

Full Text Available Over the past few years, Session Initiation Protocol (SIP is found as a substantial application-layer protocol for the multimedia services. It is extensively used for managing, altering, terminating and distributing the multimedia sessions. Authentication plays a pivotal role in SIP environment. Currently, Lu et al. presented an authentication protocol for SIP and profess that newly proposed protocol is protected against all the familiar attacks. However, the detailed analysis describes that the Lu et al.'s protocol is exposed against server masquerading attack and user's masquerading attack. Moreover, it also fails to protect the user's identity as well as it possesses incorrect login and authentication phase. In order to establish a suitable and efficient protocol, having ability to overcome all these discrepancies, a robust ECC-based novel mutual authentication mechanism with anonymity for SIP is presented in this manuscript. The improved protocol contains an explicit parameter for user to cope the issues of security and correctness and is found to be more secure and relatively effective to protect the user's privacy, user's masquerading and server masquerading as it is verified through the comprehensive formal and informal security analysis.

An Enhanced Biometric Based Authentication with Key-Agreement Protocol for Multi-Server Architecture Based on Elliptic Curve Cryptography.

Science.gov (United States)

Reddy, Alavalapati Goutham; Das, Ashok Kumar; Odelu, Vanga; Yoo, Kee-Young

2016-01-01

Biometric based authentication protocols for multi-server architectures have gained momentum in recent times due to advancements in wireless technologies and associated constraints. Lu et al. recently proposed a robust biometric based authentication with key agreement protocol for a multi-server environment using smart cards. They claimed that their protocol is efficient and resistant to prominent security attacks. The careful investigation of this paper proves that Lu et al.'s protocol does not provide user anonymity, perfect forward secrecy and is susceptible to server and user impersonation attacks, man-in-middle attacks and clock synchronization problems. In addition, this paper proposes an enhanced biometric based authentication with key-agreement protocol for multi-server architecture based on elliptic curve cryptography using smartcards. We proved that the proposed protocol achieves mutual authentication using Burrows-Abadi-Needham (BAN) logic. The formal security of the proposed protocol is verified using the AVISPA (Automated Validation of Internet Security Protocols and Applications) tool to show that our protocol can withstand active and passive attacks. The formal and informal security analyses and performance analysis demonstrates that the proposed protocol is robust and efficient compared to Lu et al.'s protocol and existing similar protocols.

An improved method of studying user-system interaction by combining transaction log analysis and protocol analysis

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jillian R. Griffiths

2002-01-01

Full Text Available The paper reports a novel approach to studying user-system interaction that captures a complete record of the searcher's actions, the system responses and synchronised talk-aloud comments from the searcher. The data is recorded unobtrusively and is available for later analysis. The approach is set in context by a discussion of transaction logging and protocol analysis and examples of the search logging in operation are presented

SAMP, the Simple Application Messaging Protocol: Letting applications talk to each other

Science.gov (United States)

Taylor, M. B.; Boch, T.; Taylor, J.

2015-06-01

SAMP, the Simple Application Messaging Protocol, is a hub-based communication standard for the exchange of data and control between participating client applications. It has been developed within the context of the Virtual Observatory with the aim of enabling specialised data analysis tools to cooperate as a loosely integrated suite, and is now in use by many and varied desktop and web-based applications dealing with astronomical data. This paper reviews the requirements and design principles that led to SAMP's specification, provides a high-level description of the protocol, and discusses some of its common and possible future usage patterns, with particular attention to those factors that have aided its success in practice.

The Alcohol Environment Protocol: A new tool for alcohol policy.

Science.gov (United States)

Casswell, Sally; Morojele, Neo; Williams, Petal Petersen; Chaiyasong, Surasak; Gordon, Ross; Gray-Philip, Gaile; Viet Cuong, Pham; MacKintosh, Anne-Marie; Halliday, Sharon; Railton, Renee; Randerson, Steve; Parry, Charles D H

2018-01-04

To report data on the implementation of alcohol policies regarding availability and marketing, and drink driving, along with ratings of enforcement from two small high-income to three high-middle income countries, and one low-middle income country. This study uses the Alcohol Environment Protocol, an International Alcohol Control study research tool, which documents the alcohol policy environment by standardised collection of data from administrative sources, observational studies and interviews with key informants to allow for cross-country comparison and change over time. All countries showed adoption to varying extents of key effective policy approaches outlined in the World Health Organization Global Strategy to Reduce the Harmful Use of Alcohol (2010). High-income countries were more likely to allocate resources to enforcement. However, where enforcement and implementation were high, policy on availability was fairly liberal. Key Informants judged alcohol to be very available in both high- and middle-income countries, reflecting liberal policy in the former and less implementation and enforcement and informal (unlicensed) sale of alcohol in the latter. Marketing was largely unrestricted in all countries and while drink-driving legislation was in place, it was less well enforced in middle-income countries. In countries with fewer resources, alcohol policies are less effective because of lack of implementation and enforcement and, in the case of marketing, lack of regulation. This has implications for the increase in consumption taking place as a result of the expanding distribution and marketing of commercial alcohol and consequent increases in alcohol-related harm. © 2018 The Authors Drug and Alcohol Review published by John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd on behalf of Australasian Professional Society on Alcohol and other Drugs.

Symbolic Model Checking and Analysis for E-Commerce Protocol

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

WEN Jing-Hua; ZHANG Mei; LI Xiang

2005-01-01

A new approach is proposed for analyzing non-repudiation and fairness of e-commerce protocols. The authentication e-mail protocol CMP1 is modeled as finite state machine and analyzed in two vital aspects - non-repudiation and fairness using SMV. As a result, the CMP1 protocol is not fair and we have improved it. This result shows that it is effective to analyze and check the new features of e-commerce protocols using SMV model checker

The comparative cost analysis of EAP Re-authentication Protocol and EAP TLS Protocol

OpenAIRE

Seema Mehla; Bhawna Gupta

2010-01-01

the Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP) is a generic framework supporting multiple types of authentication methods. In systems where EAP is used for authentication, it is desirable to not repeat the entire EAP exchange with another authenticator. The EAP reauthentication Protocol provides a consistent, methodindependentand low-latency re-authentication. It is extension to current EAP mechanism to support intradomain handoff authentication. This paper analyzed the performance of the EAP r...

Using the Contextual Hub Analysis Tool (CHAT) in Cytoscape to Identify Contextually Relevant Network Hubs.

Science.gov (United States)

Muetze, Tanja; Lynn, David J

2017-09-13

Highly connected nodes in biological networks are called network hubs. Hubs are topologically important to the structure of the network and have been shown to be preferentially associated with a range of phenotypes of interest. The relative importance of a hub node, however, can change depending on the biological context. Here, we provide a step-by-step protocol for using the Contextual Hub Analysis Tool (CHAT), an application within Cytoscape 3, which enables users to easily construct and visualize a network of interactions from a gene or protein list of interest, integrate contextual information, such as gene or protein expression data, and identify hub nodes that are more highly connected to contextual nodes than expected by chance. © 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Distortion Analysis Toolkit—A Software Tool for Easy Analysis of Nonlinear Audio Systems

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jyri Pakarinen

2010-01-01

Full Text Available Several audio effects devices deliberately add nonlinear distortion to the processed signal in order to create a desired sound. When creating virtual analog models of nonlinearly distorting devices, it would be very useful to carefully analyze the type of distortion, so that the model could be made as realistic as possible. While traditional system analysis tools such as the frequency response give detailed information on the operation of linear and time-invariant systems, they are less useful for analyzing nonlinear devices. Furthermore, although there do exist separate algorithms for nonlinear distortion analysis, there is currently no unified, easy-to-use tool for rapid analysis of distorting audio systems. This paper offers a remedy by introducing a new software tool for easy analysis of distorting effects. A comparison between a well-known guitar tube amplifier and two commercial software simulations is presented as a case study. This freely available software is written in Matlab language, but the analysis tool can also run as a standalone program, so the user does not need to have Matlab installed in order to perform the analysis.

STARS software tool for analysis of reliability and safety

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Poucet, A.; Guagnini, E.

1989-01-01

This paper reports on the STARS (Software Tool for the Analysis of Reliability and Safety) project aims at developing an integrated set of Computer Aided Reliability Analysis tools for the various tasks involved in systems safety and reliability analysis including hazard identification, qualitative analysis, logic model construction and evaluation. The expert system technology offers the most promising perspective for developing a Computer Aided Reliability Analysis tool. Combined with graphics and analysis capabilities, it can provide a natural engineering oriented environment for computer assisted reliability and safety modelling and analysis. For hazard identification and fault tree construction, a frame/rule based expert system is used, in which the deductive (goal driven) reasoning and the heuristic, applied during manual fault tree construction, is modelled. Expert system can explain their reasoning so that the analyst can become aware of the why and the how results are being obtained. Hence, the learning aspect involved in manual reliability and safety analysis can be maintained and improved

Performance Analysis of a Cluster-Based MAC Protocol for Wireless Ad Hoc Networks

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Jesús Alonso-Zárate

2010-01-01

Full Text Available An analytical model to evaluate the non-saturated performance of the Distributed Queuing Medium Access Control Protocol for Ad Hoc Networks (DQMANs in single-hop networks is presented in this paper. DQMAN is comprised of a spontaneous, temporary, and dynamic clustering mechanism integrated with a near-optimum distributed queuing Medium Access Control (MAC protocol. Clustering is executed in a distributed manner using a mechanism inspired by the Distributed Coordination Function (DCF of the IEEE 802.11. Once a station seizes the channel, it becomes the temporary clusterhead of a spontaneous cluster and it coordinates the peer-to-peer communications between the clustermembers. Within each cluster, a near-optimum distributed queuing MAC protocol is executed. The theoretical performance analysis of DQMAN in single-hop networks under non-saturation conditions is presented in this paper. The approach integrates the analysis of the clustering mechanism into the MAC layer model. Up to the knowledge of the authors, this approach is novel in the literature. In addition, the performance of an ad hoc network using DQMAN is compared to that obtained when using the DCF of the IEEE 802.11, as a benchmark reference.

Dual-energy CT for the characterization of urinary calculi: In vitro and in vivo evaluation of a low-dose scanning protocol

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Thomas, C.; Patschan, O.; Nagele, U.; Stenzl, A.; Ketelsen, D.; Tsiflikas, I.; Reimann, A.; Brodoefel, H.; Claussen, C.; Kopp, A.; Heuschmid, M.; Schlemmer, H.P.; Buchgeister, M.

2009-01-01

The efficiency and radiation dose of a low-dose dual-energy (DE) CT protocol for the evaluation of urinary calculus disease were evaluated. A low-dose dual-source DE-CT renal calculi protocol (140 kV, 46 mAs; 80 kV, 210 mAs) was derived from the single-energy (SE) CT protocol used in our institution for the detection of renal calculi (120 kV, 75 mAs). An Alderson-Rando phantom was equipped with thermoluminescence dosimeters and examined by CT with both protocols. The effective doses were calculated. Fifty-one patients with suspected or known urinary calculus disease underwent DE-CT. DE analysis was performed if calculi were detected using a dedicated software tool. Results were compared to chemical analysis after invasive calculus extraction. An effective dose of 3.43 mSv (male) and 5.30 mSv (female) was measured in the phantom for the DE protocol (vs. 3.17/4.57 mSv for the SE protocol). Urinary calculi were found in 34 patients; in 28 patients, calculi were removed and analyzed (23 patients with calcified calculi, three with uric acid calculi, one with 2,8-dihyxdroxyadenine-calculi, one patient with a mixed struvite calculus). DE analysis was able to distinguish between calcified and non-calcified calculi in all cases. In conclusion, dual-energy urinary calculus analysis is effective also with a low-dose protocol. The protocol tested in this study reliably identified calcified urinary calculi in vivo. (orig.)

Dual-energy CT for the characterization of urinary calculi: In vitro and in vivo evaluation of a low-dose scanning protocol.

Science.gov (United States)

Thomas, C; Patschan, O; Ketelsen, D; Tsiflikas, I; Reimann, A; Brodoefel, H; Buchgeister, M; Nagele, U; Stenzl, A; Claussen, C; Kopp, A; Heuschmid, M; Schlemmer, H-P

2009-06-01

The efficiency and radiation dose of a low-dose dual-energy (DE) CT protocol for the evaluation of urinary calculus disease were evaluated. A low-dose dual-source DE-CT renal calculi protocol (140 kV, 46 mAs; 80 kV, 210 mAs) was derived from the single-energy (SE) CT protocol used in our institution for the detection of renal calculi (120 kV, 75 mAs). An Alderson-Rando phantom was equipped with thermoluminescence dosimeters and examined by CT with both protocols. The effective doses were calculated. Fifty-one patients with suspected or known urinary calculus disease underwent DE-CT. DE analysis was performed if calculi were detected using a dedicated software tool. Results were compared to chemical analysis after invasive calculus extraction. An effective dose of 3.43 mSv (male) and 5.30 mSv (female) was measured in the phantom for the DE protocol (vs. 3.17/4.57 mSv for the SE protocol). Urinary calculi were found in 34 patients; in 28 patients, calculi were removed and analyzed (23 patients with calcified calculi, three with uric acid calculi, one with 2,8-dihyxdroxyadenine-calculi, one patient with a mixed struvite calculus). DE analysis was able to distinguish between calcified and non-calcified calculi in all cases. In conclusion, dual-energy urinary calculus analysis is effective also with a low-dose protocol. The protocol tested in this study reliably identified calcified urinary calculi in vivo.

Dual-energy CT for the characterization of urinary calculi: In vitro and in vivo evaluation of a low-dose scanning protocol

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Thomas, C. [University of Tuebingen, Department of Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology, Tuebingen (Germany); Department of Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology, Tuebingen (Germany); Patschan, O.; Nagele, U.; Stenzl, A. [University of Tuebingen, Department of Urology, Tuebingen (Germany); Ketelsen, D.; Tsiflikas, I.; Reimann, A.; Brodoefel, H.; Claussen, C.; Kopp, A.; Heuschmid, M.; Schlemmer, H.P. [University of Tuebingen, Department of Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology, Tuebingen (Germany); Buchgeister, M. [University of Tuebingen, Medical Physics, Department of Radiation Oncology, Tuebingen (Germany)

2009-06-15

The efficiency and radiation dose of a low-dose dual-energy (DE) CT protocol for the evaluation of urinary calculus disease were evaluated. A low-dose dual-source DE-CT renal calculi protocol (140 kV, 46 mAs; 80 kV, 210 mAs) was derived from the single-energy (SE) CT protocol used in our institution for the detection of renal calculi (120 kV, 75 mAs). An Alderson-Rando phantom was equipped with thermoluminescence dosimeters and examined by CT with both protocols. The effective doses were calculated. Fifty-one patients with suspected or known urinary calculus disease underwent DE-CT. DE analysis was performed if calculi were detected using a dedicated software tool. Results were compared to chemical analysis after invasive calculus extraction. An effective dose of 3.43 mSv (male) and 5.30 mSv (female) was measured in the phantom for the DE protocol (vs. 3.17/4.57 mSv for the SE protocol). Urinary calculi were found in 34 patients; in 28 patients, calculi were removed and analyzed (23 patients with calcified calculi, three with uric acid calculi, one with 2,8-dihyxdroxyadenine-calculi, one patient with a mixed struvite calculus). DE analysis was able to distinguish between calcified and non-calcified calculi in all cases. In conclusion, dual-energy urinary calculus analysis is effective also with a low-dose protocol. The protocol tested in this study reliably identified calcified urinary calculi in vivo. (orig.)

Performance Analysis of TDMA Protocol in a Femtocell Network

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Wanod Kumar

2014-07-01

Full Text Available In this paper, we evaluate the performance of TDMA (Time Division Multiple Access protocol using queuing theory in a femtocell network. The fair use of wireless channel among the users of network is carried out using TDMA protocol. The arrival of data packets from M communicating nodes becomes multiple Poisson process. The time slots of TDMA protocol represent c servers to communicate data packets coming from communicating nodes to the input of FAP (Femtocell Access Point. The service time of each server (time slot is exponentially distributed. This complete communication scenario using TDMA protocol is modeled using M/M/c queue. The performance of the protocol is evaluated in terms of mean number in system, average system delay and utilization for varying traffic intensity

Differentiation/Purification Protocol for Retinal Pigment Epithelium from Mouse Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells as a Research Tool.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yuko Iwasaki

Full Text Available To establish a novel protocol for differentiation of retinal pigment epithelium (RPE with high purity from mouse induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC.Retinal progenitor cells were differentiated from mouse iPSC, and RPE differentiation was then enhanced by activation of the Wnt signaling pathway, inhibition of the fibroblast growth factor signaling pathway, and inhibition of the Rho-associated, coiled-coil containing protein kinase signaling pathway. Expanded pigmented cells were purified by plate adhesion after Accutase® treatment. Enriched cells were cultured until they developed a cobblestone appearance with cuboidal shape. The characteristics of iPS-RPE were confirmed by gene expression, immunocytochemistry, and electron microscopy. Functions and immunologic features of the iPS-RPE were also evaluated.We obtained iPS-RPE at high purity (approximately 98%. The iPS-RPE showed apical-basal polarity and cellular structure characteristic of RPE. Expression levels of several RPE markers were lower than those of freshly isolated mouse RPE but comparable to those of primary cultured RPE. The iPS-RPE could form tight junctions, phagocytose photoreceptor outer segments, express immune antigens, and suppress lymphocyte proliferation.We successfully developed a differentiation/purification protocol to obtain mouse iPS-RPE. The mouse iPS-RPE can serve as an attractive tool for functional and morphological studies of RPE.

Automatic Validation of Protocol Narration

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Bodei, Chiara; Buchholtz, Mikael; Degano, Pierpablo

2003-01-01

We perform a systematic expansion of protocol narrations into terms of a process algebra in order to make precise some of the detailed checks that need to be made in a protocol. We then apply static analysis technology to develop an automatic validation procedure for protocols. Finally, we...

Indicators and measurement tools for health system integration: a knowledge synthesis protocol.

Science.gov (United States)

Oelke, Nelly D; Suter, Esther; da Silva Lima, Maria Alice Dias; Van Vliet-Brown, Cheryl

2015-07-29

Health system integration is a key component of health system reform with the goal of improving outcomes for patients, providers, and the health system. Although health systems continue to strive for better integration, current delivery of health services continues to be fragmented. A key gap in the literature is the lack of information on what successful integration looks like and how to measure achievement towards an integrated system. This multi-site study protocol builds on a prior knowledge synthesis completed by two of the primary investigators which identified 10 key principles that collectively support health system integration. The aim is to answer two research questions: What are appropriate indicators for each of the 10 key integration principles developed in our previous knowledge synthesis and what measurement tools are used to measure these indicators? To enhance generalizability of the findings, a partnership between Canada and Brazil was created as health system integration is a priority in both countries and they share similar contexts. This knowledge synthesis will follow an iterative scoping review process with emerging information from knowledge-user engagement leading to the refinement of research questions and study selection. This paper describes the methods for each phase of the study. Research questions were developed with stakeholder input. Indicator identification and prioritization will utilize a modified Delphi method and patient/user focus groups. Based on priority indicators, a search of the literature will be completed and studies screened for inclusion. Quality appraisal of relevant studies will be completed prior to data extraction. Results will be used to develop recommendations and key messages to be presented through integrated and end-of-grant knowledge translation strategies with researchers and knowledge-users from the three jurisdictions. This project will directly benefit policy and decision-makers by providing an easy

Spacecraft Electrical Power System (EPS) generic analysis tools and techniques

Science.gov (United States)

Morris, Gladys M.; Sheppard, Mark A.

1992-01-01

An overview is provided of the analysis tools and techiques used in modeling the Space Station Freedom electrical power system, as well as future space vehicle power systems. The analysis capabilities of the Electrical Power System (EPS) are described and the EPS analysis tools are surveyed.

Vicissitudes of Nagoya Protocol in Colombia

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Rojas Blanco, Diana Lorena

2013-01-01

The fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from the utilization of genetic resources is not only one of the central objectives of the Nagoya Protocol, but also a challenge for communities of scientists, researchers, and indigenous ancestral generally for the educational community. It is therefore essential to know what the real and material implications for the population, the ratification of the Nagoya Protocol, which despite having sufficient justification and argued, highlights the need to develop legal tools, economic, technological and education for proper and fair implementation.

A Secure Three-Factor User Authentication and Key Agreement Protocol for TMIS With User Anonymity.

Science.gov (United States)

Amin, Ruhul; Biswas, G P

2015-08-01

Telecare medical information system (TMIS) makes an efficient and convenient connection between patient(s)/user(s) and doctor(s) over the insecure internet. Therefore, data security, privacy and user authentication are enormously important for accessing important medical data over insecure communication. Recently, many user authentication protocols for TMIS have been proposed in the literature and it has been observed that most of the protocols cannot achieve complete security requirements. In this paper, we have scrutinized two (Mishra et al., Xu et al.) remote user authentication protocols using smart card and explained that both the protocols are suffering against several security weaknesses. We have then presented three-factor user authentication and key agreement protocol usable for TMIS, which fix the security pitfalls of the above mentioned schemes. The informal cryptanalysis makes certain that the proposed protocol provides well security protection on the relevant security attacks. Furthermore, the simulator AVISPA tool confirms that the protocol is secure against active and passive attacks including replay and man-in-the-middle attacks. The security functionalities and performance comparison analysis confirm that our protocol not only provide strong protection on security attacks, but it also achieves better complexities along with efficient login and password change phase as well as session key verification property.

iLAP: a workflow-driven software for experimental protocol development, data acquisition and analysis

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

McNally James

2009-01-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background In recent years, the genome biology community has expended considerable effort to confront the challenges of managing heterogeneous data in a structured and organized way and developed laboratory information management systems (LIMS for both raw and processed data. On the other hand, electronic notebooks were developed to record and manage scientific data, and facilitate data-sharing. Software which enables both, management of large datasets and digital recording of laboratory procedures would serve a real need in laboratories using medium and high-throughput techniques. Results We have developed iLAP (Laboratory data management, Analysis, and Protocol development, a workflow-driven information management system specifically designed to create and manage experimental protocols, and to analyze and share laboratory data. The system combines experimental protocol development, wizard-based data acquisition, and high-throughput data analysis into a single, integrated system. We demonstrate the power and the flexibility of the platform using a microscopy case study based on a combinatorial multiple fluorescence in situ hybridization (m-FISH protocol and 3D-image reconstruction. iLAP is freely available under the open source license AGPL from http://genome.tugraz.at/iLAP/. Conclusion iLAP is a flexible and versatile information management system, which has the potential to close the gap between electronic notebooks and LIMS and can therefore be of great value for a broad scientific community.

Analysis of limiting information characteristics of quantum-cryptography protocols

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sych, D V; Grishanin, Boris A; Zadkov, Viktor N

2005-01-01

The problem of increasing the critical error rate of quantum-cryptography protocols by varying a set of letters in a quantum alphabet for space of a fixed dimensionality is studied. Quantum alphabets forming regular polyhedra on the Bloch sphere and the continual alphabet equally including all the quantum states are considered. It is shown that, in the absence of basis reconciliation, a protocol with the tetrahedral alphabet has the highest critical error rate among the protocols considered, while after the basis reconciliation, a protocol with the continual alphabet possesses the highest critical error rate. (quantum optics and quantum computation)

Hydrogen Financial Analysis Scenario Tool (H2FAST). Web Tool User's Manual

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Bush, B. [National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Penev, M. [National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Melaina, M. [National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Zuboy, J. [Independent Consultant, Golden, CO (United States)

2015-05-11

The Hydrogen Financial Analysis Scenario Tool (H2FAST) provides a quick and convenient indepth financial analysis for hydrogen fueling stations. This manual describes how to use the H2FAST web tool, which is one of three H2FAST formats developed by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). Although all of the formats are based on the same financial computations and conform to generally accepted accounting principles (FASAB 2014, Investopedia 2014), each format provides a different level of complexity and user interactivity.

Allowing Students to Select Deliverables for Peer Review: Analysis of a Free-Selection Protocol

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Papadopoulos, Pantelis M.; Lagkas, Thomas; Demetriadis, Stavros

2011-01-01

This study analyzes the benefits and limitations of a “free-selection” peer assignment protocol by comparing them to the widely implemented “assigned-pair” protocol. The primary motivation was to circumvent the issues that often appear to the instructors implementing peer review activities with pre......-Selection, where students were able to explore and select peer work for review. Result analysis showed a very strong tendency in favor of the Free-Selection students regarding both domain specific (conceptual) and domain-general (reviewing) knowledge....

Beyond communication: the role of standardized protocols in a changing health care environment.

Science.gov (United States)

Vardaman, James M; Cornell, Paul; Gondo, Maria B; Amis, John M; Townsend-Gervis, Mary; Thetford, Carol

2012-01-01

Communication errors have grave consequences in health care settings. The situation-background-assessment-recommendation (SBAR) protocol has been theorized to improve communication by creating a common language between nurses and physicians in acute care situations. This practice is gaining acceptance across the health care field. However, as yet, there has been little investigation of the ways in which SBAR may have an impact on how health care professionals operate beyond the creation of a common language. The purposes of the study were to explore the implementation of the SBAR protocol and investigate the potential impact of SBAR on the day-to-day experiences of nurses. We performed a qualitative case study of 2 hospitals that were implementing the SBAR protocol. We collected data from 80 semistructured interviews with nurses, nurse manager, and physicians; observation of nursing and other hospital activities; and documents that pertained to the implementation of the SBAR protocol. Data were analyzed using a thematic approach. Our analysis revealed 4 dimensions of impact that SBAR has beyond its use as a communication tool: schema formation, development of legitimacy, development of social capital, and reinforcement of dominant logics. The results indicate that SBAR may function as more than a tool to standardize communication among nurses and physicians. Rather, the findings indicate that SBAR may aid in schema development that allows rapid decision making by nurses, provide social capital and legitimacy for less-tenured nurses, and reinforce a move toward standardization in the nursing profession. Our findings further suggest that standardized protocols such as SBAR may be a cost-effective method for hospital managers and administrators to accelerate the socialization of nurses, particularly new hires.

An Enhanced Biometric Based Authentication with Key-Agreement Protocol for Multi-Server Architecture Based on Elliptic Curve Cryptography

Science.gov (United States)

Reddy, Alavalapati Goutham; Das, Ashok Kumar; Odelu, Vanga; Yoo, Kee-Young

2016-01-01

Biometric based authentication protocols for multi-server architectures have gained momentum in recent times due to advancements in wireless technologies and associated constraints. Lu et al. recently proposed a robust biometric based authentication with key agreement protocol for a multi-server environment using smart cards. They claimed that their protocol is efficient and resistant to prominent security attacks. The careful investigation of this paper proves that Lu et al.’s protocol does not provide user anonymity, perfect forward secrecy and is susceptible to server and user impersonation attacks, man-in-middle attacks and clock synchronization problems. In addition, this paper proposes an enhanced biometric based authentication with key-agreement protocol for multi-server architecture based on elliptic curve cryptography using smartcards. We proved that the proposed protocol achieves mutual authentication using Burrows-Abadi-Needham (BAN) logic. The formal security of the proposed protocol is verified using the AVISPA (Automated Validation of Internet Security Protocols and Applications) tool to show that our protocol can withstand active and passive attacks. The formal and informal security analyses and performance analysis demonstrates that the proposed protocol is robust and efficient compared to Lu et al.’s protocol and existing similar protocols. PMID:27163786

An Enhanced Biometric Based Authentication with Key-Agreement Protocol for Multi-Server Architecture Based on Elliptic Curve Cryptography.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Alavalapati Goutham Reddy

Full Text Available Biometric based authentication protocols for multi-server architectures have gained momentum in recent times due to advancements in wireless technologies and associated constraints. Lu et al. recently proposed a robust biometric based authentication with key agreement protocol for a multi-server environment using smart cards. They claimed that their protocol is efficient and resistant to prominent security attacks. The careful investigation of this paper proves that Lu et al.'s protocol does not provide user anonymity, perfect forward secrecy and is susceptible to server and user impersonation attacks, man-in-middle attacks and clock synchronization problems. In addition, this paper proposes an enhanced biometric based authentication with key-agreement protocol for multi-server architecture based on elliptic curve cryptography using smartcards. We proved that the proposed protocol achieves mutual authentication using Burrows-Abadi-Needham (BAN logic. The formal security of the proposed protocol is verified using the AVISPA (Automated Validation of Internet Security Protocols and Applications tool to show that our protocol can withstand active and passive attacks. The formal and informal security analyses and performance analysis demonstrates that the proposed protocol is robust and efficient compared to Lu et al.'s protocol and existing similar protocols.

Interactive Construction Digital Tools With Real Time Analysis

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Klitgaard, Jens; Kirkegaard, Poul Henning

2007-01-01

. The aim of this research is to look into integrated digital design and analysis tools in order to find out if it is suited for use by architects and designers or only by specialists and technicians - and if not, then to look at what can be done to make them more available to architects and designers...... an architect-engineer or hybrid practitioner works simultaneously with both aesthetic and technical design requirements. In this paper the problem of a vague or not existing link between digital design tools, used by architects and designers, and the analysis tools developed by and for engineers is considered......The recent developments in computational design tools have evolved into a sometimes purely digital process which opens up for new perspectives and problems in the sketching process. One of the interesting possibilities lay within the hybrid practitioner- or architect-engineer approach, where...

Protocol: An updated integrated methodology for analysis of metabolites and enzyme activities of ethylene biosynthesis

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Geeraerd Annemie H

2011-06-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background The foundations for ethylene research were laid many years ago by researchers such as Lizada, Yang and Hoffman. Nowadays, most of the methods developed by them are still being used. Technological developments since then have led to small but significant improvements, contributing to a more efficient workflow. Despite this, many of these improvements have never been properly documented. Results This article provides an updated, integrated set of protocols suitable for the assembly of a complete picture of ethylene biosynthesis, including the measurement of ethylene itself. The original protocols for the metabolites 1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylic acid and 1-(malonylaminocyclopropane-1-carboxylic acid have been updated and downscaled, while protocols to determine in vitro activities of the key enzymes 1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylate synthase and 1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylate oxidase have been optimised for efficiency, repeatability and accuracy. All the protocols described were optimised for apple fruit, but have been proven to be suitable for the analysis of tomato fruit as well. Conclusions This work collates an integrated set of detailed protocols for the measurement of components of the ethylene biosynthetic pathway, starting from well-established methods. These protocols have been optimised for smaller sample volumes, increased efficiency, repeatability and accuracy. The detailed protocol allows other scientists to rapidly implement these methods in their own laboratories in a consistent and efficient way.

SBOAT: A Stochastic BPMN Analysis and Optimisation Tool

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Herbert, Luke Thomas; Hansen, Zaza Nadja Lee; Jacobsen, Peter

2014-01-01

In this paper we present a description of a tool development framework, called SBOAT, for the quantitative analysis of graph based process modelling languages based upon the Business Process Modelling and Notation (BPMN) language, extended with intention preserving stochastic branching and parame......In this paper we present a description of a tool development framework, called SBOAT, for the quantitative analysis of graph based process modelling languages based upon the Business Process Modelling and Notation (BPMN) language, extended with intention preserving stochastic branching...

Development of Visualization Tools for ZPPR-15 Analysis

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lee, Min Jae; Kim, Sang Ji

2014-01-01

ZPPR-15 cores consist of various drawer masters that have great heterogeneity. In order to build a proper homogenization strategy, the geometry of the drawer masters should be carefully analyzed with a visualization. Additionally, a visualization of drawer masters and the core configuration is necessary for minimizing human error during the input processing. For this purpose, visualization tools for a ZPPR-15 analysis has been developed based on a Perl script. In the following section, the implementation of visualization tools will be described and various visualization samples for both drawer masters and ZPPR-15 cores will be demonstrated. Visualization tools for drawer masters and a core configuration were successfully developed for a ZPPR-15 analysis. The visualization tools are expected to be useful for understanding ZPPR-15 experiments, and finding deterministic models of ZPPR-15. It turned out that generating VTK files is handy but the application of VTK files is powerful with the aid of the VISIT program

Analysis of Intracellular Metabolites from Microorganisms: Quenching and Extraction Protocols.

Science.gov (United States)

Pinu, Farhana R; Villas-Boas, Silas G; Aggio, Raphael

2017-10-23

Sample preparation is one of the most important steps in metabolome analysis. The challenges of determining microbial metabolome have been well discussed within the research community and many improvements have already been achieved in last decade. The analysis of intracellular metabolites is particularly challenging. Environmental perturbations may considerably affect microbial metabolism, which results in intracellular metabolites being rapidly degraded or metabolized by enzymatic reactions. Therefore, quenching or the complete stop of cell metabolism is a pre-requisite for accurate intracellular metabolite analysis. After quenching, metabolites need to be extracted from the intracellular compartment. The choice of the most suitable metabolite extraction method/s is another crucial step. The literature indicates that specific classes of metabolites are better extracted by different extraction protocols. In this review, we discuss the technical aspects and advancements of quenching and extraction of intracellular metabolite analysis from microbial cells.

Physics analysis tools for beauty physics in ATLAS

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Anastopoulos, C; Bouhova-Thacker, E; Catmore, J; Mora, L de; Dallison, S; Derue, F; Epp, B; Jussel, P; Kaczmarska, A; Radziewski, H v; Stahl, T; Reznicek, P

2008-01-01

The Large Hadron Collider experiments will search for physics phenomena beyond the Standard Model. Highly sensitive tests of beauty hadrons will represent an alternative approach to this research. The analysis of complex decay chains of the beauty hadrons have to efficiently extract the detector tracks made by these reactions and reject other events in order to make sufficiently precise measurement. This places severe demands on the software used to analyze the B-physics data. The ATLAS B-physics group has written a series of tools and algorithms for performing these tasks, to be run within the ATLAS offline software framework Athena. This paper describes this analysis suite, paying particular attention to mechanisms for handling combinatorics, interfaces to secondary vertex fitting packages, B-flavor tagging tools and finally Monte Carlo true information association to pursue simulation data in process of the software validations which is an important part of the development of the physics analysis tools

5D Task Analysis Visualization Tool, Phase I

Data.gov (United States)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — The creation of a five-dimensional task analysis visualization (5D-TAV) software tool for Task Analysis and Workload Planning using multi-dimensional visualization...

A Student Teamwork Induction Protocol

Science.gov (United States)

Kamau, Caroline; Spong, Abigail

2015-01-01

Faulty group processes have harmful effects on performance but there is little research about intervention protocols to pre-empt them in higher education. This naturalistic experiment compared a control cohort with an inducted cohort. The inducted cohort attended a workshop, consultations, elected a leader and used tools (a group log and group…

The micro-step motor controller protocol and driver

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hong, Kwang Pyo; Lee, Chang Hee; Moon, Myung Kook; Choi, Bung Hun; Choi, Young Hyun; Cheon, Jong Gu

2004-11-01

We developed the communication protocol which is a main kernel of motor control firmware program that is used at HANARO neutron spectrometer now. This protocol driver divide into as a 4 group(Serial protocol, DLL, Active-X, Labview driver), so end-user can control the motor control as easily by PC RS232/422 port and have a merits as follows: Support a Low Level/High level driver, Support a Network Connectivity function by using High level Driver, One Server can services many client request. By using this protocol, The End-user can be easily makes a application motor control program and developed another application system program by using several kinds of programming tools under Widows and Linux based operation systems

Risk analysis tools for force protection and infrastructure/asset protection

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Jaeger, C.D.; Duggan, R.A.; Paulus, W.K.

1998-01-01

The Security Systems and Technology Center at Sandia National Laboratories has for many years been involved in the development and use of vulnerability assessment and risk analysis tools. In particular, two of these tools, ASSESS and JTS, have been used extensively for Department of Energy facilities. Increasingly, Sandia has been called upon to evaluate critical assets and infrastructures, support DoD force protection activities and assist in the protection of facilities from terrorist attacks using weapons of mass destruction. Sandia is involved in many different activities related to security and force protection and is expanding its capabilities by developing new risk analysis tools to support a variety of users. One tool, in the very early stages of development, is EnSURE, Engineered Surety Using the Risk Equation. EnSURE addresses all of the risk equation and integrates the many components into a single, tool-supported process to help determine the most cost-effective ways to reduce risk. This paper will briefly discuss some of these risk analysis tools within the EnSURE framework

A SERS protocol as a potential tool to access 6-mercaptopurine release accelerated by glutathione-S-transferase.

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Ying; Sun, Jie; Yang, Qingran; Lu, Wenbo; Li, Yan; Dong, Jian; Qian, Weiping

2015-11-21

The developed method for monitoring GST, an important drug metabolic enzyme, could greatly facilitate researches on relative biological fields. In this work, we have developed a SERS technique to monitor the absorbance behaviour of 6-mercaptopurine (6-MP) and its glutathione-S-transferase (GST)-accelerated glutathione (GSH)-triggered release behaviour on the surface of gold nanoflowers (GNFs), using the GNFs as excellent SERS substrates. The SERS signal was used as an indicator of absorbance or release of 6-MP on the gold surface. We found that GST can accelerate GSH-triggered release behaviour of 6-MP from the gold surface. We speculated that GST catalyzes nucleophilic GSH to competitively bind with the electrophilic substance 6-MP. Experimental results have proved that the presented SERS protocol can be utilized as an effective tool for accessing the release of anticancer drugs.

Compiling symbolic attacks to protocol implementation tests

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Michael Rusinowitch

2013-07-01

Full Text Available Recently efficient model-checking tools have been developed to find flaws in security protocols specifications. These flaws can be interpreted as potential attacks scenarios but the feasability of these scenarios need to be confirmed at the implementation level. However, bridging the gap between an abstract attack scenario derived from a specification and a penetration test on real implementations of a protocol is still an open issue. This work investigates an architecture for automatically generating abstract attacks and converting them to concrete tests on protocol implementations. In particular we aim to improve previously proposed blackbox testing methods in order to discover automatically new attacks and vulnerabilities. As a proof of concept we have experimented our proposed architecture to detect a renegotiation vulnerability on some implementations of SSL/TLS, a protocol widely used for securing electronic transactions.

Applying AI tools to operational space environmental analysis

Science.gov (United States)

Krajnak, Mike; Jesse, Lisa; Mucks, John

1995-01-01

The U.S. Air Force and National Oceanic Atmospheric Agency (NOAA) space environmental operations centers are facing increasingly complex challenges meeting the needs of their growing user community. These centers provide current space environmental information and short term forecasts of geomagnetic activity. Recent advances in modeling and data access have provided sophisticated tools for making accurate and timely forecasts, but have introduced new problems associated with handling and analyzing large quantities of complex data. AI (Artificial Intelligence) techniques have been considered as potential solutions to some of these problems. Fielding AI systems has proven more difficult than expected, in part because of operational constraints. Using systems which have been demonstrated successfully in the operational environment will provide a basis for a useful data fusion and analysis capability. Our approach uses a general purpose AI system already in operational use within the military intelligence community, called the Temporal Analysis System (TAS). TAS is an operational suite of tools supporting data processing, data visualization, historical analysis, situation assessment and predictive analysis. TAS includes expert system tools to analyze incoming events for indications of particular situations and predicts future activity. The expert system operates on a knowledge base of temporal patterns encoded using a knowledge representation called Temporal Transition Models (TTM's) and an event database maintained by the other TAS tools. The system also includes a robust knowledge acquisition and maintenance tool for creating TTM's using a graphical specification language. The ability to manipulate TTM's in a graphical format gives non-computer specialists an intuitive way of accessing and editing the knowledge base. To support space environmental analyses, we used TAS's ability to define domain specific event analysis abstractions. The prototype system defines

Static Validation of Security Protocols

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Bodei, Chiara; Buchholtz, Mikael; Degano, P.

2005-01-01

We methodically expand protocol narrations into terms of a process algebra in order to specify some of the checks that need to be made in a protocol. We then apply static analysis technology to develop an automatic validation procedure for protocols. Finally, we demonstrate that these techniques ...... suffice to identify several authentication flaws in symmetric and asymmetric key protocols such as Needham-Schroeder symmetric key, Otway-Rees, Yahalom, Andrew secure RPC, Needham-Schroeder asymmetric key, and Beller-Chang-Yacobi MSR...

Evaluation of Extraction Protocols for Simultaneous Polar and Non-Polar Yeast Metabolite Analysis Using Multivariate Projection Methods

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Nicolas P. Tambellini

2013-07-01

Full Text Available Metabolomic and lipidomic approaches aim to measure metabolites or lipids in the cell. Metabolite extraction is a key step in obtaining useful and reliable data for successful metabolite studies. Significant efforts have been made to identify the optimal extraction protocol for various platforms and biological systems, for both polar and non-polar metabolites. Here we report an approach utilizing chemoinformatics for systematic comparison of protocols to extract both from a single sample of the model yeast organism Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Three chloroform/methanol/water partitioning based extraction protocols found in literature were evaluated for their effectiveness at reproducibly extracting both polar and non-polar metabolites. Fatty acid methyl esters and methoxyamine/trimethylsilyl derivatized aqueous compounds were analyzed by gas chromatography mass spectrometry to evaluate non-polar or polar metabolite analysis. The comparative breadth and amount of recovered metabolites was evaluated using multivariate projection methods. This approach identified an optimal protocol consisting of 64 identified polar metabolites from 105 ion hits and 12 fatty acids recovered, and will potentially attenuate the error and variation associated with combining metabolite profiles from different samples for untargeted analysis with both polar and non-polar analytes. It also confirmed the value of using multivariate projection methods to compare established extraction protocols.

Data-base tools for enhanced analysis of TMX-U data

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Stewart, M.E.; Carter, M.R.; Casper, T.A.; Meyer, W.H.; Perkins, D.E.; Whitney, D.M.

1986-01-01

The authors use a commercial data-base software package to create several data-base products that enhance the ability of experimental physicists to analyze data from the TMX-U experiment. This software resides on a Dec-20 computer in M-Divisions's user service center (USC), where data can be analyzed separately from the main acquisition computers. When these data-base tools are combined with interactive data analysis programs, physicists can perform automated (batch-style) processing or interactive data analysis on the computers in the USC or on the supercomputers of the NMFECC, in addition to the normal processing done on the acquisition system. One data-base tool provides highly reduced data for searching and correlation analysis of several diagnostic signals for a single shot or many shots. A second data-base tool provides retrieval and storage of unreduced data for detailed analysis of one or more diagnostic signals. The authors report how these data-base tools form the core of an evolving off-line data-analysis environment on the USC computers

XPS Protocol for the Characterization of Pristine and Functionalized Single Wall Carbon Nanotubes

Science.gov (United States)

Sosa, E. D.; Allada, R.; Huffman, C. B.; Arepalli, S.

2009-01-01

Recent interest in developing new applications for carbon nanotubes (CNT) has fueled the need to use accurate macroscopic and nanoscopic techniques to characterize and understand their chemistry. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) has proved to be a useful analytical tool for nanoscale surface characterization of materials including carbon nanotubes. Recent nanotechnology research at NASA Johnson Space Center (NASA-JSC) helped to establish a characterization protocol for quality assessment for single wall carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs). Here, a review of some of the major factors of the XPS technique that can influence the quality of analytical data, suggestions for methods to maximize the quality of data obtained by XPS, and the development of a protocol for XPS characterization as a complementary technique for analyzing the purity and surface characteristics of SWCNTs is presented. The XPS protocol is then applied to a number of experiments including impurity analysis and the study of chemical modifications for SWCNTs.

A Flow Cytometry Protocol to Estimate DNA Content in the Yellowtail Tetra Astyanax altiparanae

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Pedro L. P. Xavier

2017-09-01

Full Text Available The production of triploid yellowtail tetra Astyanax altiparanae is a key factor to obtain permanently sterile individuals by chromosome set manipulation. Flow cytometric analysis is the main tool for confirmation of the resultant triploids individuals, but very few protocols are specific for A. altiparanae species. The current study has developed a protocol to estimate DNA content in this species. Furthermore, a protocol for long-term storage of dorsal fins used for flow cytometry analysis was established. The combination of five solutions with three detergents (Nonidet P-40 Substitute, Tween 20, and Triton X-100 at 0.1, 0.2, and 0.4% concentration was evaluated. Using the best solution from this first experiment, the addition of trypsin (0.125, 0.25, and 0.5% and sucrose (74 mM and the effects of increased concentrations of the detergents at 0.6 and 1.2% concentration were also evaluated. After adjustment of the protocol for flow cytometry, preservation of somatic tissue or isolated nuclei was also evaluated by freezing (at −20°C and fixation in saturated NaCl solution, acetic methanol (1:3, ethanol, and formalin at 10% for 30 or 60 days of storage at 25°C. Flow cytometry analysis in yellowtail tetra species was optimized using the following conditions: lysis solution: 9.53 mM MgCl2.7H20; 47.67 mM KCl; 15 mM Tris; 74 mM sucrose, 0.6% Triton X-100, pH 8.0; staining solution: Dulbecco's PBS with DAPI 1 μg mL−1; preservation procedure: somatic cells (dorsal fin samples frozen at −20°C. Using this protocol, samples may be stored up to 60 days with good accuracy for flow cytometry analysis.

Tools for Developing a Quality Management Program: Proactive Tools (Process Mapping, Value Stream Mapping, Fault Tree Analysis, and Failure Mode and Effects Analysis)

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Rath, Frank

2008-01-01

This article examines the concepts of quality management (QM) and quality assurance (QA), as well as the current state of QM and QA practices in radiotherapy. A systematic approach incorporating a series of industrial engineering-based tools is proposed, which can be applied in health care organizations proactively to improve process outcomes, reduce risk and/or improve patient safety, improve through-put, and reduce cost. This tool set includes process mapping and process flowcharting, failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA), value stream mapping, and fault tree analysis (FTA). Many health care organizations do not have experience in applying these tools and therefore do not understand how and when to use them. As a result there are many misconceptions about how to use these tools, and they are often incorrectly applied. This article describes these industrial engineering-based tools and also how to use them, when they should be used (and not used), and the intended purposes for their use. In addition the strengths and weaknesses of each of these tools are described, and examples are given to demonstrate the application of these tools in health care settings

Analysis of Intracellular Metabolites from Microorganisms: Quenching and Extraction Protocols

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Farhana R. Pinu

2017-10-01

Full Text Available Sample preparation is one of the most important steps in metabolome analysis. The challenges of determining microbial metabolome have been well discussed within the research community and many improvements have already been achieved in last decade. The analysis of intracellular metabolites is particularly challenging. Environmental perturbations may considerably affect microbial metabolism, which results in intracellular metabolites being rapidly degraded or metabolized by enzymatic reactions. Therefore, quenching or the complete stop of cell metabolism is a pre-requisite for accurate intracellular metabolite analysis. After quenching, metabolites need to be extracted from the intracellular compartment. The choice of the most suitable metabolite extraction method/s is another crucial step. The literature indicates that specific classes of metabolites are better extracted by different extraction protocols. In this review, we discuss the technical aspects and advancements of quenching and extraction of intracellular metabolite analysis from microbial cells.

Building a protocol expressway: the case of Mayo Clinic Cancer Center.

Science.gov (United States)

McJoynt, Terre A; Hirzallah, Muhanad A; Satele, Daniel V; Pitzen, Jason H; Alberts, Steven R; Rajkumar, S Vincent

2009-08-10

Inconsistencies and errors resulting from nonstandard processes, together with redundancies, rework, and excess workload, lead to extended time frames for clinical trial protocol development. This results in dissatisfaction among sponsors, investigators, and staff and restricts the availability of novel treatment options for patients. A team of experts from Mayo Clinic formed, including Protocol Development Unit staff and management from the three Mayo Clinic campuses (Florida, Minnesota, and Arizona), a systems and procedures analyst, a quality office analyst, and two physician members to address the identified deficiencies. The current-state process was intensively reviewed, and improvement steps were taken to accelerate the development and approval of cancer-related clinical trials. The primary goal was to decrease the time from receipt of a new protocol through submission to an approving authority, such as the National Cancer Institute or institutional review board. Using the Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control (DMAIC) framework infused with Lean waste-reduction methodologies, areas were identified for improvement, including enhancing first-time quality and processing new studies on a first-in/first-out basis. The project was successful in improving the mean turnaround time for internally authored protocols (P Lean methodologies is an effective tool to structure the definition, planning, analysis, and implementation of significant process changes.

A Review of Pathway-Based Analysis Tools That Visualize Genetic Variants

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Elisa Cirillo

2017-11-01

Full Text Available Pathway analysis is a powerful method for data analysis in genomics, most often applied to gene expression analysis. It is also promising for single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP data analysis, such as genome-wide association study data, because it allows the interpretation of variants with respect to the biological processes in which the affected genes and proteins are involved. Such analyses support an interactive evaluation of the possible effects of variations on function, regulation or interaction of gene products. Current pathway analysis software often does not support data visualization of variants in pathways as an alternate method to interpret genetic association results, and specific statistical methods for pathway analysis of SNP data are not combined with these visualization features. In this review, we first describe the visualization options of the tools that were identified by a literature review, in order to provide insight for improvements in this developing field. Tool evaluation was performed using a computational epistatic dataset of gene–gene interactions for obesity risk. Next, we report the necessity to include in these tools statistical methods designed for the pathway-based analysis with SNP data, expressly aiming to define features for more comprehensive pathway-based analysis tools. We conclude by recognizing that pathway analysis of genetic variations data requires a sophisticated combination of the most useful and informative visual aspects of the various tools evaluated.

Investigation of the Study Characteristics Affecting Clinical Trial Quality Using the Protocol Deviations Leading to Exclusion of Subjects From the Per Protocol Set Data in Studies for New Drug Application: A Retrospective Analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

Kohara, Norihito; Kaneko, Masayuki; Narukawa, Mamoru

2018-01-01

The concept of the risk-based approach has been introduced as an effort to secure the quality of clinical trials. In the risk-based approach, identification and evaluation of risk in advance are considered important. For recently completed clinical trials, we investigated the relationship between study characteristics and protocol deviations leading to the exclusion of subjects from Per Protocol Set (PPS) efficacy analysis. New drugs approved in Japan in the fiscal year 2014-2015 were targeted in the research. The reasons for excluding subjects from the PPS efficacy analysis were described in 102 trials out of 492 in the summary of new drug application documents, which was publicly disclosed after the drug's regulatory approval. The author extracted these reasons along with the numbers of the cases and the study characteristics of each clinical trial. Then, the direct comparison, univariate regression analysis, and multivariate regression analysis was carried out based on the exclusion rate. The study characteristics for which exclusion of subjects from the PPS efficacy analysis were frequently observed was multiregional clinical trials in study region; inhalant and external use in administration route; Anti-infective for systemic use; Respiratory system, Dermatologicals, and Nervous system in therapeutic drug under the Anatomical Therapeutic Chemical Classification. In the multivariate regression analysis, the clinical trial variables of inhalant, Respiratory system, or Dermatologicals were selected as study characteristics leading to a higher exclusion rate. The characteristics of the clinical trial that is likely to cause protocol deviations that will affect efficacy analysis were suggested. These studies should be considered for specific attention and priority observation in the trial protocol or its monitoring plan and execution, such as a clear description of inclusion/exclusion criteria in the protocol, development of training materials to site staff, and

MR efficiency using automated MRI-desktop eProtocol

Science.gov (United States)

Gao, Fei; Xu, Yanzhe; Panda, Anshuman; Zhang, Min; Hanson, James; Su, Congzhe; Wu, Teresa; Pavlicek, William; James, Judy R.

2017-03-01

MRI protocols are instruction sheets that radiology technologists use in routine clinical practice for guidance (e.g., slice position, acquisition parameters etc.). In Mayo Clinic Arizona (MCA), there are over 900 MR protocols (ranging across neuro, body, cardiac, breast etc.) which makes maintaining and updating the protocol instructions a labor intensive effort. The task is even more challenging given different vendors (Siemens, GE etc.). This is a universal problem faced by all the hospitals and/or medical research institutions. To increase the efficiency of the MR practice, we designed and implemented a web-based platform (eProtocol) to automate the management of MRI protocols. It is built upon a database that automatically extracts protocol information from DICOM compliant images and provides a user-friendly interface to the technologists to create, edit and update the protocols. Advanced operations such as protocol migrations from scanner to scanner and capability to upload Multimedia content were also implemented. To the best of our knowledge, eProtocol is the first MR protocol automated management tool used clinically. It is expected that this platform will significantly improve the radiology operations efficiency including better image quality and exam consistency, fewer repeat examinations and less acquisition errors. These protocols instructions will be readily available to the technologists during scans. In addition, this web-based platform can be extended to other imaging modalities such as CT, Mammography, and Interventional Radiology and different vendors for imaging protocol management.

Quick Spacecraft Thermal Analysis Tool, Phase II

Data.gov (United States)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — For spacecraft design and development teams concerned with cost and schedule, the Quick Spacecraft Thermal Analysis Tool (QuickSTAT) is an innovative software suite...

Accelerator physics analysis with interactive tools

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Holt, J.A.; Michelotti, L.

1993-05-01

Work is in progress on interactive tools for linear and nonlinear accelerator design, analysis, and simulation using X-based graphics. The BEAMLINE and MXYZPTLK class libraries, were used with an X Windows graphics library to build a program for interactively editing lattices and studying their properties

Porcupine: A visual pipeline tool for neuroimaging analysis.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tim van Mourik

2018-05-01

Full Text Available The field of neuroimaging is rapidly adopting a more reproducible approach to data acquisition and analysis. Data structures and formats are being standardised and data analyses are getting more automated. However, as data analysis becomes more complicated, researchers often have to write longer analysis scripts, spanning different tools across multiple programming languages. This makes it more difficult to share or recreate code, reducing the reproducibility of the analysis. We present a tool, Porcupine, that constructs one's analysis visually and automatically produces analysis code. The graphical representation improves understanding of the performed analysis, while retaining the flexibility of modifying the produced code manually to custom needs. Not only does Porcupine produce the analysis code, it also creates a shareable environment for running the code in the form of a Docker image. Together, this forms a reproducible way of constructing, visualising and sharing one's analysis. Currently, Porcupine links to Nipype functionalities, which in turn accesses most standard neuroimaging analysis tools. Our goal is to release researchers from the constraints of specific implementation details, thereby freeing them to think about novel and creative ways to solve a given problem. Porcupine improves the overview researchers have of their processing pipelines, and facilitates both the development and communication of their work. This will reduce the threshold at which less expert users can generate reusable pipelines. With Porcupine, we bridge the gap between a conceptual and an implementational level of analysis and make it easier for researchers to create reproducible and shareable science. We provide a wide range of examples and documentation, as well as installer files for all platforms on our website: https://timvanmourik.github.io/Porcupine. Porcupine is free, open source, and released under the GNU General Public License v3.0.

A new clinical tool for the quantification of myocardial CT perfusion imaging in patients with suspected Ischemic Heart Disease

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Ruiz Muñoz, A.; Dux-Santoy Hurtado, L.; Rodriguez Palomares, J.L.; Piella Fenoy, G.

2016-07-01

In the clinical practice, the evaluation of myocardial perfusion by using Computed Tomography (CT) Imaging is usually performed visually or semi-quantitatively. The scarcity of quantitative perfusion data not always allows a proper diagnose of patients which are suspected of suffering from some diseases, such as Ischemic Heart Disease (IHD). In this work, a clinical tool for the automatic quantification of myocardial perfusion in patients with suspected IHD is proposed. Myocardial perfusion is assessed based on a combined diagnosis protocol (CT/CTP protocol) which involves the acquisition of two contrastenhanced CT images, one obtained at rest and another acquired under pharmacological stress. The clinical tool allows the automatic quantification of perfusion in different myocardial segments defined according to the 16-AHA-segmentation model of the left ventricle, by providing the mean of Hounsfield Units in those regions. Based on this analysis, the clinicians can compare the values at baseline and at hyperemia, and they can better determine hypoperfusion defects in patients with IHD. The validation of the clinical tool was performed by comparing automatic and manual perfusion measurements of 10 patients with suspected IHD who were previously assessed with Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography (SPECT) for perfusion analysis. A strong linear correlation was found between the automatic and manual results. Afterwards, perfusion defects obtained from CT/CTP protocol were compared to perfusion defects from SPECT, to assess the applicability of this clinical tool for the diagnosis of IHD. (Author)

Analysis of 213 currently used rehabilitation protocols in foot and ankle fractures.

Science.gov (United States)

Pfeifer, Christian G; Grechenig, Stephan; Frankewycz, Borys; Ernstberger, Antonio; Nerlich, Michael; Krutsch, Werner

2015-10-01

Fractures of the ankle, hind- and midfoot are amongst the five most common fractures. Besides initial operative or non-operative treatment, rehabilitation of the patients plays a crucial role for fracture union and long term functional outcome. Limited evidence is available with regard to what a rehabilitation regimen should include and what guidelines should be in place for the initial clinical course of these patients. This study therefore investigated the current rehabilitation concepts after fractures of the ankle, hind- and midfoot. Written rehabilitation protocols provided by orthopedic and trauma surgery institutions in terms of recommendations for weight bearing, range of motion (ROM), physiotherapy and choice of orthosis were screened and analysed. All protocols for lateral ankle fractures type AO 44A1, AO 44B1 and AO 44C1, for calcaneal fractures and fractures of the metatarsal as well as other not specific were included. Descriptive analysis was carried out and statistical analysis applied where appropriate. 209 rehabilitation protocols for ankle fractures type AO 44B1 and AO 44C1, 98 for AO 44A1, 193 for metatarsal fractures, 142 for calcaneal fractures, 107 for 5(th) metatarsal base fractures and 70 for 5(th) metatarsal Jones fractures were evaluated. The mean time recommended for orthosis treatment was 6.04 (SD 0.04) weeks. While the majority of protocols showed a trend towards increased weight bearing and increased ROM over time, the best consensus was noted for weight bearing recommendations. Our study shows that there exists a huge variability in rehabilitation of fractures of the ankle-, hind- and midfoot. This may be contributed to a lack of consensus (e.g. missing publication of guidelines), individualized patient care (e.g. in fragility fractures) or lack of specialization. This study might serve as basis for prospective randomized controlled trials in order to optimize rehabilitation for these common fractures. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd

Analysis of Alternatives for Risk Assessment Methodologies and Tools

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Nachtigal, Noel M. [Sandia National Lab. (SNL-CA), Livermore, CA (United States). System Analytics; Fruetel, Julia A. [Sandia National Lab. (SNL-CA), Livermore, CA (United States). Systems Research and Analysis; Gleason, Nathaniel J. [Sandia National Lab. (SNL-CA), Livermore, CA (United States). Systems Research and Analysis; Helms, Jovana [Sandia National Lab. (SNL-CA), Livermore, CA (United States). Systems Research and Analysis; Imbro, Dennis Raymond [Sandia National Lab. (SNL-CA), Livermore, CA (United States). Systems Research and Analysis; Sumner, Matthew C. [Sandia National Lab. (SNL-CA), Livermore, CA (United States). Systems Research and Analysis

2013-10-01

The purpose of this document is to provide a basic overview and understanding of risk assessment methodologies and tools from the literature and to assess the suitability of these methodologies and tools for cyber risk assessment. Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) performed this review in support of risk modeling activities performed for the Stakeholder Engagement and Cyber Infrastructure Resilience (SECIR) division of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Office of Cybersecurity and Communications (CS&C). The set of methodologies and tools covered in this document is not intended to be exhaustive; instead, it focuses on those that are commonly used in the risk assessment community. The classification of methodologies and tools was performed by a group of analysts with experience in risk analysis and cybersecurity, and the resulting analysis of alternatives has been tailored to address the needs of a cyber risk assessment.

The Virtual Insect Brain protocol: creating and comparing standardized neuroanatomy

Science.gov (United States)

Jenett, Arnim; Schindelin, Johannes E; Heisenberg, Martin

2006-01-01

Background In the fly Drosophila melanogaster, new genetic, physiological, molecular and behavioral techniques for the functional analysis of the brain are rapidly accumulating. These diverse investigations on the function of the insect brain use gene expression patterns that can be visualized and provide the means for manipulating groups of neurons as a common ground. To take advantage of these patterns one needs to know their typical anatomy. Results This paper describes the Virtual Insect Brain (VIB) protocol, a script suite for the quantitative assessment, comparison, and presentation of neuroanatomical data. It is based on the 3D-reconstruction and visualization software Amira, version 3.x (Mercury Inc.) [1]. Besides its backbone, a standardization procedure which aligns individual 3D images (series of virtual sections obtained by confocal microscopy) to a common coordinate system and computes average intensities for each voxel (volume pixel) the VIB protocol provides an elaborate data management system for data administration. The VIB protocol facilitates direct comparison of gene expression patterns and describes their interindividual variability. It provides volumetry of brain regions and helps to characterize the phenotypes of brain structure mutants. Using the VIB protocol does not require any programming skills since all operations are carried out at an intuitively usable graphical user interface. Although the VIB protocol has been developed for the standardization of Drosophila neuroanatomy, the program structure can be used for the standardization of other 3D structures as well. Conclusion Standardizing brains and gene expression patterns is a new approach to biological shape and its variability. The VIB protocol provides a first set of tools supporting this endeavor in Drosophila. The script suite is freely available at [2] PMID:17196102

Protocol for the quantification of greenhouse gas emissions from waste management activities

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

2013-10-01

The Waste Sector GHG Protocol is intended to provide guidelines for calculating and reporting greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with a waste management service, over a specific time period (usually one year) and based on simple operational data. The Protocol itself has evolved with time, going through 4 version updates. The different versions correspond to evolutions initiated by the original Entreprises pour l'Environnement Working Group (Seche Environnement, Suez Environnement and Veolia Environnement) but also to the suggestions and feedback provided by several waste associations that have reviewed and commented on the Protocol. As a result, several worldwide associations have validated and used the Protocol for their own greenhouse gas inventories. The version 5 of the Waste Sector GHG Protocol has received the 'Built on the GHG Protocol' label. With such label, the Waste Sector Protocol reinforces its desire to be the reference tool for the waste sector by ensuring its users of a total and transparent coherence and conformity with the GHG Protocol Corporate Standard's requirements. The Protocol is also available on the following web page: http://www.ghgprotocol.org/Tools-Built-on-GHG-Protocol. The Waste Sector GHG Protocol aims at: Providing a consistent and transparent approach to quantify, report and verify GHG direct (scope 1), indirect (scope 2) and avoided emissions of waste management actors; Establishing best practice across the waste sector for the implementation of coherent and homogeneous GHG emissions inventories; Explaining waste sector's particularities in terms of GHG emissions (diffuse emission from landfills, GHG avoided emissions, carbon sequestration); Helping companies to take proper commitments and stakeholders to understand and verify those commitments. The Protocol consists of a manual with two additional documents: A 'Frequently Asked Questions' document; A 'Follow-up of modifications

Application of parameters space analysis tools for empirical model validation

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Paloma del Barrio, E. [LEPT-ENSAM UMR 8508, Talence (France); Guyon, G. [Electricite de France, Moret-sur-Loing (France)

2004-01-01

A new methodology for empirical model validation has been proposed in the framework of the Task 22 (Building Energy Analysis Tools) of the International Energy Agency. It involves two main steps: checking model validity and diagnosis. Both steps, as well as the underlying methods, have been presented in the first part of the paper. In this part, they are applied for testing modelling hypothesis in the framework of the thermal analysis of an actual building. Sensitivity analysis tools have been first used to identify the parts of the model that can be really tested on the available data. A preliminary diagnosis is then supplied by principal components analysis. Useful information for model behaviour improvement has been finally obtained by optimisation techniques. This example of application shows how model parameters space analysis is a powerful tool for empirical validation. In particular, diagnosis possibilities are largely increased in comparison with residuals analysis techniques. (author)

New Tools for Sea Ice Data Analysis and Visualization: NSIDC's Arctic Sea Ice News and Analysis

Science.gov (United States)

Vizcarra, N.; Stroeve, J.; Beam, K.; Beitler, J.; Brandt, M.; Kovarik, J.; Savoie, M. H.; Skaug, M.; Stafford, T.

2017-12-01

Arctic sea ice has long been recognized as a sensitive climate indicator and has undergone a dramatic decline over the past thirty years. Antarctic sea ice continues to be an intriguing and active field of research. The National Snow and Ice Data Center's Arctic Sea Ice News & Analysis (ASINA) offers researchers and the public a transparent view of sea ice data and analysis. We have released a new set of tools for sea ice analysis and visualization. In addition to Charctic, our interactive sea ice extent graph, the new Sea Ice Data and Analysis Tools page provides access to Arctic and Antarctic sea ice data organized in seven different data workbooks, updated daily or monthly. An interactive tool lets scientists, or the public, quickly compare changes in ice extent and location. Another tool allows users to map trends, anomalies, and means for user-defined time periods. Animations of September Arctic and Antarctic monthly average sea ice extent and concentration may also be accessed from this page. Our tools help the NSIDC scientists monitor and understand sea ice conditions in near real time. They also allow the public to easily interact with and explore sea ice data. Technical innovations in our data center helped NSIDC quickly build these tools and more easily maintain them. The tools were made publicly accessible to meet the desire from the public and members of the media to access the numbers and calculations that power our visualizations and analysis. This poster explores these tools and how other researchers, the media, and the general public are using them.

Draper Station Analysis Tool

Science.gov (United States)

Bedrossian, Nazareth; Jang, Jiann-Woei; McCants, Edward; Omohundro, Zachary; Ring, Tom; Templeton, Jeremy; Zoss, Jeremy; Wallace, Jonathan; Ziegler, Philip

2011-01-01

Draper Station Analysis Tool (DSAT) is a computer program, built on commercially available software, for simulating and analyzing complex dynamic systems. Heretofore used in designing and verifying guidance, navigation, and control systems of the International Space Station, DSAT has a modular architecture that lends itself to modification for application to spacecraft or terrestrial systems. DSAT consists of user-interface, data-structures, simulation-generation, analysis, plotting, documentation, and help components. DSAT automates the construction of simulations and the process of analysis. DSAT provides a graphical user interface (GUI), plus a Web-enabled interface, similar to the GUI, that enables a remotely located user to gain access to the full capabilities of DSAT via the Internet and Webbrowser software. Data structures are used to define the GUI, the Web-enabled interface, simulations, and analyses. Three data structures define the type of analysis to be performed: closed-loop simulation, frequency response, and/or stability margins. DSAT can be executed on almost any workstation, desktop, or laptop computer. DSAT provides better than an order of magnitude improvement in cost, schedule, and risk assessment for simulation based design and verification of complex dynamic systems.

RadNet: Open network protocol for radiation data

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Rees, B.; Olson, K.; Beckes-Talcott, J.; Kadner, S.; Wenderlich, T.; Hoy, M.; Doyle, W.; Koskelo, M.

1998-01-01

Safeguards instrumentation is increasingly being incorporated into remote monitoring applications. In the past, vendors of radiation monitoring instruments typically provided the tools for uploading the monitoring data to a host. However, the proprietary nature of communication protocols lends itself to increased computer support needs and increased installation expenses. As a result, a working group of suppliers and customers of radiation monitoring instruments defined an open network protocol for transferring packets on a local area network from radiation monitoring equipment to network hosts. The protocol was termed RadNet. While it is now primarily used for health physics instruments, RadNet's flexibility and strength make it ideal for remote monitoring of nuclear materials. The incorporation of standard, open protocols ensures that future work will not render present work obsolete; because RadNet utilizes standard Internet protocols, and is itself a non-proprietary standard. The use of industry standards also simplifies the development and implementation of ancillary services, e.g. E-main generation or even pager systems

Tool Efficiency Analysis model research in SEMI industry

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Lei Ma

2018-01-01

Full Text Available One of the key goals in SEMI industry is to improve equipment through put and ensure equipment production efficiency maximization. This paper is based on SEMI standards in semiconductor equipment control, defines the transaction rules between different tool states，and presents a TEA system model which is to analysis tool performance automatically based on finite state machine. The system was applied to fab tools and verified its effectiveness successfully, and obtained the parameter values used to measure the equipment performance, also including the advices of improvement.

Sensitivity Analysis of Weather Variables on Offsite Consequence Analysis Tools in South Korea and the United States

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Min-Uk Kim

2018-05-01

Full Text Available We studied sensitive weather variables for consequence analysis, in the case of chemical leaks on the user side of offsite consequence analysis (OCA tools. We used OCA tools Korea Offsite Risk Assessment (KORA and Areal Location of Hazardous Atmospheres (ALOHA in South Korea and the United States, respectively. The chemicals used for this analysis were 28% ammonia (NH3, 35% hydrogen chloride (HCl, 50% hydrofluoric acid (HF, and 69% nitric acid (HNO3. The accident scenarios were based on leakage accidents in storage tanks. The weather variables were air temperature, wind speed, humidity, and atmospheric stability. Sensitivity analysis was performed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS program for dummy regression analysis. Sensitivity analysis showed that impact distance was not sensitive to humidity. Impact distance was most sensitive to atmospheric stability, and was also more sensitive to air temperature than wind speed, according to both the KORA and ALOHA tools. Moreover, the weather variables were more sensitive in rural conditions than in urban conditions, with the ALOHA tool being more influenced by weather variables than the KORA tool. Therefore, if using the ALOHA tool instead of the KORA tool in rural conditions, users should be careful not to cause any differences in impact distance due to input errors of weather variables, with the most sensitive one being atmospheric stability.

Sensitivity Analysis of Weather Variables on Offsite Consequence Analysis Tools in South Korea and the United States.

Science.gov (United States)

Kim, Min-Uk; Moon, Kyong Whan; Sohn, Jong-Ryeul; Byeon, Sang-Hoon

2018-05-18

We studied sensitive weather variables for consequence analysis, in the case of chemical leaks on the user side of offsite consequence analysis (OCA) tools. We used OCA tools Korea Offsite Risk Assessment (KORA) and Areal Location of Hazardous Atmospheres (ALOHA) in South Korea and the United States, respectively. The chemicals used for this analysis were 28% ammonia (NH₃), 35% hydrogen chloride (HCl), 50% hydrofluoric acid (HF), and 69% nitric acid (HNO₃). The accident scenarios were based on leakage accidents in storage tanks. The weather variables were air temperature, wind speed, humidity, and atmospheric stability. Sensitivity analysis was performed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) program for dummy regression analysis. Sensitivity analysis showed that impact distance was not sensitive to humidity. Impact distance was most sensitive to atmospheric stability, and was also more sensitive to air temperature than wind speed, according to both the KORA and ALOHA tools. Moreover, the weather variables were more sensitive in rural conditions than in urban conditions, with the ALOHA tool being more influenced by weather variables than the KORA tool. Therefore, if using the ALOHA tool instead of the KORA tool in rural conditions, users should be careful not to cause any differences in impact distance due to input errors of weather variables, with the most sensitive one being atmospheric stability.

Database tools for enhanced analysis of TMX-U data. Revision 1

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Stewart, M.E.; Carter, M.R.; Casper, T.A.; Meyer, W.H.; Perkins, D.E.; Whitney, D.M.

1986-01-01

A commercial database software package has been used to create several databases and tools that assist and enhance the ability of experimental physicists to analyze data from the Tandem Mirror Experiment-Upgrade (TMX-U) experiment. This software runs on a DEC-20 computer in M-Division's User Service Center at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), where data can be analyzed offline from the main TMX-U acquisition computers. When combined with interactive data analysis programs, these tools provide the capability to do batch-style processing or interactive data analysis on the computers in the USC or the supercomputers of the National Magnetic Fusion Energy Computer Center (NMFECC) in addition to the normal processing done by the TMX-U acquisition system. One database tool provides highly reduced data for searching and correlation analysis of several diagnostic signals within a single shot or over many shots. A second database tool provides retrieval and storage of unreduced data for use in detailed analysis of one or more diagnostic signals. We will show how these database tools form the core of an evolving offline data analysis environment on the USC computers

Securing statically-verified communications protocols against timing attacks

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Buchholtz, Mikael; Gilmore, Stephen; Hillston, Jane

2004-01-01

We present a federated analysis of communication protocols which considers both security properties and timing. These are not entirely independent observations of a protocol; by using timing observations of an executing protocol it is possible to deduce derived information about the nature...... of the communication even in the presence of unbreakable encryption. Our analysis is based on expressing the protocol as a process algebra model and deriving from this process models analysable by the Imperial PEPA Compiler and the LySatool....

Modelling and analysis of distributed simulation protocols with distributed graph transformation

OpenAIRE

Lara, Juan de; Taentzer, Gabriele

2005-01-01

Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works. J. de Lara, and G. Taentzer, "Modelling and analysis of distributed simulation protocols with distributed graph transformation...

Improvements to Integrated Tradespace Analysis of Communications Architectures (ITACA) Network Loading Analysis Tool

Science.gov (United States)

Lee, Nathaniel; Welch, Bryan W.

2018-01-01

NASA's SCENIC project aims to simplify and reduce the cost of space mission planning by replicating the analysis capabilities of commercially licensed software which are integrated with relevant analysis parameters specific to SCaN assets and SCaN supported user missions. SCENIC differs from current tools that perform similar analyses in that it 1) does not require any licensing fees, 2) will provide an all-in-one package for various analysis capabilities that normally requires add-ons or multiple tools to complete. As part of SCENIC's capabilities, the ITACA network loading analysis tool will be responsible for assessing the loading on a given network architecture and generating a network service schedule. ITACA will allow users to evaluate the quality of service of a given network architecture and determine whether or not the architecture will satisfy the mission's requirements. ITACA is currently under development, and the following improvements were made during the fall of 2017: optimization of runtime, augmentation of network asset pre-service configuration time, augmentation of Brent's method of root finding, augmentation of network asset FOV restrictions, augmentation of mission lifetimes, and the integration of a SCaN link budget calculation tool. The improvements resulted in (a) 25% reduction in runtime, (b) more accurate contact window predictions when compared to STK(Registered Trademark) contact window predictions, and (c) increased fidelity through the use of specific SCaN asset parameters.

Performance Evaluation of Security Protocols

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Bodei, Chiara; Buchholtz, Mikael; Curti, Michele

2005-01-01

We use a special operational semantics which drives us in inferring quantitative measures on systems describing cryptographis cryptographic protocols. We assign rates to transitions by only looking at these labels. The rates reflect the distributed architecture running applications and the use...... of possibly different cryptosystems. We then map transition systems to Markov chains and evaluate performance of systems, using standard tools....

Performance analysis of simultaneous dense coding protocol under decoherence

Science.gov (United States)

Huang, Zhiming; Zhang, Cai; Situ, Haozhen

2017-09-01

The simultaneous dense coding (SDC) protocol is useful in designing quantum protocols. We analyze the performance of the SDC protocol under the influence of noisy quantum channels. Six kinds of paradigmatic Markovian noise along with one kind of non-Markovian noise are considered. The joint success probability of both receivers and the success probabilities of one receiver are calculated for three different locking operators. Some interesting properties have been found, such as invariance and symmetry. Among the three locking operators we consider, the SWAP gate is most resistant to noise and results in the same success probabilities for both receivers.

A critical analysis of a locally agreed protocol for clinical practice

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Owen, A.; Hogg, P.; Nightingale, J.

2004-01-01

Within the traditional scope of radiographic practice (including advanced practice) there is a need to demonstrate effective patient care and management. Such practice should be set within a context of appropriate evidence and should also reflect peer practice. In order to achieve such practice the use of protocols is encouraged. Effective protocols can maximise care and management by minimising inter- and intra-professional variation; they can also allow for detailed procedural records to be kept in case of legal claims. However, whilst literature exists to encourage the use of protocols there is little published material available to indicate how to create, manage and archive them. This article uses an analytical approach to propose a suitable method for protocol creation and archival, it also offers suggestions on the scope and content of a protocol. To achieve this an existing clinical protocol for radiographer reporting barium enemas is analysed to draw out the general issues. Proposals for protocol creation, management, and archival were identified. The clinical practice described or inferred in the protocol should be drawn from evidence, such evidence could include peer-reviewed material, national standards and peer practice. The protocol should include an explanation of how to proceed when the radiographers reach the limit of their ability. It should refer to the initial training required to undertake the clinical duties as well as the on-going continual professional updating required to maintain competence. Audit of practice should be indicated, including the preferred audit methodology, and associated with this should be a clear statement about standards and what to do if standards are not adequately met. Protocols should be archived, in a paper-based form, for lengthy periods in case of legal claims. On the archived protocol the date it was in clinical use should be included

Mobile opportunistic networks architectures, protocols and applications

CERN Document Server

Denko, Mieso K

2011-01-01

Widespread availability of pervasive and mobile devices coupled with recent advances in networking technologies make opportunistic networks one of the most promising communication technologies for a growing number of future mobile applications. Covering the basics as well as advanced concepts, this book introduces state-of-the-art research findings, technologies, tools, and innovations. Prominent researchers from academia and industry report on communication architectures, network algorithms and protocols, emerging applications, experimental studies, simulation tools, implementation test beds,

Organ donation in the ICU: A document analysis of institutional policies, protocols, and order sets.

Science.gov (United States)

Oczkowski, Simon J W; Centofanti, John E; Durepos, Pamela; Arseneau, Erika; Kelecevic, Julija; Cook, Deborah J; Meade, Maureen O

2018-04-01

To better understand how local policies influence organ donation rates. We conducted a document analysis of our ICU organ donation policies, protocols and order sets. We used a systematic search of our institution's policy library to identify documents related to organ donation. We used Mindnode software to create a publication timeline, basic statistics to describe document characteristics, and qualitative content analysis to extract document themes. Documents were retrieved from Hamilton Health Sciences, an academic hospital system with a high volume of organ donation, from database inception to October 2015. We retrieved 12 active organ donation documents, including six protocols, two policies, two order sets, and two unclassified documents, a majority (75%) after the introduction of donation after circulatory death in 2006. Four major themes emerged: organ donation process, quality of care, patient and family-centred care, and the role of the institution. These themes indicate areas where documented institutional standards may be beneficial. Further research is necessary to determine the relationship of local policies, protocols, and order sets to actual organ donation practices, and to identify barriers and facilitators to improving donation rates. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Lightweight object oriented structure analysis: tools for building tools to analyze molecular dynamics simulations.

Science.gov (United States)

Romo, Tod D; Leioatts, Nicholas; Grossfield, Alan

2014-12-15

LOOS (Lightweight Object Oriented Structure-analysis) is a C++ library designed to facilitate making novel tools for analyzing molecular dynamics simulations by abstracting out the repetitive tasks, allowing developers to focus on the scientifically relevant part of the problem. LOOS supports input using the native file formats of most common biomolecular simulation packages, including CHARMM, NAMD, Amber, Tinker, and Gromacs. A dynamic atom selection language based on the C expression syntax is included and is easily accessible to the tool-writer. In addition, LOOS is bundled with over 140 prebuilt tools, including suites of tools for analyzing simulation convergence, three-dimensional histograms, and elastic network models. Through modern C++ design, LOOS is both simple to develop with (requiring knowledge of only four core classes and a few utility functions) and is easily extensible. A python interface to the core classes is also provided, further facilitating tool development. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Campaign effects and self-analysis Internet tool

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Brange, Birgitte [Danish Electricity Saving Trust (Denmark); Fjordbak Larsen, Troels [IT Energy ApS (Denmark); Wilke, Goeran [Danish Electricity Saving Trust (Denmark)

2007-07-01

In October 2006, the Danish Electricity Saving Trust launched a large TV campaign targeting domestic electricity consumption. The campaign was based on the central message '1000 kWh/year per person is enough'. The campaign was accompanied by a new internet portal with updated information about numerous household appliances, and by analysis tools for bringing down electricity consumption to 1000 kWh/year per person. The effects of the campaign are monitored through repeated surveys and analysed in relation to usage of internet tools.

The Montreal Protocol for Identification of Amusia.

Science.gov (United States)

Vuvan, D T; Paquette, S; Mignault Goulet, G; Royal, I; Felezeu, M; Peretz, I

2018-04-01

The Montreal Battery for the Evaluation of Amusia (MBEA; Peretz, Champod, & Hyde Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 999, 58-75, 2003) is an empirically grounded quantitative tool that is widely used to identify individuals with congenital amusia. The use of such a standardized measure ensures that the individuals tested will conform to a specific neuropsychological profile, allowing for comparisons across studies and research groups. Recently, a number of researchers have published credible critiques of the usefulness of the MBEA as a diagnostic tool for amusia. Here we argue that the MBEA and its online counterpart, the AMUSIA tests (Peretz et al. Music Perception, 25, 331-343, 2008), should be considered steps in a screening process for amusia, rather than standalone diagnostic tools. The goal of this article is to present, in detailed and easily replicable format, the full protocol through which congenital amusics should be identified. In providing information that has often gone unreported in published articles, we aim to clarify the strengths and limitations of the MBEA and to make recommendations for its continued use by the research community as part of the Montreal Protocol for Identification of Amusia.

A reliability analysis tool for SpaceWire network

Science.gov (United States)

Zhou, Qiang; Zhu, Longjiang; Fei, Haidong; Wang, Xingyou

2017-04-01

A SpaceWire is a standard for on-board satellite networks as the basis for future data-handling architectures. It is becoming more and more popular in space applications due to its technical advantages, including reliability, low power and fault protection, etc. High reliability is the vital issue for spacecraft. Therefore, it is very important to analyze and improve the reliability performance of the SpaceWire network. This paper deals with the problem of reliability modeling and analysis with SpaceWire network. According to the function division of distributed network, a reliability analysis method based on a task is proposed, the reliability analysis of every task can lead to the system reliability matrix, the reliability result of the network system can be deduced by integrating these entire reliability indexes in the matrix. With the method, we develop a reliability analysis tool for SpaceWire Network based on VC, where the computation schemes for reliability matrix and the multi-path-task reliability are also implemented. By using this tool, we analyze several cases on typical architectures. And the analytic results indicate that redundancy architecture has better reliability performance than basic one. In practical, the dual redundancy scheme has been adopted for some key unit, to improve the reliability index of the system or task. Finally, this reliability analysis tool will has a directive influence on both task division and topology selection in the phase of SpaceWire network system design.

National protocol framework for the inventory and monitoring of bees

Science.gov (United States)

Droege, Sam; Engler, Joseph D.; Sellers, Elizabeth A.; Lee O'Brien,

2016-01-01

This national protocol framework is a standardized tool for the inventory and monitoring of the approximately 4,200 species of native and non-native bee species that may be found within the National Wildlife Refuge System (NWRS) administered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS). However, this protocol framework may also be used by other organizations and individuals to monitor bees in any given habitat or location. Our goal is to provide USFWS stations within the NWRS (NWRS stations are land units managed by the USFWS such as national wildlife refuges, national fish hatcheries, wetland management districts, conservation areas, leased lands, etc.) with techniques for developing an initial baseline inventory of what bee species are present on their lands and to provide an inexpensive, simple technique for monitoring bees continuously and for monitoring and evaluating long-term population trends and management impacts. The latter long-term monitoring technique requires a minimal time burden for the individual station, yet can provide a good statistical sample of changing populations that can be investigated at the station, regional, and national levels within the USFWS’ jurisdiction, and compared to other sites within the United States and Canada. This protocol framework was developed in cooperation with the United States Geological Survey (USGS), the USFWS, and a worldwide network of bee researchers who have investigated the techniques and methods for capturing bees and tracking population changes. The protocol framework evolved from field and lab-based investigations at the USGS Bee Inventory and Monitoring Laboratory at the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in Beltsville, Maryland starting in 2002 and was refined by a large number of USFWS, academic, and state groups. It includes a Protocol Introduction and a set of 8 Standard Operating Procedures or SOPs and adheres to national standards of protocol content and organization. The Protocol Narrative

Kyoto protocol: at last the agreement has been reached; Protocole de Kyoto: un accord enfin conclu

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

NONE

2001-07-01

After more than 3 years of negotiations, 180 countries agreed at Bonn on the application of the Kyoto protocol to fight the climatic warming. The main aspects of this agreement are discussed: the carbon wells, the tools of the pollution control for the developed countries and the financial help to the developing countries. (A.L.B.)

GeneAnalytics: An Integrative Gene Set Analysis Tool for Next Generation Sequencing, RNAseq and Microarray Data.

Science.gov (United States)

Ben-Ari Fuchs, Shani; Lieder, Iris; Stelzer, Gil; Mazor, Yaron; Buzhor, Ella; Kaplan, Sergey; Bogoch, Yoel; Plaschkes, Inbar; Shitrit, Alina; Rappaport, Noa; Kohn, Asher; Edgar, Ron; Shenhav, Liraz; Safran, Marilyn; Lancet, Doron; Guan-Golan, Yaron; Warshawsky, David; Shtrichman, Ronit

2016-03-01

Postgenomics data are produced in large volumes by life sciences and clinical applications of novel omics diagnostics and therapeutics for precision medicine. To move from "data-to-knowledge-to-innovation," a crucial missing step in the current era is, however, our limited understanding of biological and clinical contexts associated with data. Prominent among the emerging remedies to this challenge are the gene set enrichment tools. This study reports on GeneAnalytics™ ( geneanalytics.genecards.org ), a comprehensive and easy-to-apply gene set analysis tool for rapid contextualization of expression patterns and functional signatures embedded in the postgenomics Big Data domains, such as Next Generation Sequencing (NGS), RNAseq, and microarray experiments. GeneAnalytics' differentiating features include in-depth evidence-based scoring algorithms, an intuitive user interface and proprietary unified data. GeneAnalytics employs the LifeMap Science's GeneCards suite, including the GeneCards®--the human gene database; the MalaCards-the human diseases database; and the PathCards--the biological pathways database. Expression-based analysis in GeneAnalytics relies on the LifeMap Discovery®--the embryonic development and stem cells database, which includes manually curated expression data for normal and diseased tissues, enabling advanced matching algorithm for gene-tissue association. This assists in evaluating differentiation protocols and discovering biomarkers for tissues and cells. Results are directly linked to gene, disease, or cell "cards" in the GeneCards suite. Future developments aim to enhance the GeneAnalytics algorithm as well as visualizations, employing varied graphical display items. Such attributes make GeneAnalytics a broadly applicable postgenomics data analyses and interpretation tool for translation of data to knowledge-based innovation in various Big Data fields such as precision medicine, ecogenomics, nutrigenomics, pharmacogenomics, vaccinomics

A static analysis tool set for assembler code verification

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Dhodapkar, S.D.; Bhattacharjee, A.K.; Sen, Gopa

1991-01-01

Software Verification and Validation (V and V) is an important step in assuring reliability and quality of the software. The verification of program source code forms an important part of the overall V and V activity. The static analysis tools described here are useful in verification of assembler code. The tool set consists of static analysers for Intel 8086 and Motorola 68000 assembly language programs. The analysers examine the program source code and generate information about control flow within the program modules, unreachable code, well-formation of modules, call dependency between modules etc. The analysis of loops detects unstructured loops and syntactically infinite loops. Software metrics relating to size and structural complexity are also computed. This report describes the salient features of the design, implementation and the user interface of the tool set. The outputs generated by the analyser are explained using examples taken from some projects analysed by this tool set. (author). 7 refs., 17 figs

Performance Analysis of Secure and Private Billing Protocols for Smart Metering

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tom Eccles

2017-11-01

Full Text Available Traditional utility metering is to be replaced by smart metering. Smart metering enables fine-grained utility consumption measurements. These fine-grained measurements raise privacy concerns due to the lifestyle information which can be inferred from the precise time at which utilities were consumed. This paper outlines and compares two privacy-respecting time of use billing protocols for smart metering and investigates their performance on a variety of hardware. These protocols protect the privacy of customers by never transmitting the fine-grained utility readings outside of the customer’s home network. One protocol favors complexity on the trusted smart meter hardware while the other uses homomorphic commitments to offload computation to a third device. Both protocols are designed to operate on top of existing cryptographic secure channel protocols in place on smart meters. Proof of concept software implementations of these protocols have been written and their suitability for real world application to low-performance smart meter hardware is discussed. These protocols may also have application to other privacy conscious aggregation systems, such as electronic voting.

An XML-based communication protocol for accelerator distributed controls

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Catani, L.

2008-01-01

This paper presents the development of XMLvRPC, an RPC-like communication protocol based, for this particular application, on the TCP/IP and XML (eXtensible Markup Language) tools built-in in LabVIEW. XML is used to format commands and data passed between client and server while socket interface for communication uses either TCP or UDP transmission protocols. This implementation extends the features of these general purpose libraries and incorporates solutions that might provide, with limited modifications, full compatibility with well established and more general communication protocol, i.e. XML-RPC, while preserving portability to different platforms supported by LabVIEW. The XMLvRPC suite of software has been equipped with specific tools for its deployment in distributed control systems as, for instance, a quasi-automatic configuration and registration of the distributed components and a simple plug-and-play approach to the installation of new services. Key feature is the management of large binary arrays that allow coding of large binary data set, e.g. raw images, more efficiently with respect to the standard XML coding

An XML-based communication protocol for accelerator distributed controls

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Catani, L. [INFN-Roma Tor Vergata, Rome (Italy)], E-mail: luciano.catani@roma2.infn.it

2008-03-01

This paper presents the development of XMLvRPC, an RPC-like communication protocol based, for this particular application, on the TCP/IP and XML (eXtensible Markup Language) tools built-in in LabVIEW. XML is used to format commands and data passed between client and server while socket interface for communication uses either TCP or UDP transmission protocols. This implementation extends the features of these general purpose libraries and incorporates solutions that might provide, with limited modifications, full compatibility with well established and more general communication protocol, i.e. XML-RPC, while preserving portability to different platforms supported by LabVIEW. The XMLvRPC suite of software has been equipped with specific tools for its deployment in distributed control systems as, for instance, a quasi-automatic configuration and registration of the distributed components and a simple plug-and-play approach to the installation of new services. Key feature is the management of large binary arrays that allow coding of large binary data set, e.g. raw images, more efficiently with respect to the standard XML coding.

Analysis of agreement between cardiac risk stratification protocols applied to participants of a center for cardiac rehabilitation

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ana A. S. Santos

2016-01-01

Full Text Available ABSTRACT Background Cardiac risk stratification is related to the risk of the occurrence of events induced by exercise. Despite the existence of several protocols to calculate risk stratification, studies indicating that there is similarity between these protocols are still unknown. Objective To evaluate the agreement between the existing protocols on cardiac risk rating in cardiac patients. Method The records of 50 patients from a cardiac rehabilitation program were analyzed, from which the following information was extracted: age, sex, weight, height, clinical diagnosis, medical history, risk factors, associated diseases, and the results from the most recent laboratory and complementary tests performed. This information was used for risk stratification of the patients in the protocols of the American College of Sports Medicine, the Brazilian Society of Cardiology, the American Heart Association, the protocol designed by Frederic J. Pashkow, the American Association of Cardiovascular and Pulmonary Rehabilitation, the Société Française de Cardiologie, and the Sociedad Española de Cardiología. Descriptive statistics were used to characterize the sample and the analysis of agreement between the protocols was calculated using the Kappa coefficient. Differences were considered with a significance level of 5%. Results Of the 21 analyses of agreement, 12 were considered significant between the protocols used for risk classification, with nine classified as moderate and three as low. No agreements were classified as excellent. Different proportions were observed in each risk category, with significant differences between the protocols for all risk categories. Conclusion The agreements between the protocols were considered low and moderate and the risk proportions differed between protocols.

Parallel Enhancements of the General Mission Analysis Tool, Phase I

Data.gov (United States)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — The General Mission Analysis Tool (GMAT) is a state of the art spacecraft mission design tool under active development at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC)....

Statistical methods for the forensic analysis of striated tool marks

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Hoeksema, Amy Beth [Iowa State Univ., Ames, IA (United States)

2013-01-01

In forensics, fingerprints can be used to uniquely identify suspects in a crime. Similarly, a tool mark left at a crime scene can be used to identify the tool that was used. However, the current practice of identifying matching tool marks involves visual inspection of marks by forensic experts which can be a very subjective process. As a result, declared matches are often successfully challenged in court, so law enforcement agencies are particularly interested in encouraging research in more objective approaches. Our analysis is based on comparisons of profilometry data, essentially depth contours of a tool mark surface taken along a linear path. In current practice, for stronger support of a match or non-match, multiple marks are made in the lab under the same conditions by the suspect tool. We propose the use of a likelihood ratio test to analyze the difference between a sample of comparisons of lab tool marks to a field tool mark, against a sample of comparisons of two lab tool marks. Chumbley et al. (2010) point out that the angle of incidence between the tool and the marked surface can have a substantial impact on the tool mark and on the effectiveness of both manual and algorithmic matching procedures. To better address this problem, we describe how the analysis can be enhanced to model the effect of tool angle and allow for angle estimation for a tool mark left at a crime scene. With sufficient development, such methods may lead to more defensible forensic analyses.

A tool for the security configuration of sensor networks

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Cionca, V; Newe, T; Dadarlat, V

2009-01-01

It is difficult to select a set of protocols that provides the appropriate level of security for a given application. It requires in depth analysis of the application with extensive knowledge of both security and sensor networks, which will generally not be available to nonexpert users like network deployers or clients. We present a method to configure security using only parameters taken from application space, and a tool that implements this method, thus automating the process of security configuration for non-expert users.

A tool for the security configuration of sensor networks

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Cionca, V; Newe, T [Electronic and Computer Engineering, University of Limerick (Ireland); Dadarlat, V, E-mail: Victor.Cionca@ul.i [Computer Science, Technical University of Cluj-Napoca (Romania)

2009-07-01

It is difficult to select a set of protocols that provides the appropriate level of security for a given application. It requires in depth analysis of the application with extensive knowledge of both security and sensor networks, which will generally not be available to nonexpert users like network deployers or clients. We present a method to configure security using only parameters taken from application space, and a tool that implements this method, thus automating the process of security configuration for non-expert users.

A simple protocol for NMR analysis of the enantiomeric purity of chiral hydroxylamines.

Science.gov (United States)

Tickell, David A; Mahon, Mary F; Bull, Steven D; James, Tony D

2013-02-15

A practically simple three-component chiral derivatization protocol for determining the enantiopurity of chiral hydroxylamines by (1)H NMR spectroscopic analysis is described, involving their treatment with 2-formylphenylboronic acid and enantiopure BINOL to afford a mixture of diastereomeric nitrono-boronate esters whose ratio is an accurate reflection of the enantiopurity of the parent hydroxylamine.

Conformal polishing approach: Tool footprint analysis

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

José A Dieste

2016-02-01

Full Text Available Polishing process is one of the most critical manufacturing processes during a metal part production because it determines the final quality of the product. Free-form surface polishing is a handmade process with lots of rejected parts, scrap generation and time and energy consumption. Two different research lines are being developed: prediction models of the final surface quality parameters and an analysis of the amount of material removed depending on the polishing parameters to predict the tool footprint during the polishing task. This research lays the foundations for a future automatic conformal polishing system. It is based on rotational and translational tool with dry abrasive in the front mounted at the end of a robot. A tool to part concept is used, useful for large or heavy workpieces. Results are applied on different curved parts typically used in tooling industry, aeronautics or automotive. A mathematical model has been developed to predict the amount of material removed in function of polishing parameters. Model has been fitted for different abrasives and raw materials. Results have shown deviations under 20% that implies a reliable and controllable process. Smaller amount of material can be removed in controlled areas of a three-dimensional workpiece.

Comparative Analysis of Different Protocols to Manage Large Scale Networks

OpenAIRE

Anil Rao Pimplapure; Dr Jayant Dubey; Prashant Sen

2013-01-01

In recent year the numbers, complexity and size is increased in Large Scale Network. The best example of Large Scale Network is Internet, and recently once are Data-centers in Cloud Environment. In this process, involvement of several management tasks such as traffic monitoring, security and performance optimization is big task for Network Administrator. This research reports study the different protocols i.e. conventional protocols like Simple Network Management Protocol and newly Gossip bas...

The Virtual Insect Brain protocol: creating and comparing standardized neuroanatomy

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Schindelin Johannes E

2006-12-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background In the fly Drosophila melanogaster, new genetic, physiological, molecular and behavioral techniques for the functional analysis of the brain are rapidly accumulating. These diverse investigations on the function of the insect brain use gene expression patterns that can be visualized and provide the means for manipulating groups of neurons as a common ground. To take advantage of these patterns one needs to know their typical anatomy. Results This paper describes the Virtual Insect Brain (VIB protocol, a script suite for the quantitative assessment, comparison, and presentation of neuroanatomical data. It is based on the 3D-reconstruction and visualization software Amira, version 3.x (Mercury Inc. 1. Besides its backbone, a standardization procedure which aligns individual 3D images (series of virtual sections obtained by confocal microscopy to a common coordinate system and computes average intensities for each voxel (volume pixel the VIB protocol provides an elaborate data management system for data administration. The VIB protocol facilitates direct comparison of gene expression patterns and describes their interindividual variability. It provides volumetry of brain regions and helps to characterize the phenotypes of brain structure mutants. Using the VIB protocol does not require any programming skills since all operations are carried out at an intuitively usable graphical user interface. Although the VIB protocol has been developed for the standardization of Drosophila neuroanatomy, the program structure can be used for the standardization of other 3D structures as well. Conclusion Standardizing brains and gene expression patterns is a new approach to biological shape and its variability. The VIB protocol provides a first set of tools supporting this endeavor in Drosophila. The script suite is freely available at http://www.neurofly.de2

The use of case tools in OPG safety analysis code qualification

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Pascoe, J.; Cheung, A.; Westbye, C.

2001-01-01

Ontario Power Generation (OPG) is currently qualifying its critical safety analysis software. The software quality assurance (SQA) framework is described. Given the legacy nature of much of the safety analysis software the reverse engineering methodology has been adopted. The safety analysis suite of codes was developed over a period of many years to differing standards of quality and had sparse or incomplete documentation. Key elements of the reverse engineering process require recovery of design information from existing coding. This recovery, if performed manually, could represent an enormous effort. Driven by a need to maximize productivity and enhance the repeatability and objectivity of software qualification activities the decision was made to acquire or develop and implement Computer Aided Software Engineering (CASE) tools. This paper presents relevant background information on CASE tools and discusses how the OPG SQA requirements were used to assess the suitability of available CASE tools. Key findings from the application of CASE tools to the qualification of the OPG safety analysis software are discussed. (author)

Justifying the need for forensically ready protocols: A case study of identifying malicious web servers using client honeypots

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Seifert, Christian; Endicott-Popovsky, Barbara E.; Frincke, Deborah A.; Komisarczuk, Peter; Muschevici, Radu; Welch, Ian D.

2008-01-03

Abstract: Client honeypot technology can find malicious web servers that attack web browsers and push malware, so called drive-by-downloads, to the client machine. Merely recording the network traffic is insufficient to perform an efficient forensic analysis of the attack. Custom tools need to be developed to access and examine the embedded data of the network protocols. Once the information is extracted from the network data, it cannot be used to perform a behavioral analysis on the attack, therefore limiting the ability to answer what exactly happened on the attacked system. Implementation of a record/ replay mechanism is proposed that allows the forensic examiner to easily extract application data from recorded network streams and allows applications to interact with such data for behavioral analysis purposes. A concrete implementation of such a setup for HTTP and DNS protocols using the HTTP proxy Squid and DNS proxy pdnsd is presented and its effect on digital forensic analysis demonstrated.

A survey of tools for the analysis of quantitative PCR (qPCR) data.

Science.gov (United States)

Pabinger, Stephan; Rödiger, Stefan; Kriegner, Albert; Vierlinger, Klemens; Weinhäusel, Andreas

2014-09-01

Real-time quantitative polymerase-chain-reaction (qPCR) is a standard technique in most laboratories used for various applications in basic research. Analysis of qPCR data is a crucial part of the entire experiment, which has led to the development of a plethora of methods. The released tools either cover specific parts of the workflow or provide complete analysis solutions. Here, we surveyed 27 open-access software packages and tools for the analysis of qPCR data. The survey includes 8 Microsoft Windows, 5 web-based, 9 R-based and 5 tools from other platforms. Reviewed packages and tools support the analysis of different qPCR applications, such as RNA quantification, DNA methylation, genotyping, identification of copy number variations, and digital PCR. We report an overview of the functionality, features and specific requirements of the individual software tools, such as data exchange formats, availability of a graphical user interface, included procedures for graphical data presentation, and offered statistical methods. In addition, we provide an overview about quantification strategies, and report various applications of qPCR. Our comprehensive survey showed that most tools use their own file format and only a fraction of the currently existing tools support the standardized data exchange format RDML. To allow a more streamlined and comparable analysis of qPCR data, more vendors and tools need to adapt the standardized format to encourage the exchange of data between instrument software, analysis tools, and researchers.

Performance analysis of signaling protocols on OBS switches

Science.gov (United States)

Kirci, Pinar; Zaim, A. Halim

2005-10-01

In this paper, Just-In-Time (JIT), Just-Enough-Time (JET) and Horizon signalling schemes for Optical Burst Switched Networks (OBS) are presented. These signaling schemes run over a core dWDM network and a network architecture based on Optical Burst Switches (OBS) is proposed to support IP, ATM and Burst traffic. In IP and ATM traffic several packets are assembled in a single packet called burst and the burst contention is handled by burst dropping. The burst length distribution in IP traffic is arbitrary between 0 and 1, and is fixed in ATM traffic at 0,5. Burst traffic on the other hand is arbitrary between 1 and 5. The Setup and Setup ack length distributions are arbitrary. We apply the Poisson model with rate λ and Self-Similar model with pareto distribution rate α to identify inter-arrival times in these protocols. We consider a communication between a source client node and a destination client node over an ingress and one or more multiple intermediate switches.We use buffering only in the ingress node. The communication is based on single burst connections in which, the connection is set up just before sending a burst and then closed as soon as the burst is sent. Our analysis accounts for several important parameters, including the burst setup, burst setup ack, keepalive messages and the optical switching protocol. We compare the performance of the three signalling schemes on the network under as burst dropping probability under a range of network scenarios.

Applications of a broad-spectrum tool for conservation and fisheries analysis: aquatic gap analysis

Science.gov (United States)

McKenna, James E.; Steen, Paul J.; Lyons, John; Stewart, Jana S.

2009-01-01

Natural resources support all of our social and economic activities, as well as our biological existence. Humans have little control over most of the physical, biological, and sociological conditions dictating the status and capacity of natural resources in any particular area. However, the most rapid and threatening influences on natural resources typically are anthropogenic overuse and degradation. In addition, living natural resources (i.e., organisms) do not respect political boundaries, but are aware of their optimal habitat and environmental conditions. Most organisms have wider spatial ranges than the jurisdictional boundaries of environmental agencies that deal with them; even within those jurisdictions, information is patchy and disconnected. Planning and projecting effects of ecological management are difficult, because many organisms, habitat conditions, and interactions are involved. Conservation and responsible resource use involves wise management and manipulation of the aspects of the environment and biological communities that can be effectively changed. Tools and data sets that provide new insights and analysis capabilities can enhance the ability of resource managers to make wise decisions and plan effective, long-term management strategies. Aquatic gap analysis has been developed to provide those benefits. Gap analysis is more than just the assessment of the match or mis-match (i.e., gaps) between habitats of ecological value and areas with an appropriate level of environmental protection (e.g., refuges, parks, preserves), as the name suggests. Rather, a Gap Analysis project is a process which leads to an organized database of georeferenced information and previously available tools to examine conservation and other ecological issues; it provides a geographic analysis platform that serves as a foundation for aquatic ecological studies. This analytical tool box allows one to conduct assessments of all habitat elements within an area of interest

Epinephrine Policies and Protocols Guidance for Schools: Equipping School Nurses to Save Lives.

Science.gov (United States)

Tanner, Andrea; Clarke, Carrie

2016-01-01

In response to limited direction given by legislative bodies to school nurses about how to implement state-mandated or recommended stock epinephrine programs in their schools, NASN convened a workgroup of invested stakeholders. This workgroup was challenged to equip school nurses with the necessary tools to develop policies and protocols regarding stock epinephrine in their school districts. The dynamic workgroup subcommittees focused on policies, procedures, and reporting tools. This article reviews the results of the subcommittees' work and the overall collaboration within the workgroup. This article provides clear, nationally recognized guidance on the best practice for establishing stock epinephrine policies and protocols with reporting tools at the local school district level. © 2015 The Author(s).

Selecting Tools for Renewable Energy Analysis in Developing Countries: An Expanded Review

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Irsyad, M. Indra al [School of Earth and Environmental Science, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD (Australia); Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, Jakarta (Indonesia); Halog, Anthony Basco, E-mail: a.halog@uq.edu.au [School of Earth and Environmental Science, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD (Australia); Nepal, Rabindra [Massey Business School, Massey University, Palmerston North (New Zealand); Koesrindartoto, Deddy P. [School of Business and Management, Institut Teknologi Bandung, Bandung (Indonesia)

2017-12-20

Renewable energy planners in developing countries should be cautious in using analytical tools formulated in developed countries. Traditional energy consumption, economic and demography transitions, high-income inequality, and informal economy are some characteristics of developing countries that may contradict the assumptions of mainstream, widely used analytical tools. In this study, we synthesize the debate in previous review studies on energy models for developing countries and then extend the scope of the previous studies by highlighting emerging methods of system thinking, life cycle thinking, and decision support analysis. We then discuss how these tools have been used for renewable energy analysis in developing countries and found out that not all studies are aware of the emerging critical issues in developing countries. We offer here a guidance to select the most appropriate analytical tool, mainly when dealing with energy modeling and analysis for developing countries. We also suggest potential future improvements to the analytical tool for renewable energy modeling and analysis in the developing countries.

Selecting Tools for Renewable Energy Analysis in Developing Countries: An Expanded Review

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Irsyad, M. Indra al; Halog, Anthony Basco; Nepal, Rabindra; Koesrindartoto, Deddy P.

2017-01-01

Renewable energy planners in developing countries should be cautious in using analytical tools formulated in developed countries. Traditional energy consumption, economic and demography transitions, high-income inequality, and informal economy are some characteristics of developing countries that may contradict the assumptions of mainstream, widely used analytical tools. In this study, we synthesize the debate in previous review studies on energy models for developing countries and then extend the scope of the previous studies by highlighting emerging methods of system thinking, life cycle thinking, and decision support analysis. We then discuss how these tools have been used for renewable energy analysis in developing countries and found out that not all studies are aware of the emerging critical issues in developing countries. We offer here a guidance to select the most appropriate analytical tool, mainly when dealing with energy modeling and analysis for developing countries. We also suggest potential future improvements to the analytical tool for renewable energy modeling and analysis in the developing countries.

Development of data analysis tool for combat system integration

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Seung-Chun Shin

2013-03-01

Full Text Available System integration is an important element for the construction of naval combat ships. In particular, because impeccable combat system integration together with the sensors and weapons can ensure the combat capability and survivability of the ship, the integrated performance of the combat system should be verified and validated whether or not it fulfills the requirements of the end user. In order to conduct systematic verification and validation, a data analysis tool is requisite. This paper suggests the Data Extraction, Recording and Analysis Tool (DERAT for the data analysis of the integrated performance of the combat system, including the functional definition, architecture and effectiveness of the DERAT by presenting the test results.

Mac protocols for cyber-physical systems

CERN Document Server

Xia, Feng

2015-01-01

This book provides a literature review of various wireless MAC protocols and techniques for achieving real-time and reliable communications in the context of cyber-physical systems (CPS). The evaluation analysis of IEEE 802.15.4 for CPS therein will give insights into configuration and optimization of critical design parameters of MAC protocols. In addition, this book also presents the design and evaluation of an adaptive MAC protocol for medical CPS, which exemplifies how to facilitate real-time and reliable communications in CPS by exploiting IEEE 802.15.4 based MAC protocols. This book wil

Optimization of oligonucleotide arrays and RNA amplification protocols for analysis of transcript structure and alternative splicing.

Science.gov (United States)

Castle, John; Garrett-Engele, Phil; Armour, Christopher D; Duenwald, Sven J; Loerch, Patrick M; Meyer, Michael R; Schadt, Eric E; Stoughton, Roland; Parrish, Mark L; Shoemaker, Daniel D; Johnson, Jason M

2003-01-01

Microarrays offer a high-resolution means for monitoring pre-mRNA splicing on a genomic scale. We have developed a novel, unbiased amplification protocol that permits labeling of entire transcripts. Also, hybridization conditions, probe characteristics, and analysis algorithms were optimized for detection of exons, exon-intron edges, and exon junctions. These optimized protocols can be used to detect small variations and isoform mixtures, map the tissue specificity of known human alternative isoforms, and provide a robust, scalable platform for high-throughput discovery of alternative splicing.

Application of Statistical Tools for Data Analysis and Interpretation in Rice Plant Pathology

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Parsuram Nayak

2018-01-01

Full Text Available There has been a significant advancement in the application of statistical tools in plant pathology during the past four decades. These tools include multivariate analysis of disease dynamics involving principal component analysis, cluster analysis, factor analysis, pattern analysis, discriminant analysis, multivariate analysis of variance, correspondence analysis, canonical correlation analysis, redundancy analysis, genetic diversity analysis, and stability analysis, which involve in joint regression, additive main effects and multiplicative interactions, and genotype-by-environment interaction biplot analysis. The advanced statistical tools, such as non-parametric analysis of disease association, meta-analysis, Bayesian analysis, and decision theory, take an important place in analysis of disease dynamics. Disease forecasting methods by simulation models for plant diseases have a great potentiality in practical disease control strategies. Common mathematical tools such as monomolecular, exponential, logistic, Gompertz and linked differential equations take an important place in growth curve analysis of disease epidemics. The highly informative means of displaying a range of numerical data through construction of box and whisker plots has been suggested. The probable applications of recent advanced tools of linear and non-linear mixed models like the linear mixed model, generalized linear model, and generalized linear mixed models have been presented. The most recent technologies such as micro-array analysis, though cost effective, provide estimates of gene expressions for thousands of genes simultaneously and need attention by the molecular biologists. Some of these advanced tools can be well applied in different branches of rice research, including crop improvement, crop production, crop protection, social sciences as well as agricultural engineering. The rice research scientists should take advantage of these new opportunities adequately in

A survey of tools for the analysis of quantitative PCR (qPCR data

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Stephan Pabinger

2014-09-01

Our comprehensive survey showed that most tools use their own file format and only a fraction of the currently existing tools support the standardized data exchange format RDML. To allow a more streamlined and comparable analysis of qPCR data, more vendors and tools need to adapt the standardized format to encourage the exchange of data between instrument software, analysis tools, and researchers.

Removing Ambiguities of IP Telephony Traffic Using Protocol Scrubbers

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Bazara I. A. Barry

2012-10-01

Full Text Available Network intrusion detection systems (NIDSs face the serious challenge of attacks such as insertion and evasion attacks that are caused by ambiguous network traffic. Such ambiguity comes as a result of the nature of network traffic which includes protocol implementation variations and errors alongside legitimate network traffic. Moreover, attackers can intentionally introduce further ambiguities in the traffic. Consequently, NIDSs need to be aware of these ambiguities when detection is performed and make sure to differentiate between true attacks and protocol implementation variations or errors; otherwise, detection accuracy can be affected negatively. In this paper we present the design and implementation of tools that are called protocol scrubbers whose main functionality is to remove ambiguities from network traffic before it is presented to the NIDS. The proposed protocol scrubbers are designed for session initiation and data transfer protocols in IP telephony systems. They guarantee that the traffic presented to NIDSs is unambiguous by eliminating ambiguous behaviors of protocols using well-designed protocol state machines, and walking through packet headers of protocols to make sure packets will be interpreted in the desired way by the NIDS. The experimental results shown in this paper demonstrate the good quality and applicability of the introduced scrubbers.

Implementing the WebSocket Protocol Based on Formal Modelling and Automated Code Generation

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Simonsen, Kent Inge; Kristensen, Lars Michael

2014-01-01

with pragmatic annotations for automated code generation of protocol software. The contribution of this paper is an application of the approach as implemented in the PetriCode tool to obtain protocol software implementing the IETF WebSocket protocol. This demonstrates the scalability of our approach to real...... protocols. Furthermore, we perform formal verification of the CPN model prior to code generation, and test the implementation for interoperability against the Autobahn WebSocket test-suite resulting in 97% and 99% success rate for the client and server implementation, respectively. The tests show...

A Quality Assessment Tool for Non-Specialist Users of Regression Analysis

Science.gov (United States)

Argyrous, George

2015-01-01

This paper illustrates the use of a quality assessment tool for regression analysis. It is designed for non-specialist "consumers" of evidence, such as policy makers. The tool provides a series of questions such consumers of evidence can ask to interrogate regression analysis, and is illustrated with reference to a recent study published…

INTERFACING INTERACTIVE DATA ANALYSIS TOOLS WITH THE GRID: THE PPDG CS-11 ACTIVITY

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Perl, Joseph

2003-01-01

For today's physicists, who work in large geographically distributed collaborations, the data grid promises significantly greater capabilities for analysis of experimental data and production of physics results than is possible with today's ''remote access'' technologies. The goal of letting scientists at their home institutions interact with and analyze data as if they were physically present at the major laboratory that houses their detector and computer center has yet to be accomplished. The Particle Physics Data Grid project (www.ppdg.net) has recently embarked on an effort to ''Interface and Integrate Interactive Data Analysis Tools with the grid and identify Common Components and Services''. The initial activities are to collect known and identify new requirements for grid services and analysis tools from a range of current and future experiments to determine if existing plans for tools and services meet these requirements. Follow-on activities will foster the interaction between grid service developers, analysis tool developers, experiment analysis framework developers and end user physicists, and will identify and carry out specific development/integration work so that interactive analysis tools utilizing grid services actually provide the capabilities that users need. This talk will summarize what we know of requirements for analysis tools and grid services, as well as describe the identified areas where more development work is needed

Development of a User Interface for a Regression Analysis Software Tool

Science.gov (United States)

Ulbrich, Norbert Manfred; Volden, Thomas R.

2010-01-01

An easy-to -use user interface was implemented in a highly automated regression analysis tool. The user interface was developed from the start to run on computers that use the Windows, Macintosh, Linux, or UNIX operating system. Many user interface features were specifically designed such that a novice or inexperienced user can apply the regression analysis tool with confidence. Therefore, the user interface s design minimizes interactive input from the user. In addition, reasonable default combinations are assigned to those analysis settings that influence the outcome of the regression analysis. These default combinations will lead to a successful regression analysis result for most experimental data sets. The user interface comes in two versions. The text user interface version is used for the ongoing development of the regression analysis tool. The official release of the regression analysis tool, on the other hand, has a graphical user interface that is more efficient to use. This graphical user interface displays all input file names, output file names, and analysis settings for a specific software application mode on a single screen which makes it easier to generate reliable analysis results and to perform input parameter studies. An object-oriented approach was used for the development of the graphical user interface. This choice keeps future software maintenance costs to a reasonable limit. Examples of both the text user interface and graphical user interface are discussed in order to illustrate the user interface s overall design approach.

A software tool for design of process monitoring and analysis systems

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Singh, Ravendra; Gernaey, Krist; Gani, Rafiqul

2009-01-01

A well designed process monitoring and analysis system is necessary to consistently achieve any predefined end product quality. Systematic computer aided methods and tools provide the means to design the necessary process monitoring and analysis systems and/or to validate any existing monitoring...... and analysis system. A software to achieve this has been developed. Two developed supporting tools for the design, a knowledge base (consisting of the process knowledge as well as the knowledge on measurement methods & tools) and a model library (consisting of the process operational models) have been extended...... rigorously and integrated with the user interface, which made the software more generic and applicable to a wide range of problems. The software for the design of a process monitoring and analysis system is presented and illustrated with a tablet manufacturing process example....

Analysis of Security Protocols for Mobile Healthcare.

Science.gov (United States)

Wazid, Mohammad; Zeadally, Sherali; Das, Ashok Kumar; Odelu, Vanga

2016-11-01

Mobile Healthcare (mHealth) continues to improve because of significant improvements and the decreasing costs of Information Communication Technologies (ICTs). mHealth is a medical and public health practice, which is supported by mobile devices (for example, smartphones) and, patient monitoring devices (for example, various types of wearable sensors, etc.). An mHealth system enables healthcare experts and professionals to have ubiquitous access to a patient's health data along with providing any ongoing medical treatment at any time, any place, and from any device. It also helps the patient requiring continuous medical monitoring to stay in touch with the appropriate medical staff and healthcare experts remotely. Thus, mHealth has become a major driving force in improving the health of citizens today. First, we discuss the security requirements, issues and threats to the mHealth system. We then present a taxonomy of recently proposed security protocols for mHealth system based on features supported and possible attacks, computation cost and communication cost. Our detailed taxonomy demonstrates the strength and weaknesses of recently proposed security protocols for the mHealth system. Finally, we identify some of the challenges in the area of security protocols for mHealth systems that still need to be addressed in the future to enable cost-effective, secure and robust mHealth systems.

MetaMeta: integrating metagenome analysis tools to improve taxonomic profiling.

Science.gov (United States)

Piro, Vitor C; Matschkowski, Marcel; Renard, Bernhard Y

2017-08-14

Many metagenome analysis tools are presently available to classify sequences and profile environmental samples. In particular, taxonomic profiling and binning methods are commonly used for such tasks. Tools available among these two categories make use of several techniques, e.g., read mapping, k-mer alignment, and composition analysis. Variations on the construction of the corresponding reference sequence databases are also common. In addition, different tools provide good results in different datasets and configurations. All this variation creates a complicated scenario to researchers to decide which methods to use. Installation, configuration and execution can also be difficult especially when dealing with multiple datasets and tools. We propose MetaMeta: a pipeline to execute and integrate results from metagenome analysis tools. MetaMeta provides an easy workflow to run multiple tools with multiple samples, producing a single enhanced output profile for each sample. MetaMeta includes a database generation, pre-processing, execution, and integration steps, allowing easy execution and parallelization. The integration relies on the co-occurrence of organisms from different methods as the main feature to improve community profiling while accounting for differences in their databases. In a controlled case with simulated and real data, we show that the integrated profiles of MetaMeta overcome the best single profile. Using the same input data, it provides more sensitive and reliable results with the presence of each organism being supported by several methods. MetaMeta uses Snakemake and has six pre-configured tools, all available at BioConda channel for easy installation (conda install -c bioconda metameta). The MetaMeta pipeline is open-source and can be downloaded at: https://gitlab.com/rki_bioinformatics .

Integrated tools for control-system analysis

Science.gov (United States)

Ostroff, Aaron J.; Proffitt, Melissa S.; Clark, David R.

1989-01-01

The basic functions embedded within a user friendly software package (MATRIXx) are used to provide a high level systems approach to the analysis of linear control systems. Various control system analysis configurations are assembled automatically to minimize the amount of work by the user. Interactive decision making is incorporated via menu options and at selected points, such as in the plotting section, by inputting data. There are five evaluations such as the singular value robustness test, singular value loop transfer frequency response, Bode frequency response, steady-state covariance analysis, and closed-loop eigenvalues. Another section describes time response simulations. A time response for random white noise disturbance is available. The configurations and key equations used for each type of analysis, the restrictions that apply, the type of data required, and an example problem are described. One approach for integrating the design and analysis tools is also presented.

Protocol Analysis of Group Problem Solving in Mathematics: A Cognitive-Metacognitive Framework for Assessment.

Science.gov (United States)

Artzt, Alice F.; Armour-Thomas, Eleanor

The roles of cognition and metacognition were examined in the mathematical problem-solving behaviors of students as they worked in small groups. As an outcome, a framework that links the literature of cognitive science and mathematical problem solving was developed for protocol analysis of mathematical problem solving. Within this framework, each…

The use of current risk analysis tools evaluated towards preventing external domino accidents

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Reniers, Genserik L L; Dullaert, W.; Ale, B. J.M.; Soudan, K.

Risk analysis is an essential tool for company safety policy. Risk analysis consists of identifying and evaluating all possible risks. The efficiency of risk analysis tools depends on the rigueur of identifying and evaluating all possible risks. The diversity in risk analysis procedures is such that

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.

An Optimal Non-Interactive Message Authentication Protocol

OpenAIRE

Pasini, Sylvain; Vaudenay, Serge

2006-01-01

Vaudenay recently proposed a message authentication protocol which is interactive and based on short authenticated strings (SAS). We study here SAS-based non-interactive message authentication protocols (NIMAP). We start by the analysis of two popular non-interactive message authentication protocols. The first one is based on a collision-resistant hash function and was presented by Balfanz et al. The second protocol is based on a universal hash function family and was proposed by Gehrmann, Mi...

Analysis of Security Protocols in Embedded Systems

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Bruni, Alessandro

Embedded real-time systems have been adopted in a wide range of safety-critical applications—including automotive, avionics, and train control systems—where the focus has long been on safety (i.e., protecting the external world from the potential damage caused by the system) rather than security (i.......e., protecting the system from the external world). With increased connectivity of these systems to external networks the attack surface has grown, and consequently there is a need for securing the system from external attacks. Introducing security protocols in safety critical systems requires careful...... in this direction is to extend saturation-based techniques so that enough state information can be modelled and analysed. Finally, we present a methodology for proving the same security properties in the computational model, by means of typing protocol implementations....

Aeroelastic Ground Wind Loads Analysis Tool for Launch Vehicles

Science.gov (United States)

Ivanco, Thomas G.

2016-01-01

Launch vehicles are exposed to ground winds during rollout and on the launch pad that can induce static and dynamic loads. Of particular concern are the dynamic loads caused by vortex shedding from nearly-cylindrical structures. When the frequency of vortex shedding nears that of a lowly-damped structural mode, the dynamic loads can be more than an order of magnitude greater than mean drag loads. Accurately predicting vehicle response to vortex shedding during the design and analysis cycles is difficult and typically exceeds the practical capabilities of modern computational fluid dynamics codes. Therefore, mitigating the ground wind loads risk typically requires wind-tunnel tests of dynamically-scaled models that are time consuming and expensive to conduct. In recent years, NASA has developed a ground wind loads analysis tool for launch vehicles to fill this analytical capability gap in order to provide predictions for prelaunch static and dynamic loads. This paper includes a background of the ground wind loads problem and the current state-of-the-art. It then discusses the history and significance of the analysis tool and the methodology used to develop it. Finally, results of the analysis tool are compared to wind-tunnel and full-scale data of various geometries and Reynolds numbers.

Programming database tools for the casual user

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Katz, R.A; Griffiths, C.

1990-01-01

The AGS Distributed Control System (AGSDCS) uses a relational database management system (INTERBASE) for the storage of all data associated with the control of the particle accelerator complex. This includes the static data which describes the component devices of the complex, as well as data for application program startup and data records that are used in analysis. Due to licensing restraints, it was necessary to develop tools to allow programs requiring access to a database to be unconcerned whether or not they were running on a licensed node. An in-house database server program was written, using Apollo mailbox communication protocols, allowing application programs via calls to this server to access the interbase database. Initially, the tools used by the server to actually access the database were written using the GDML C host language interface. Through the evolutionary learning process these tools have been converted to Dynamic SQL. Additionally, these tools have been extracted from the exclusive province of the database server and placed in their own library. This enables application programs to use these same tools on a licensed node without using the database server and without having to modify the application code. The syntax of the C calls remain the same

Analiza protokola kvaliteta usluga telekomunikacionih mreža / Analysis of quality of service protocols in telecommunication networks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Milojko Jevtović

2003-05-01

Full Text Available Protokoli kvaliteta usluga (Quality of Service - QoS sadašnjih i budućih telekomunikacionih mreža razvijeni su, pored ostalog, sa ciljem da podrže različite klase usluga (Class of Service - CoS komunikaciju u realnom vremenu, kao i prenos multimedijalnih poruka preko paketskih IP (Internet Protocol mreža. U raduje dat pregled karakteristika tih protokola i ocena njihovih konkretnih mogućnosti u obezbeđenju kvaliteta usluga unutar sistema ('s vrha do dna', tj. vertikalno u OSI arhitekturi kao i 'horizontalno' odnosno s kraja na kraj veze, tj. između izvora i odredišta. / Today's and future telecommunication networks must enable transmission throughout heterogeneous environment, using different Quality of Service protocols, Quality of Service protocols use a variety of complementary mechanisms to enable deterministic end-to-end different data delivery. The analysis of these protocols and their efficiency in providing QoS and CoS has been given in this paper.

Measurement properties of self-report physical activity assessment tools in stroke: a protocol for a systematic review

Science.gov (United States)

Martins, Júlia Caetano; Aguiar, Larissa Tavares; Nadeau, Sylvie; Scianni, Aline Alvim; Teixeira-Salmela, Luci Fuscaldi; Faria, Christina Danielli Coelho de Morais

2017-01-01

Introduction Self-report physical activity assessment tools are commonly used for the evaluation of physical activity levels in individuals with stroke. A great variety of these tools have been developed and widely used in recent years, which justify the need to examine their measurement properties and clinical utility. Therefore, the main objectives of this systematic review are to examine the measurement properties and clinical utility of self-report measures of physical activity and discuss the strengths and limitations of the identified tools. Methods and analysis A systematic review of studies that investigated the measurement properties and/or clinical utility of self-report physical activity assessment tools in stroke will be conducted. Electronic searches will be performed in five databases: Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System Online (MEDLINE) (PubMed), Excerpta Medica Database (EMBASE), Physiotherapy Evidence Database (PEDro), Literatura Latino-Americana e do Caribe em Ciências da Saúde (LILACS) and Scientific Electronic Library Online (SciELO), followed by hand searches of the reference lists of the included studies. Two independent reviewers will screen all retrieve titles, abstracts, and full texts, according to the inclusion criteria and will also extract the data. A third reviewer will be referred to solve any disagreement. A descriptive summary of the included studies will contain the design, participants, as well as the characteristics, measurement properties, and clinical utility of the self-report tools. The methodological quality of the studies will be evaluated using the COnsensus-based Standards for the selection of health Measurement INstruments (COSMIN) checklist and the clinical utility of the identified tools will be assessed considering predefined criteria. This systematic review will follow the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) statement. Discussion This systematic review will

Paramedir: A Tool for Programmable Performance Analysis

Science.gov (United States)

Jost, Gabriele; Labarta, Jesus; Gimenez, Judit

2004-01-01

Performance analysis of parallel scientific applications is time consuming and requires great expertise in areas such as programming paradigms, system software, and computer hardware architectures. In this paper we describe a tool that facilitates the programmability of performance metric calculations thereby allowing the automation of the analysis and reducing the application development time. We demonstrate how the system can be used to capture knowledge and intuition acquired by advanced parallel programmers in order to be transferred to novice users.

Reload safety analysis automation tools

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Havlůj, F.; Hejzlar, J.; Vočka, R.

2013-01-01

Performing core physics calculations for the sake of reload safety analysis is a very demanding and time consuming process. This process generally begins with the preparation of libraries for the core physics code using a lattice code. The next step involves creating a very large set of calculations with the core physics code. Lastly, the results of the calculations must be interpreted, correctly applying uncertainties and checking whether applicable limits are satisfied. Such a procedure requires three specialized experts. One must understand the lattice code in order to correctly calculate and interpret its results. The next expert must have a good understanding of the physics code in order to create libraries from the lattice code results and to correctly define all the calculations involved. The third expert must have a deep knowledge of the power plant and the reload safety analysis procedure in order to verify, that all the necessary calculations were performed. Such a procedure involves many steps and is very time consuming. At ÚJV Řež, a.s., we have developed a set of tools which can be used to automate and simplify the whole process of performing reload safety analysis. Our application QUADRIGA automates lattice code calculations for library preparation. It removes user interaction with the lattice code and reduces his task to defining fuel pin types, enrichments, assembly maps and operational parameters all through a very nice and user-friendly GUI. The second part in reload safety analysis calculations is done by CycleKit, a code which is linked with our core physics code ANDREA. Through CycleKit large sets of calculations with complicated interdependencies can be performed using simple and convenient notation. CycleKit automates the interaction with ANDREA, organizes all the calculations, collects the results, performs limit verification and displays the output in clickable html format. Using this set of tools for reload safety analysis simplifies

Anaphe - OO Libraries and Tools for Data Analysis

CERN Document Server

Couet, O; Molnar, Z; Moscicki, J T; Pfeiffer, A; Sang, M

2001-01-01

The Anaphe project is an ongoing effort to provide an Object Oriented software environment for data analysis in HENP experiments. A range of commercial and public domain libraries is used to cover basic functionalities; on top of these libraries a set of HENP-specific C++ class libraries for histogram management, fitting, plotting and ntuple-like data analysis has been developed. In order to comply with the user requirements for a command-line driven tool, we have chosen to use a scripting language (Python) as the front-end for a data analysis tool. The loose coupling provided by the consequent use of (AIDA compliant) Abstract Interfaces for each component in combination with the use of shared libraries for their implementation provides an easy integration of existing libraries into modern scripting languages thus allowing for rapid application development. This integration is simplified even further using a specialised toolkit (SWIG) to create "shadow classes" for the Python language, which map the definitio...

Advanced Vibration Analysis Tool Developed for Robust Engine Rotor Designs

Science.gov (United States)

Min, James B.

2005-01-01

The primary objective of this research program is to develop vibration analysis tools, design tools, and design strategies to significantly improve the safety and robustness of turbine engine rotors. Bladed disks in turbine engines always feature small, random blade-to-blade differences, or mistuning. Mistuning can lead to a dramatic increase in blade forced-response amplitudes and stresses. Ultimately, this results in high-cycle fatigue, which is a major safety and cost concern. In this research program, the necessary steps will be taken to transform a state-of-the-art vibration analysis tool, the Turbo- Reduce forced-response prediction code, into an effective design tool by enhancing and extending the underlying modeling and analysis methods. Furthermore, novel techniques will be developed to assess the safety of a given design. In particular, a procedure will be established for using natural-frequency curve veerings to identify ranges of operating conditions (rotational speeds and engine orders) in which there is a great risk that the rotor blades will suffer high stresses. This work also will aid statistical studies of the forced response by reducing the necessary number of simulations. Finally, new strategies for improving the design of rotors will be pursued.

The interventional effect of new drugs combined with the Stupp protocol on glioblastoma: A network meta-analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Mei; Song, Xiangqi; Zhu, Jun; Fu, Aijun; Li, Jianmin; Chen, Tong

2017-08-01

New therapeutic agents in combination with the standard Stupp protocol (a protocol about the temozolomide combined with radiotherapy treatment with glioblastoma was research by Stupp R in 2005) were assessed to evaluate whether they were superior to the Stupp protocol alone, to determine the optimum treatment regimen for patients with newly diagnosed glioblastoma. We implemented a search strategy to identify studies in the following databases: PubMed, Cochrane Library, EMBASE, CNKI, CBM, Wanfang, and VIP, and assessed the quality of extracted data from the trials included. Statistical software was used to perform network meta-analysis. The use of novel therapeutic agents in combination with the Stupp protocol were all shown to be superior than the Stupp protocol alone for the treatment of newly diagnosed glioblastoma, ranked as follows: cilengitide 2000mg/5/week, bevacizumab in combination with irinotecan, nimotuzumab, bevacizumab, cilengitide 2000mg/2/week, cytokine-induced killer cell immunotherapy, and the Stupp protocol. In terms of serious adverse effects, the intervention group showed a 29% increase in the incidence of adverse events compared with the control group (patients treated only with Stupp protocol) with a statistically significant difference (RR=1.29; 95%CI 1.17-1.43; P<0.001). The most common adverse events were thrombocytopenia, lymphopenia, neutropenia, pneumonia, nausea, and vomiting, none of which were significantly different between the groups except for neutropenia, pneumonia, and embolism. All intervention drugs evaluated in our study were superior to the Stupp protocol alone when used in combination with it. However, we could not conclusively confirm whether cilengitide 2000mg/5/week was the optimum regime, as only one trial using this protocol was included in our study. Copyright © 2017. Published by Elsevier B.V.

An electronic specimen collection protocol schema (eSCPS). Document architecture for specimen management and the exchange of specimen collection protocols between biobanking information systems.

Science.gov (United States)

Eminaga, O; Semjonow, A; Oezguer, E; Herden, J; Akbarov, I; Tok, A; Engelmann, U; Wille, S

2014-01-01

The integrity of collection protocols in biobanking is essential for a high-quality sample preparation process. However, there is not currently a well-defined universal method for integrating collection protocols in the biobanking information system (BIMS). Therefore, an electronic schema of the collection protocol that is based on Extensible Markup Language (XML) is required to maintain the integrity and enable the exchange of collection protocols. The development and implementation of an electronic specimen collection protocol schema (eSCPS) was performed at two institutions (Muenster and Cologne) in three stages. First, we analyzed the infrastructure that was already established at both the biorepository and the hospital information systems of these institutions and determined the requirements for the sufficient preparation of specimens and documentation. Second, we designed an eSCPS according to these requirements. Finally, a prospective study was conducted to implement and evaluate the novel schema in the current BIMS. We designed an eSCPS that provides all of the relevant information about collection protocols. Ten electronic collection protocols were generated using the supplementary Protocol Editor tool, and these protocols were successfully implemented in the existing BIMS. Moreover, an electronic list of collection protocols for the current studies being performed at each institution was included, new collection protocols were added, and the existing protocols were redesigned to be modifiable. The documentation time was significantly reduced after implementing the eSCPS (5 ± 2 min vs. 7 ± 3 min; p = 0.0002). The eSCPS improves the integrity and facilitates the exchange of specimen collection protocols in the existing open-source BIMS.

Hippocampal unified multi-atlas network (HUMAN): protocol and scale validation of a novel segmentation tool.

Science.gov (United States)

Amoroso, N; Errico, R; Bruno, S; Chincarini, A; Garuccio, E; Sensi, F; Tangaro, S; Tateo, A; Bellotti, R

2015-11-21

In this study we present a novel fully automated Hippocampal Unified Multi-Atlas-Networks (HUMAN) algorithm for the segmentation of the hippocampus in structural magnetic resonance imaging. In multi-atlas approaches atlas selection is of crucial importance for the accuracy of the segmentation. Here we present an optimized method based on the definition of a small peri-hippocampal region to target the atlas learning with linear and non-linear embedded manifolds. All atlases were co-registered to a data driven template resulting in a computationally efficient method that requires only one test registration. The optimal atlases identified were used to train dedicated artificial neural networks whose labels were then propagated and fused to obtain the final segmentation. To quantify data heterogeneity and protocol inherent effects, HUMAN was tested on two independent data sets provided by the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative and the Open Access Series of Imaging Studies. HUMAN is accurate and achieves state-of-the-art performance (Dice[Formula: see text] and Dice[Formula: see text]). It is also a robust method that remains stable when applied to the whole hippocampus or to sub-regions (patches). HUMAN also compares favorably with a basic multi-atlas approach and a benchmark segmentation tool such as FreeSurfer.

Development of a climate data analysis tool (CDAT)

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Marlais, S.M.

1997-09-01

The Climate Data Analysis Tool (CDAT) is designed to provide the Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison (PCMDI) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, California, with the capabilities needed to analyze model data with little effort on the part of the scientist, while performing complex mathematical calculations, and graphically displaying the results. This computer software will meet the demanding need of climate scientists by providing the necessary tools to diagnose, validate, and intercompare large observational and global climate model datasets.

Standardizing Exoplanet Analysis with the Exoplanet Characterization Tool Kit (ExoCTK)

Science.gov (United States)

Fowler, Julia; Stevenson, Kevin B.; Lewis, Nikole K.; Fraine, Jonathan D.; Pueyo, Laurent; Bruno, Giovanni; Filippazzo, Joe; Hill, Matthew; Batalha, Natasha; Wakeford, Hannah; Bushra, Rafia

2018-06-01

Exoplanet characterization depends critically on analysis tools, models, and spectral libraries that are constantly under development and have no single source nor sense of unified style or methods. The complexity of spectroscopic analysis and initial time commitment required to become competitive is prohibitive to new researchers entering the field, as well as a remaining obstacle for established groups hoping to contribute in a comparable manner to their peers. As a solution, we are developing an open-source, modular data analysis package in Python and a publicly facing web interface including tools that address atmospheric characterization, transit observation planning with JWST, JWST corongraphy simulations, limb darkening, forward modeling, and data reduction, as well as libraries of stellar, planet, and opacity models. The foundation of these software tools and libraries exist within pockets of the exoplanet community, but our project will gather these seedling tools and grow a robust, uniform, and well-maintained exoplanet characterization toolkit.

Analysis of functionality free CASE-tools databases design

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

A. V. Gavrilov

2016-01-01

Full Text Available The introduction in the educational process of database design CASEtechnologies requires the institution of significant costs for the purchase of software. A possible solution could be the use of free software peers. At the same time this kind of substitution should be based on even-com representation of the functional characteristics and features of operation of these programs. The purpose of the article – a review of the free and non-profi t CASE-tools database design, as well as their classifi cation on the basis of the analysis functionality. When writing this article were used materials from the offi cial websites of the tool developers. Evaluation of the functional characteristics of CASEtools for database design made exclusively empirically with the direct work with software products. Analysis functionality of tools allow you to distinguish the two categories CASE-tools database design. The first category includes systems with a basic set of features and tools. The most important basic functions of these systems are: management connections to database servers, visual tools to create and modify database objects (tables, views, triggers, procedures, the ability to enter and edit data in table mode, user and privilege management tools, editor SQL-code, means export/import data. CASE-system related to the first category can be used to design and develop simple databases, data management, as well as a means of administration server database. A distinctive feature of the second category of CASE-tools for database design (full-featured systems is the presence of visual designer, allowing to carry out the construction of the database model and automatic creation of the database on the server based on this model. CASE-system related to this categories can be used for the design and development of databases of any structural complexity, as well as a database server administration tool. The article concluded that the

Development and Usability Testing of a Computer-Tailored Decision Support Tool for Lung Cancer Screening: Study Protocol.

Science.gov (United States)

Carter-Harris, Lisa; Comer, Robert Skipworth; Goyal, Anurag; Vode, Emilee Christine; Hanna, Nasser; Ceppa, DuyKhanh; Rawl, Susan M

2017-11-16

follow-up survey. We expect to have results by December 31, 2017 and to have data analysis completed by March 1, 2018. Results from usability testing indicate that the computer-tailored decision support tool is easy to use, is helpful, and provides a satisfactory experience for the user. At the conclusion of phase III (pilot RCT), we will have preliminary effect sizes to inform a future fully powered RCT on changes in (1) knowledge about lung cancer and screening, (2) perceived risk of lung cancer, (3) perceived benefits of lung cancer screening, (4) perceived barriers to lung cancer screening, (5) self-efficacy for lung cancer screening, and (6) perceptions of being adequately prepared to engage in a discussion with their clinician about lung cancer screening. ©Lisa Carter-Harris, Robert Skipworth Comer, Anurag Goyal, Emilee Christine Vode, Nasser Hanna, DuyKhanh Ceppa, Susan M Rawl. Originally published in JMIR Research Protocols (http://www.researchprotocols.org), 16.11.2017.

Financial incentive policies at workplace cafeterias for preventing obesity--a systematic review and meta-analysis (Protocol).

Science.gov (United States)

Sawada, Kimi; Ota, Erika; Shahrook, Sadequa; Mori, Rintaro

2014-10-28

Various studies are currently investigating ways to prevent lifestyle-related diseases and obesity among workers through interventions using incentive strategies, including price discounts for low-fat snacks and sugar-free beverages at workplace cafeterias or vending machines, and the provision of a free salad bar in cafeterias. Rather than assessing individual or group interventions, we will focus on the effectiveness of nutrition education programs at the population level, which primarily incorporate financial incentive strategies to prevent obesity. This paper describes the protocol of a systematic review that will examine the effectiveness of financial incentive programs at company cafeterias in improving dietary habits, nutrient intake, and obesity prevention. We will conduct searches in the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL), MEDLINE, Embase, and PsycINFO. Interventions will be assessed using data from randomized control trials (RCTs) and cluster RCTs. However, if few such trials exist, we will include quasi-RCTs. We will exclude controlled before-and-after studies and crossover RCTs. We will assess food-based interventions that include financial incentive strategies (discount strategies or social marketing) for workplace cafeterias, vending machines, and kiosks. Two authors will independently review studies for inclusion and will resolve differences by discussion and, if required, through consultation with a third author. We will assess the risk of bias of included studies according to the Cochrane Collaboration's "risk of bias" tool. The purpose of this paper is to outline the study protocol for a systematic review and meta-analysis that will investigate the effectiveness of population-level, incentive-focused interventions at the workplace cafeteria that aim to promote and prevent obesity. This review will give an important overview of the available evidence about the effectiveness of incentive-based environmental interventions to

High-Performance Integrated Virtual Environment (HIVE) Tools and Applications for Big Data Analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

Simonyan, Vahan; Mazumder, Raja

2014-09-30

The High-performance Integrated Virtual Environment (HIVE) is a high-throughput cloud-based infrastructure developed for the storage and analysis of genomic and associated biological data. HIVE consists of a web-accessible interface for authorized users to deposit, retrieve, share, annotate, compute and visualize Next-generation Sequencing (NGS) data in a scalable and highly efficient fashion. The platform contains a distributed storage library and a distributed computational powerhouse linked seamlessly. Resources available through the interface include algorithms, tools and applications developed exclusively for the HIVE platform, as well as commonly used external tools adapted to operate within the parallel architecture of the system. HIVE is composed of a flexible infrastructure, which allows for simple implementation of new algorithms and tools. Currently, available HIVE tools include sequence alignment and nucleotide variation profiling tools, metagenomic analyzers, phylogenetic tree-building tools using NGS data, clone discovery algorithms, and recombination analysis algorithms. In addition to tools, HIVE also provides knowledgebases that can be used in conjunction with the tools for NGS sequence and metadata analysis.

High-Performance Integrated Virtual Environment (HIVE Tools and Applications for Big Data Analysis

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Vahan Simonyan

2014-09-01

Full Text Available The High-performance Integrated Virtual Environment (HIVE is a high-throughput cloud-based infrastructure developed for the storage and analysis of genomic and associated biological data. HIVE consists of a web-accessible interface for authorized users to deposit, retrieve, share, annotate, compute and visualize Next-generation Sequencing (NGS data in a scalable and highly efficient fashion. The platform contains a distributed storage library and a distributed computational powerhouse linked seamlessly. Resources available through the interface include algorithms, tools and applications developed exclusively for the HIVE platform, as well as commonly used external tools adapted to operate within the parallel architecture of the system. HIVE is composed of a flexible infrastructure, which allows for simple implementation of new algorithms and tools. Currently, available HIVE tools include sequence alignment and nucleotide variation profiling tools, metagenomic analyzers, phylogenetic tree-building tools using NGS data, clone discovery algorithms, and recombination analysis algorithms. In addition to tools, HIVE also provides knowledgebases that can be used in conjunction with the tools for NGS sequence and metadata analysis.

Evaluation of an app-based stress protocol

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Noeh Claudius

2016-09-01

Full Text Available Stress is a major influence on the quality of life in our fast-moving society. This paper describes a standardized and contemporary protocol that is capable of inducing moderate psychological stress in a laboratory setting. Furthermore, it evaluates its effects on physiological biomarkers. The protocol called “THM-Stresstest” mainly consists of a rest period (30 min, an app-based stress test under the surveillance of an audience (4 min and a regeneration period (32 min. We investigated 12 subjects to evaluate the developed protocol. We could show significant changes in heart rate variability, electromyography, electro dermal activity and salivary cortisol and α-amylase. From this data we conclude that the THM-Stresstest can serve as a psychobiological tool for provoking responses in the cardiovascular-, the endocrine and exocrine system as well as the sympathetic part of the central nervous system.

SBML-PET-MPI: a parallel parameter estimation tool for Systems Biology Markup Language based models.

Science.gov (United States)

Zi, Zhike

2011-04-01

Parameter estimation is crucial for the modeling and dynamic analysis of biological systems. However, implementing parameter estimation is time consuming and computationally demanding. Here, we introduced a parallel parameter estimation tool for Systems Biology Markup Language (SBML)-based models (SBML-PET-MPI). SBML-PET-MPI allows the user to perform parameter estimation and parameter uncertainty analysis by collectively fitting multiple experimental datasets. The tool is developed and parallelized using the message passing interface (MPI) protocol, which provides good scalability with the number of processors. SBML-PET-MPI is freely available for non-commercial use at http://www.bioss.uni-freiburg.de/cms/sbml-pet-mpi.html or http://sites.google.com/site/sbmlpetmpi/.

ASAP: An Extensible Platform for State Space Analysis

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Westergaard, Michael; Evangelista, Sami; Kristensen, Lars Michael

2009-01-01

The ASCoVeCo State space Analysis Platform (ASAP) is a tool for performing explicit state space analysis of coloured Petri nets (CPNs) and other formalisms. ASAP supports a wide range of state space reduction techniques and is intended to be easy to extend and to use, making it a suitable tool fo...... for students, researchers, and industrial users that would like to analyze protocols and/or experiment with different algorithms. This paper presents ASAP from these two perspectives....

SNP_tools: A compact tool package for analysis and conversion of genotype data for MS-Excel.

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Bowang; Wilkening, Stefan; Drechsel, Marion; Hemminki, Kari

2009-10-23

Single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) genotyping is a major activity in biomedical research. Scientists prefer to have a facile access to the results which may require conversions between data formats. First hand SNP data is often entered in or saved in the MS-Excel format, but this software lacks genetic and epidemiological related functions. A general tool to do basic genetic and epidemiological analysis and data conversion for MS-Excel is needed. The SNP_tools package is prepared as an add-in for MS-Excel. The code is written in Visual Basic for Application, embedded in the Microsoft Office package. This add-in is an easy to use tool for users with basic computer knowledge (and requirements for basic statistical analysis). Our implementation for Microsoft Excel 2000-2007 in Microsoft Windows 2000, XP, Vista and Windows 7 beta can handle files in different formats and converts them into other formats. It is a free software.

Tools and Algorithms for the Construction and Analysis of Systems

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Tools and Algorithms for the Construction and Analysis of Systems, TACAS 2004, held in Barcelona, Spain in March/April 2004. The 37 revised full papers and 6 revised tool demonstration papers presented were car...

Development of a HS-SPME-GC/MS protocol assisted by chemometric tools to study herbivore-induced volatiles in Myrcia splendens.

Science.gov (United States)

Souza Silva, Érica A; Saboia, Giovanni; Jorge, Nina C; Hoffmann, Camila; Dos Santos Isaias, Rosy Mary; Soares, Geraldo L G; Zini, Claudia A

2017-12-01

A headspace solid phase microextraction (HS-SPME) method combined with gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC/MS) was developed and optimized for extraction and analysis of volatile organic compounds (VOC) of leaves and galls of Myrcia splendens. Through a process of optimization of main factors affecting HS-SPME efficiency, the coating divivnilbenzene-carboxen-polydimethylsiloxane (DVB/Car/PDMS) was chosen as the optimum extraction phase, not only in terms of extraction efficiency, but also for its broader analyte coverage. Optimum extraction temperature was 30°C, while an extraction time of 15min provided the best compromise between extraction efficiencies of lower and higher molecular weight compounds. The optimized protocol was demonstrated to be capable of sampling plant material with high reproducibility, considering that most classes of analytes met the 20% RSD FDA criterion. The optimized method was employed for the analysis of three classes of M. splendens samples, generating a final list of 65 tentatively identified VOC, including alcohols, aldehydes, esters, ketones, phenol derivatives, as well as mono and sesquiterpenes. Significant differences were evident amongst the volatile profiles obtained from non-galled leaves (NGL) and leaf-folding galls (LFG) of M. splendens. Several differences pertaining to amounts of alcohols and aldehydes were detected between samples, particularly regarding quantities of green leaf volatiles (GLV). Alcohols represented about 14% of compounds detected in gall samples, whereas in non-galled samples, alcohol content was below 5%. Phenolic derived compounds were virtually absent in reference samples, while in non-galled leaves and galls their content ranged around 0.2% and 0.4%, respectively. Likewise, methyl salicylate, a well-known signal of plant distress, amounted for 1.2% of the sample content of galls, whereas it was only present in trace levels in reference samples. Chemometric analysis based on Heatmap associated

Database communication protocol analyses and security detection

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Luo Qun; Liu Qiushi

2003-01-01

In this paper we introduced the analysis of TDS protocol in the communication application between Client and Server about SYBASE and MICROSOFT SQL SERVER and do some test for some bugs existed in the protocol. (authors)

5D Task Analysis Visualization Tool Phase II, Phase II

Data.gov (United States)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — The creation of a five-dimensional task analysis visualization (5D-TAV) software tool for Task Analysis and Workload Planning using multi-dimensional visualization...

From human monocytes to genome-wide binding sites--a protocol for small amounts of blood: monocyte isolation/ChIP-protocol/library amplification/genome wide computational data analysis.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sebastian Weiterer

Full Text Available Chromatin immunoprecipitation in combination with a genome-wide analysis via high-throughput sequencing is the state of the art method to gain genome-wide representation of histone modification or transcription factor binding profiles. However, chromatin immunoprecipitation analysis in the context of human experimental samples is limited, especially in the case of blood cells. The typically extremely low yields of precipitated DNA are usually not compatible with library amplification for next generation sequencing. We developed a highly reproducible protocol to present a guideline from the first step of isolating monocytes from a blood sample to analyse the distribution of histone modifications in a genome-wide manner.The protocol describes the whole work flow from isolating monocytes from human blood samples followed by a high-sensitivity and small-scale chromatin immunoprecipitation assay with guidance for generating libraries compatible with next generation sequencing from small amounts of immunoprecipitated DNA.

Microbial Genome Analysis and Comparisons: Web-based Protocols and Resources

Science.gov (United States)

Fully annotated genome sequences of many microorganisms are publicly available as a resource. However, in-depth analysis of these genomes using specialized tools is required to derive meaningful information. We describe here the utility of three powerful publicly available genome databases and ana...

Analysis and Transformation Tools for Constrained Horn Clause Verification

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Kafle, Bishoksan; Gallagher, John Patrick

2014-01-01

Several techniques and tools have been developed for verification of properties expressed as Horn clauses with constraints over a background theory (CHC). Current CHC verification tools implement intricate algorithms and are often limited to certain subclasses of CHC problems. Our aim in this work...... is to investigate the use of a combination of off-the-shelf techniques from the literature in analysis and transformation of Constraint Logic Programs (CLPs) to solve challenging CHC verification problems. We find that many problems can be solved using a combination of tools based on well-known techniques from...... abstract interpretation, semantics-preserving transformations, program specialisation and query-answer transformations. This gives insights into the design of automatic, more general CHC verification tools based on a library of components....

Network performance analysis

CERN Document Server

Bonald, Thomas

2013-01-01

The book presents some key mathematical tools for the performance analysis of communication networks and computer systems.Communication networks and computer systems have become extremely complex. The statistical resource sharing induced by the random behavior of users and the underlying protocols and algorithms may affect Quality of Service.This book introduces the main results of queuing theory that are useful for analyzing the performance of these systems. These mathematical tools are key to the development of robust dimensioning rules and engineering methods. A number of examples i

Featureous: A Tool for Feature-Centric Analysis of Java Software

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Olszak, Andrzej; Jørgensen, Bo Nørregaard

2010-01-01

Feature-centric comprehension of source code is necessary for incorporating user-requested modifications during software evolution and maintenance. However, such comprehension is difficult to achieve in case of large object-oriented programs due to the size, complexity, and implicit character...... of mappings between features and source code. To support programmers in overcoming these difficulties, we present a feature-centric analysis tool, Featureous. Our tool extends the NetBeans IDE with mechanisms for efficient location of feature implementations in legacy source code, and an extensive analysis...

Development of a bedside viable ultrasound protocol to quantify appendicular lean tissue mass.

Science.gov (United States)

Paris, Michael T; Lafleur, Benoit; Dubin, Joel A; Mourtzakis, Marina

2017-10-01

Ultrasound is a non-invasive and readily available tool that can be prospectively applied at the bedside to assess muscle mass in clinical settings. The four-site protocol, which images two anatomical sites on each quadriceps, may be a viable bedside method, but its ability to predict musculature has not been compared against whole-body reference methods. Our primary objectives were to (i) compare the four-site protocol's ability to predict appendicular lean tissue mass from dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry; (ii) optimize the predictability of the four-site protocol with additional anatomical muscle thicknesses and easily obtained covariates; and (iii) assess the ability of the optimized protocol to identify individuals with low lean tissue mass. This observational cross-sectional study recruited 96 university and community dwelling adults. Participants underwent ultrasound scans for assessment of muscle thickness and whole-body dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry scans for assessment of appendicular lean tissue. Ultrasound protocols included (i) the nine-site protocol, which images nine anterior and posterior muscle groups in supine and prone positions, and (ii) the four-site protocol, which images two anterior sites on each quadriceps muscle group in a supine position. The four-site protocol was strongly associated (R 2  = 0.72) with appendicular lean tissue mass, but Bland-Altman analysis displayed wide limits of agreement (-5.67, 5.67 kg). Incorporating the anterior upper arm muscle thickness, and covariates age and sex, alongside the four-site protocol, improved the association (R 2  = 0.91) with appendicular lean tissue and displayed narrower limits of agreement (-3.18, 3.18 kg). The optimized protocol demonstrated a strong ability to identify low lean tissue mass (area under the curve = 0.89). The four-site protocol can be improved with the addition of the anterior upper arm muscle thickness, sex, and age when predicting appendicular lean tissue mass

Analysis Tools for Next-Generation Hadron Spectroscopy Experiments

Science.gov (United States)

Battaglieri, M.; Briscoe, B. J.; Celentano, A.; Chung, S.-U.; D'Angelo, A.; De Vita, R.; Döring, M.; Dudek, J.; Eidelman, S.; Fegan, S.; Ferretti, J.; Filippi, A.; Fox, G.; Galata, G.; García-Tecocoatzi, H.; Glazier, D. I.; Grube, B.; Hanhart, C.; Hoferichter, M.; Hughes, S. M.; Ireland, D. G.; Ketzer, B.; Klein, F. J.; Kubis, B.; Liu, B.; Masjuan, P.; Mathieu, V.; McKinnon, B.; Mitchel, R.; Nerling, F.; Paul, S.; Peláez, J. R.; Rademacker, J.; Rizzo, A.; Salgado, C.; Santopinto, E.; Sarantsev, A. V.; Sato, T.; Schlüter, T.; [Silva]da Silva, M. L. L.; Stankovic, I.; Strakovsky, I.; Szczepaniak, A.; Vassallo, A.; Walford, N. K.; Watts, D. P.; Zana, L.

The series of workshops on New Partial-Wave Analysis Tools for Next-Generation Hadron Spectroscopy Experiments was initiated with the ATHOS 2012 meeting, which took place in Camogli, Italy, June 20-22, 2012. It was followed by ATHOS 2013 in Kloster Seeon near Munich, Germany, May 21-24, 2013. The third, ATHOS3, meeting is planned for April 13-17, 2015 at The George Washington University Virginia Science and Technology Campus, USA. The workshops focus on the development of amplitude analysis tools for meson and baryon spectroscopy, and complement other programs in hadron spectroscopy organized in the recent past including the INT-JLab Workshop on Hadron Spectroscopy in Seattle in 2009, the International Workshop on Amplitude Analysis in Hadron Spectroscopy at the ECT*-Trento in 2011, the School on Amplitude Analysis in Modern Physics in Bad Honnef in 2011, the Jefferson Lab Advanced Study Institute Summer School in 2012, and the School on Concepts of Modern Amplitude Analysis Techniques in Flecken-Zechlin near Berlin in September 2013. The aim of this document is to summarize the discussions that took place at the ATHOS 2012 and ATHOS 2013 meetings. We do not attempt a comprehensive review of the field of amplitude analysis, but offer a collection of thoughts that we hope may lay the ground for such a document.

Analysis Tools for Next-Generation Hadron Spectroscopy Experiments

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Battaglieri, Marco; Briscoe, William; Celentano, Andrea; Chung, Suh-Urk; D'Angelo, Annalisa; De Vita, Rafaella; Döring, Michael; Dudek, Jozef; Eidelman, S.; Fegan, Stuart; Ferretti, J.; Filippi, A.; Fox, G.; Galata, G.; Garcia-Tecocoatzi, H.; Glazier, Derek; Grube, B.; Hanhart, C.; Hoferichter, M.; Hughes, S. M.; Ireland, David G.; Ketzer, B.; Klein, Franz J.; Kubis, B.; Liu, B.; Masjuan, P.; Mathieu, Vincent; McKinnon, Brian; Mitchel, R.; Nerling, F.; Paul, S.; Peláez, J. R.; Rademacker, J.; Rizzo, Alessandro; Salgado, Carlos; Santopinto, E.; Sarantsev, Andrey V.; Sato, Toru; Schlüter, T.; Da Silva, M. L.L.; Stankovic, I.; Strakovsky, Igor; Szczepaniak, Adam; Vassallo, A.; Walford, Natalie K.; Watts, Daniel P.

2015-01-01

The series of workshops on New Partial-Wave Analysis Tools for Next-Generation Hadron Spectroscopy Experiments was initiated with the ATHOS 2012 meeting, which took place in Camogli, Italy, June 20-22, 2012. It was followed by ATHOS 2013 in Kloster Seeon near Munich, Germany, May 21-24, 2013. The third, ATHOS3, meeting is planned for April 13-17, 2015 at The George Washington University Virginia Science and Technology Campus, USA. The workshops focus on the development of amplitude analysis tools for meson and baryon spectroscopy, and complement other programs in hadron spectroscopy organized in the recent past including the INT-JLab Workshop on Hadron Spectroscopy in Seattle in 2009, the International Workshop on Amplitude Analysis in Hadron Spectroscopy at the ECT*-Trento in 2011, the School on Amplitude Analysis in Modern Physics in Bad Honnef in 2011, the Jefferson Lab Advanced Study Institute Summer School in 2012, and the School on Concepts of Modern Amplitude Analysis Techniques in Flecken-Zechlin near Berlin in September 2013. The aim of this document is to summarize the discussions that took place at the ATHOS 2012 and ATHOS 2013 meetings. We do not attempt a comprehensive review of the field of amplitude analysis, but offer a collection of thoughts that we hope may lay the ground for such a document

Optimization and validation of the protocol used to analyze the taste of traditional Chinese medicines using an electronic tongue.

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Xuelin; Gao, Xiaojie; Liu, Ruixin; Wang, Junming; Wu, Zidan; Zhang, Lu; Li, Huiling; Gui, Xinjing; Kang, Bingya; Shi, Junhan

2016-11-01

Tools to define the active ingredients and flavors of Traditional Chinese Medicines (TCMs) are limited by long analysis times, complex sample preparation and a lack of multiplexed analysis. The aim of the present study was to optimize and validate an electronic tongue (E-tongue) methodology to analyze the bitterness of TCMs. To test the protocol, 35 different TCM concoctions were measured using an E-tongue, and seven replicate measurements of each sample were taken to evaluate reproducibility and precision. E-tongue sensor information was identified and classified using analysis approaches including least squares support vector machine (LS-SVM), support vector machine (SVM), discriminant analysis (DA) and partial least squares (PLS). A benefit of this analytical protocol was that the analysis of a single sample took <15 min for all seven sensors. The results identified that the LS-SVM approach provided the best bitterness classification accuracy (binary classification accuracy, 100%; ternary classification accuracy, 89.66%). The E-tongue protocol developed showed good reproducibility and high precision within a 6 h measurement cycle. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study of an E-tongue being applied to assay the bitterness of TCMs. This approach could be applied in the classification of the taste of TCMs, and serve important roles in other fields, including foods and beverages.

[Perinatal bioethics: euthanasia or end-of-life decisions? Analysis of the Groningen Protocol].

Science.gov (United States)

Halac, Jacobo; Halac, Eduardo; Moya, Martín P; Olmas, José M; Dopazo, Silvina L; Dolagaray, Nora

2009-12-01

The so called "Groningen Protocol" was conceived as a framework to discuss the euthanasia in neonates. Originally, it presents three groups of babies who might be candidates to this option. We analyzed the protocol in its original context and that of the Dutch society in which it was created. The analysis started with a careful reading of the protocol in both English and Dutch versions, translated later into Spanish. The medical and nursing staff participated in discussing it. A final consensus was reached. The Institutional Ethics Committee at our hospital discussed it freely and made recommendations for its application as a guideline to honestly discuss with parents the clinical condition of their babies, without permitting the option included literally in the word euthanasia. We selected four extremely ill infants. Their parents were interviewed at least twice daily: three stages were identified: the initial one of promoting all possible treatments; a second one of guarded and cautious request for the staff to evaluate "suffering", and a last one where requests were made to reduce therapeutic efforts to provide dignified death. A week after the death of their infants, they were presented with the facts of the protocol and the limits of our legal system. In all four cases the parents suggested that they would have chosen ending the life of their infants, in order to avoid them undue suffering. They clearly pointed out that this option emerged as a viable one to them once the ultimate outcome was evident. The protocol must not be viewed as a guideline for euthanasia in newborns, but rather as a mean to discuss the critical condition of an infant with the parents. Its direct implementation in our setting remains difficult. As a clear limitation for its overall application remains the definition of what is considered "unbearable suffering" in newborns, and how to certify when the infant has "no prospect". We emphasize the benefits of securing the help of the Ethics

Tool Support for Parametric Analysis of Large Software Simulation Systems

Science.gov (United States)

Schumann, Johann; Gundy-Burlet, Karen; Pasareanu, Corina; Menzies, Tim; Barrett, Tony

2008-01-01

The analysis of large and complex parameterized software systems, e.g., systems simulation in aerospace, is very complicated and time-consuming due to the large parameter space, and the complex, highly coupled nonlinear nature of the different system components. Thus, such systems are generally validated only in regions local to anticipated operating points rather than through characterization of the entire feasible operational envelope of the system. We have addressed the factors deterring such an analysis with a tool to support envelope assessment: we utilize a combination of advanced Monte Carlo generation with n-factor combinatorial parameter variations to limit the number of cases, but still explore important interactions in the parameter space in a systematic fashion. Additional test-cases, automatically generated from models (e.g., UML, Simulink, Stateflow) improve the coverage. The distributed test runs of the software system produce vast amounts of data, making manual analysis impossible. Our tool automatically analyzes the generated data through a combination of unsupervised Bayesian clustering techniques (AutoBayes) and supervised learning of critical parameter ranges using the treatment learner TAR3. The tool has been developed around the Trick simulation environment, which is widely used within NASA. We will present this tool with a GN&C (Guidance, Navigation and Control) simulation of a small satellite system.

Making Culturally Responsive Mathematics Teaching Explicit: A Lesson Analysis Tool

Science.gov (United States)

Aguirre, Julia M.; Zavala, Maria del Rosario

2013-01-01

In the United States, there is a need for pedagogical tools that help teachers develop essential pedagogical content knowledge and practices to meet the mathematical education needs of a growing culturally and linguistically diverse student population. In this article, we introduce an innovative lesson analysis tool that focuses on integrating…

Performance Analysis of an Optical CDMA MAC Protocol With Variable-Size Sliding Window

Science.gov (United States)

Mohamed, Mohamed Aly A.; Shalaby, Hossam M. H.; Abdel-Moety El-Badawy, El-Sayed

2006-10-01

A media access control protocol for optical code-division multiple-access packet networks with variable length data traffic is proposed. This protocol exhibits a sliding window with variable size. A model for interference-level fluctuation and an accurate analysis for channel usage are presented. Both multiple-access interference (MAI) and photodetector's shot noise are considered. Both chip-level and correlation receivers are adopted. The system performance is evaluated using a traditional average system throughput and average delay. Finally, in order to enhance the overall performance, error control codes (ECCs) are applied. The results indicate that the performance can be enhanced to reach its peak using the ECC with an optimum number of correctable errors. Furthermore, chip-level receivers are shown to give much higher performance than that of correlation receivers. Also, it has been shown that MAI is the main source of signal degradation.

New Tools in Orthology Analysis: A Brief Review of Promising Perspectives.

Science.gov (United States)

Nichio, Bruno T L; Marchaukoski, Jeroniza Nunes; Raittz, Roberto Tadeu

2017-01-01

Nowadays defying homology relationships among sequences is essential for biological research. Within homology the analysis of orthologs sequences is of great importance for computational biology, annotation of genomes and for phylogenetic inference. Since 2007, with the increase in the number of new sequences being deposited in large biological databases, researchers have begun to analyse computerized methodologies and tools aimed at selecting the most promising ones in the prediction of orthologous groups. Literature in this field of research describes the problems that the majority of available tools show, such as those encountered in accuracy, time required for analysis (especially in light of the increasing volume of data being submitted, which require faster techniques) and the automatization of the process without requiring manual intervention. Conducting our search through BMC, Google Scholar, NCBI PubMed, and Expasy, we examined more than 600 articles pursuing the most recent techniques and tools developed to solve most the problems still existing in orthology detection. We listed the main computational tools created and developed between 2011 and 2017, taking into consideration the differences in the type of orthology analysis, outlining the main features of each tool and pointing to the problems that each one tries to address. We also observed that several tools still use as their main algorithm the BLAST "all-against-all" methodology, which entails some limitations, such as limited number of queries, computational cost, and high processing time to complete the analysis. However, new promising tools are being developed, like OrthoVenn (which uses the Venn diagram to show the relationship of ortholog groups generated by its algorithm); or proteinOrtho (which improves the accuracy of ortholog groups); or ReMark (tackling the integration of the pipeline to turn the entry process automatic); or OrthAgogue (using algorithms developed to minimize processing

New Tools in Orthology Analysis: A Brief Review of Promising Perspectives

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Bruno T. L. Nichio

2017-10-01

Full Text Available Nowadays defying homology relationships among sequences is essential for biological research. Within homology the analysis of orthologs sequences is of great importance for computational biology, annotation of genomes and for phylogenetic inference. Since 2007, with the increase in the number of new sequences being deposited in large biological databases, researchers have begun to analyse computerized methodologies and tools aimed at selecting the most promising ones in the prediction of orthologous groups. Literature in this field of research describes the problems that the majority of available tools show, such as those encountered in accuracy, time required for analysis (especially in light of the increasing volume of data being submitted, which require faster techniques and the automatization of the process without requiring manual intervention. Conducting our search through BMC, Google Scholar, NCBI PubMed, and Expasy, we examined more than 600 articles pursuing the most recent techniques and tools developed to solve most the problems still existing in orthology detection. We listed the main computational tools created and developed between 2011 and 2017, taking into consideration the differences in the type of orthology analysis, outlining the main features of each tool and pointing to the problems that each one tries to address. We also observed that several tools still use as their main algorithm the BLAST “all-against-all” methodology, which entails some limitations, such as limited number of queries, computational cost, and high processing time to complete the analysis. However, new promising tools are being developed, like OrthoVenn (which uses the Venn diagram to show the relationship of ortholog groups generated by its algorithm; or proteinOrtho (which improves the accuracy of ortholog groups; or ReMark (tackling the integration of the pipeline to turn the entry process automatic; or OrthAgogue (using algorithms developed to

Tabhu: tools for antibody humanization.

KAUST Repository

Olimpieri, Pier Paolo

2014-10-09

SUMMARY: Antibodies are rapidly becoming essential tools in the clinical practice, given their ability to recognize their cognate antigens with high specificity and affinity, and a high yield at reasonable costs in model animals. Unfortunately, when administered to human patients, xenogeneic antibodies can elicit unwanted and dangerous immunogenic responses. Antibody humanization methods are designed to produce molecules with a better safety profile still maintaining their ability to bind the antigen. This can be accomplished by grafting the non-human regions determining the antigen specificity into a suitable human template. Unfortunately, this procedure may results in a partial or complete loss of affinity of the grafted molecule that can be restored by back-mutating some of the residues of human origin to the corresponding murine ones. This trial-and-error procedure is hard and involves expensive and time-consuming experiments. Here we present tools for antibody humanization (Tabhu) a web server for antibody humanization. Tabhu includes tools for human template selection, grafting, back-mutation evaluation, antibody modelling and structural analysis, helping the user in all the critical steps of the humanization experiment protocol. AVAILABILITY: http://www.biocomputing.it/tabhu CONTACT: anna.tramontano@uniroma1.it, pierpaolo.olimpieri@uniroma1.it SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.

RDNAnalyzer: A tool for DNA secondary structure prediction and sequence analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

Afzal, Muhammad; Shahid, Ahmad Ali; Shehzadi, Abida; Nadeem, Shahid; Husnain, Tayyab

2012-01-01

RDNAnalyzer is an innovative computer based tool designed for DNA secondary structure prediction and sequence analysis. It can randomly generate the DNA sequence or user can upload the sequences of their own interest in RAW format. It uses and extends the Nussinov dynamic programming algorithm and has various application for the sequence analysis. It predicts the DNA secondary structure and base pairings. It also provides the tools for routinely performed sequence analysis by the biological scientists such as DNA replication, reverse compliment generation, transcription, translation, sequence specific information as total number of nucleotide bases, ATGC base contents along with their respective percentages and sequence cleaner. RDNAnalyzer is a unique tool developed in Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 using Microsoft Visual C# and Windows Presentation Foundation and provides user friendly environment for sequence analysis. It is freely available. http://www.cemb.edu.pk/sw.html RDNAnalyzer - Random DNA Analyser, GUI - Graphical user interface, XAML - Extensible Application Markup Language.

REVEAL - A tool for rule driven analysis of safety critical software

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Miedl, H.; Kersken, M.

1998-01-01

As the determination of ultrahigh reliability figures for safety critical software is hardly possible, national and international guidelines and standards give mainly requirements for the qualitative evaluation of software. An analysis whether all these requirements are fulfilled is time and effort consuming and prone to errors, if performed manually by analysts, and should instead be dedicated to tools as far as possible. There are many ''general-purpose'' software analysis tools, both static and dynamic, which help analyzing the source code. However, they are not designed to assess the adherence to specific requirements of guidelines and standards in the nuclear field. Against the background of the development of I and C systems in the nuclear field which are based on digital techniques and implemented in high level language, it is essential that the assessor or licenser has a tool with which he can automatically and uniformly qualify as many aspects as possible of the high level language software. For this purpose the software analysis tool REVEAL has been developed at ISTec and the Halden Reactor Project. (author)

XQCAT eXtra Quark Combined Analysis Tool

CERN Document Server

Barducci, D; Buchkremer, M; Marrouche, J; Moretti, S; Panizzi, L

2015-01-01

XQCAT (eXtra Quark Combined Analysis Tool) is a tool aimed to determine exclusion Confidence Levels (eCLs) for scenarios of new physics characterised by the presence of one or multiple heavy extra quarks (XQ) which interact through Yukawa couplings with any of the Standard Model (SM) quarks. The code uses a database of efficiencies for pre-simulated processes of Quantum Chromo-Dynamics (QCD) pair production and on-shell decays of extra quarks. In the version 1.0 of XQCAT the efficiencies have been computed for a set of seven publicly available search results by the CMS experiment, and the package is subject to future updates to include further searches by both ATLAS and CMS collaborations. The input for the code is a text file in which masses, branching ratios (BRs) and dominant chirality of the couplings of the new quarks are provided. The output of the code is the eCL of the test point for each implemented experimental analysis considered individually and, when possible, in statistical combination.

A Ten Step Protocol and Plan for CCS Site Characterization, Based on an Analysis of the Rocky Mountain Region, USA

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

McPherson, Brian; Matthews, Vince

2013-09-15

This report expresses a Ten-Step Protocol for CO2 Storage Site Characterization, the final outcome of an extensive Site Characterization analysis of the Rocky Mountain region, USA. These ten steps include: (1) regional assessment and data gathering; (2) identification and analysis of appropriate local sites for characterization; (3) public engagement; (4) geologic and geophysical analysis of local site(s); (5) stratigraphic well drilling and coring; (6) core analysis and interpretation with other data; (7) database assembly and static model development; (8) storage capacity assessment; (9) simulation and uncertainty assessment; (10) risk assessment. While the results detailed here are primarily germane to the Rocky Mountain region, the intent of this protocol is to be portable or generally applicable for CO2 storage site characterization.

SBML-SAT: a systems biology markup language (SBML) based sensitivity analysis tool.

Science.gov (United States)

Zi, Zhike; Zheng, Yanan; Rundell, Ann E; Klipp, Edda

2008-08-15

It has long been recognized that sensitivity analysis plays a key role in modeling and analyzing cellular and biochemical processes. Systems biology markup language (SBML) has become a well-known platform for coding and sharing mathematical models of such processes. However, current SBML compatible software tools are limited in their ability to perform global sensitivity analyses of these models. This work introduces a freely downloadable, software package, SBML-SAT, which implements algorithms for simulation, steady state analysis, robustness analysis and local and global sensitivity analysis for SBML models. This software tool extends current capabilities through its execution of global sensitivity analyses using multi-parametric sensitivity analysis, partial rank correlation coefficient, SOBOL's method, and weighted average of local sensitivity analyses in addition to its ability to handle systems with discontinuous events and intuitive graphical user interface. SBML-SAT provides the community of systems biologists a new tool for the analysis of their SBML models of biochemical and cellular processes.

Demarcation of Security in Authentication Protocols

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Ahmed, Naveed; Jensen, Christian D.

2011-01-01

Security analysis of communication protocols is a slippery business; many “secure” protocols later turn out to be insecure. Among many, two complains are more frequent: inadequate definition of security and unstated assumptions in the security model. In our experience, one principal cause...... for such state of affairs is an apparent overlap of security and correctness, which may lead to many sloppy security definitions and security models. Although there is no inherent need to separate security and correctness requirements, practically, such separation is significant. It makes security analysis...... easier, and enables us to define security goals with a fine granularity. We present one such separation, by introducing the notion of binding sequence as a security primitive. A binding sequence, roughly speaking, is the only required security property of an authentication protocol. All other...

STRESS ANALYSIS IN CUTTING TOOLS COATED TiN AND EFFECT OF THE FRICTION COEFFICIENT IN TOOL-CHIP INTERFACE

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kubilay ASLANTAŞ

2003-02-01

Full Text Available The coated tools are regularly used in today's metal cutting industry. Because, it is well known that thin and hard coatings can reduce tool wear, improve tool life and productivity. Such coatings have significantly contributed to the improvements cutting economies and cutting tool performance through lower tool wear and reduced cutting forces. TiN coatings have especially high strength and low friction coefficients. During the cutting process, low friction coefficient reduce damage in cutting tool. In addition, maximum stress values between coating and substrate also decrease as the friction coefficient decreases. In the present study, stress analysis is carried out for HSS (High Speed Steel cutting tool coated with TiN. The effect of the friction coefficient between tool and chip on the stresses developed at the cutting tool surface and interface of coating and HSS is investigated. Damage zones during cutting process was also attempted to determine. Finite elements method is used for the solution of the problem and FRANC2D finite element program is selected for numerical solutions.

Failure mode and effects analysis of witnessing protocols for ensuring traceability during IVF.

Science.gov (United States)

Rienzi, Laura; Bariani, Fiorenza; Dalla Zorza, Michela; Romano, Stefania; Scarica, Catello; Maggiulli, Roberta; Nanni Costa, Alessandro; Ubaldi, Filippo Maria

2015-10-01

Traceability of cells during IVF is a fundamental aspect of treatment, and involves witnessing protocols. Failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA) is a method of identifying real or potential breakdowns in processes, and allows strategies to mitigate risks to be developed. To examine the risks associated with witnessing protocols, an FMEA was carried out in a busy IVF centre, before and after implementation of an electronic witnessing system (EWS). A multidisciplinary team was formed and moderated by human factors specialists. Possible causes of failures, and their potential effects, were identified and risk priority number (RPN) for each failure calculated. A second FMEA analysis was carried out after implementation of an EWS. The IVF team identified seven main process phases, 19 associated process steps and 32 possible failure modes. The highest RPN was 30, confirming the relatively low risk that mismatches may occur in IVF when a manual witnessing system is used. The introduction of the EWS allowed a reduction in the moderate-risk failure mode by two-thirds (highest RPN = 10). In our experience, FMEA is effective in supporting multidisciplinary IVF groups to understand the witnessing process, identifying critical steps and planning changes in practice to enable safety to be enhanced. Copyright © 2015 Reproductive Healthcare Ltd. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Game-theoretic perspective of Ping-Pong protocol

Science.gov (United States)

Kaur, Hargeet; Kumar, Atul

2018-01-01

We analyse Ping-Pong protocol from the point of view of a game. The analysis helps us in understanding the different strategies of a sender and an eavesdropper to gain the maximum payoff in the game. The study presented here characterizes strategies that lead to different Nash equilibriums. We further demonstrate the condition for Pareto optimality depending on the parameters used in the game. Moreover, we also analysed LM05 protocol and compared it with PP protocol from the point of view of a generic two-way QKD game with or without entanglement. Our results provide a deeper understanding of general two-way QKD protocols in terms of the security and payoffs of different stakeholders in the protocol.

The cumulative verification image analysis tool for offline evaluation of portal images

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Wong, John; Yan Di; Michalski, Jeff; Graham, Mary; Halverson, Karen; Harms, William; Purdy, James

1995-01-01

Purpose: Daily portal images acquired using electronic portal imaging devices contain important information about the setup variation of the individual patient. The data can be used to evaluate the treatment and to derive correction for the individual patient. The large volume of images also require software tools for efficient analysis. This article describes the approach of cumulative verification image analysis (CVIA) specifically designed as an offline tool to extract quantitative information from daily portal images. Methods and Materials: The user interface, image and graphics display, and algorithms of the CVIA tool have been implemented in ANSCI C using the X Window graphics standards. The tool consists of three major components: (a) definition of treatment geometry and anatomical information; (b) registration of portal images with a reference image to determine setup variation; and (c) quantitative analysis of all setup variation measurements. The CVIA tool is not automated. User interaction is required and preferred. Successful alignment of anatomies on portal images at present remains mostly dependent on clinical judgment. Predefined templates of block shapes and anatomies are used for image registration to enhance efficiency, taking advantage of the fact that much of the tool's operation is repeated in the analysis of daily portal images. Results: The CVIA tool is portable and has been implemented on workstations with different operating systems. Analysis of 20 sequential daily portal images can be completed in less than 1 h. The temporal information is used to characterize setup variation in terms of its systematic, random and time-dependent components. The cumulative information is used to derive block overlap isofrequency distributions (BOIDs), which quantify the effective coverage of the prescribed treatment area throughout the course of treatment. Finally, a set of software utilities is available to facilitate feedback of the information for

PolNet: A Tool to Quantify Network-Level Cell Polarity and Blood Flow in Vascular Remodeling.

Science.gov (United States)

Bernabeu, Miguel O; Jones, Martin L; Nash, Rupert W; Pezzarossa, Anna; Coveney, Peter V; Gerhardt, Holger; Franco, Claudio A

2018-05-08

In this article, we present PolNet, an open-source software tool for the study of blood flow and cell-level biological activity during vessel morphogenesis. We provide an image acquisition, segmentation, and analysis protocol to quantify endothelial cell polarity in entire in vivo vascular networks. In combination, we use computational fluid dynamics to characterize the hemodynamics of the vascular networks under study. The tool enables, to our knowledge for the first time, a network-level analysis of polarity and flow for individual endothelial cells. To date, PolNet has proven invaluable for the study of endothelial cell polarization and migration during vascular patterning, as demonstrated by two recent publications. Additionally, the tool can be easily extended to correlate blood flow with other experimental observations at the cellular/molecular level. We release the source code of our tool under the Lesser General Public License. Copyright © 2018 Biophysical Society. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Analysis and Prediction of Micromilling Stability with Variable Tool Geometry

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ziyang Cao

2014-11-01

Full Text Available Micromilling can fabricate miniaturized components using micro-end mill at high rotational speeds. The analysis of machining stability in micromilling plays an important role in characterizing the cutting process, estimating the tool life, and optimizing the process. A numerical analysis and experimental method are presented to investigate the chatter stability in micro-end milling process with variable milling tool geometry. The schematic model of micromilling process is constructed and the calculation formula to predict cutting force and displacements is derived. This is followed by a detailed numerical analysis on micromilling forces between helical ball and square end mills through time domain and frequency domain method and the results are compared. Furthermore, a detailed time domain simulation for micro end milling with straight teeth and helical teeth end mill is conducted based on the machine-tool system frequency response function obtained through modal experiment. The forces and displacements are predicted and the simulation result between variable cutter geometry is deeply compared. The simulation results have important significance for the actual milling process.

TACIT: An open-source text analysis, crawling, and interpretation tool.

Science.gov (United States)

Dehghani, Morteza; Johnson, Kate M; Garten, Justin; Boghrati, Reihane; Hoover, Joe; Balasubramanian, Vijayan; Singh, Anurag; Shankar, Yuvarani; Pulickal, Linda; Rajkumar, Aswin; Parmar, Niki Jitendra

2017-04-01

As human activity and interaction increasingly take place online, the digital residues of these activities provide a valuable window into a range of psychological and social processes. A great deal of progress has been made toward utilizing these opportunities; however, the complexity of managing and analyzing the quantities of data currently available has limited both the types of analysis used and the number of researchers able to make use of these data. Although fields such as computer science have developed a range of techniques and methods for handling these difficulties, making use of those tools has often required specialized knowledge and programming experience. The Text Analysis, Crawling, and Interpretation Tool (TACIT) is designed to bridge this gap by providing an intuitive tool and interface for making use of state-of-the-art methods in text analysis and large-scale data management. Furthermore, TACIT is implemented as an open, extensible, plugin-driven architecture, which will allow other researchers to extend and expand these capabilities as new methods become available.

Introduction, comparison, and validation of Meta-Essentials : A free and simple tool for meta-analysis

NARCIS (Netherlands)

R. Suurmond (Robert); H.J. van Rhee (Henk); A. Hak (Tony)

2017-01-01

markdownabstractWe present a new tool for meta‐analysis, _Meta‐Essentials_, which is free of charge and easy to use. In this paper, we introduce the tool and compare its features to other tools for meta‐analysis.We also provide detailed information on the validation of the tool. Although free of

Protocol to Manage Heritage-Building Interventions Using Heritage Building Information Modelling (HBIM

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Isabel Jordan-Palomar

2018-03-01

Full Text Available The workflow in historic architecture projects presents problems related to the lack of clarity of processes, dispersion of information and the use of outdated tools. Different heritage organisations have showed interest in innovative methods to resolve those problems and improve cultural tourism for sustainable economic development. Building Information Modelling (BIM has emerged as a suitable computerised system for improving heritage management. Its application to historic buildings is named Historic BIM (HBIM. HBIM literature highlights the need for further research in terms of the overall processes of heritage projects, its practical implementation and a need for better cultural documentation. This work uses Design Science Research to develop a protocol to improve the workflow in heritage interdisciplinary projects. Research techniques used include documentary analysis, semi-structured interviews and focus groups. HBIM is proposed as a virtual model that will hold heritage data and will articulate processes. As a result, a simple and visual HBIM protocol was developed and applied in a real case study. The protocol was named BIMlegacy and it is divided into eight phases: building registration, determine intervention options, develop design for intervention, planning the physical intervention, physical intervention, handover, maintenance and culture dissemination. It contemplates all the stakeholders involved.

Tools and Algorithms for the Construction and Analysis of Systems

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Tools and Algorithms for the Construction and Analysis of Systems, TACAS 2004, held in Barcelona, Spain in March/April 2004. The 37 revised full papers and 6 revised tool demonstration papers presented were...... carefully reviewed and selected from a total of 162 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on theorem proving, probabilistic model checking, testing, tools, explicit state and Petri nets, scheduling, constraint solving, timed systems, case studies, software, temporal logic, abstraction...

Pharmacotherapies for fatigue in chronic liver disease (CLD): a systematic review and meta-analysis (protocol).

Science.gov (United States)

Effiong, Andem; Kumari, Prerna

2018-02-14

This is the protocol for a systematic review (and meta-analysis) of an intervention. The primary objective of this systematic review will be to assess the benefits and harms of pharmacological therapies (pharmacotherapies) for the management of fatigue in adults with CLD of any etiology. The effects of pharmacological therapies on fatigue in CLD will be compared against those of placebo, no intervention, or non-pharmacological interventions. Specifically, this review will examine whether pharmacological therapies improve CLD-associated fatigue, and if they do, what key elements are associated with their effectiveness. The results of this systematic review will assist clinicians, policy-makers, researchers, and people with CLD in decision-making on how best to manage fatigue and its associated symptoms. MEDLINE, SCOPUS, EMBASE, EU Clinical Trials Register, WHO International Clinical Trials Registry Platform, CENTRAL (The Cochrane Library), ClinicalTrials.gov, reference lists of articles and conference proceedings will be searched for relevant studies. No language or date restrictions will be applied. Eligible studies will include adults with CLD of any etiology. Included studies will be randomized controlled trials. From included studies, data on participant characteristics, study design, setting, research ethics compliance, and intervention outcomes will be extracted. Risk of bias in included studies will be assessed using the Cochrane Risk of Bias Tool. A random-effects meta-analysis will be conducted. If substantial or considerable levels of heterogeneity are detected, analysis will be limited to a narrative synthesis. This systematic review will examine the effectiveness of pharmacological therapies on fatigue reduction in people with CLD. Such therapies may be more effective than non-pharmacological interventions in treating fatigue symptoms in CLD. Evidence derived from the findings of this study will guide future practice, policy, and research. PROSPERO, CRD

Automated Steel Cleanliness Analysis Tool (ASCAT)

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Gary Casuccio (RJ Lee Group); Michael Potter (RJ Lee Group); Fred Schwerer (RJ Lee Group); Dr. Richard J. Fruehan (Carnegie Mellon University); Dr. Scott Story (US Steel)

2005-12-30

The objective of this study was to develop the Automated Steel Cleanliness Analysis Tool (ASCATTM) to permit steelmakers to evaluate the quality of the steel through the analysis of individual inclusions. By characterizing individual inclusions, determinations can be made as to the cleanliness of the steel. Understanding the complicating effects of inclusions in the steelmaking process and on the resulting properties of steel allows the steel producer to increase throughput, better control the process, reduce remelts, and improve the quality of the product. The ASCAT (Figure 1) is a steel-smart inclusion analysis tool developed around a customized next-generation computer controlled scanning electron microscopy (NG-CCSEM) hardware platform that permits acquisition of inclusion size and composition data at a rate never before possible in SEM-based instruments. With built-in customized ''intelligent'' software, the inclusion data is automatically sorted into clusters representing different inclusion types to define the characteristics of a particular heat (Figure 2). The ASCAT represents an innovative new tool for the collection of statistically meaningful data on inclusions, and provides a means of understanding the complicated effects of inclusions in the steel making process and on the resulting properties of steel. Research conducted by RJLG with AISI (American Iron and Steel Institute) and SMA (Steel Manufactures of America) members indicates that the ASCAT has application in high-grade bar, sheet, plate, tin products, pipes, SBQ, tire cord, welding rod, and specialty steels and alloys where control of inclusions, whether natural or engineered, are crucial to their specification for a given end-use. Example applications include castability of calcium treated steel; interstitial free (IF) degasser grade slag conditioning practice; tundish clogging and erosion minimization; degasser circulation and optimization; quality assessment

Automated Steel Cleanliness Analysis Tool (ASCAT)

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gary Casuccio; Michael Potter; Fred Schwerer; Richard J. Fruehan; Dr. Scott Story

2005-01-01

The objective of this study was to develop the Automated Steel Cleanliness Analysis Tool (ASCATTM) to permit steelmakers to evaluate the quality of the steel through the analysis of individual inclusions. By characterizing individual inclusions, determinations can be made as to the cleanliness of the steel. Understanding the complicating effects of inclusions in the steelmaking process and on the resulting properties of steel allows the steel producer to increase throughput, better control the process, reduce remelts, and improve the quality of the product. The ASCAT (Figure 1) is a steel-smart inclusion analysis tool developed around a customized next-generation computer controlled scanning electron microscopy (NG-CCSEM) hardware platform that permits acquisition of inclusion size and composition data at a rate never before possible in SEM-based instruments. With built-in customized ''intelligent'' software, the inclusion data is automatically sorted into clusters representing different inclusion types to define the characteristics of a particular heat (Figure 2). The ASCAT represents an innovative new tool for the collection of statistically meaningful data on inclusions, and provides a means of understanding the complicated effects of inclusions in the steel making process and on the resulting properties of steel. Research conducted by RJLG with AISI (American Iron and Steel Institute) and SMA (Steel Manufactures of America) members indicates that the ASCAT has application in high-grade bar, sheet, plate, tin products, pipes, SBQ, tire cord, welding rod, and specialty steels and alloys where control of inclusions, whether natural or engineered, are crucial to their specification for a given end-use. Example applications include castability of calcium treated steel; interstitial free (IF) degasser grade slag conditioning practice; tundish clogging and erosion minimization; degasser circulation and optimization; quality assessment/steel cleanliness; slab, billet

The BRITNeY Suite Animation Tool

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Westergaard, Michael; Lassen, Kristian Bisgaard

2006-01-01

This paper describes the BRITNeY suite, a tool which enables users to create visualizations of formal models. BRITNeY suite is integrated with CPN Tools, and we give an example of how to extend a simple stop-and-wait protocol with a visualization in the form of message sequence charts. We also sh...... examples of animations created during industrial projects to give an impression of what is possible with the BRITNeY suite....

Analyzing security protocols in hierarchical networks

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Zhang, Ye; Nielson, Hanne Riis

2006-01-01

Validating security protocols is a well-known hard problem even in a simple setting of a single global network. But a real network often consists of, besides the public-accessed part, several sub-networks and thereby forms a hierarchical structure. In this paper we first present a process calculus...... capturing the characteristics of hierarchical networks and describe the behavior of protocols on such networks. We then develop a static analysis to automate the validation. Finally we demonstrate how the technique can benefit the protocol development and the design of network systems by presenting a series...

Replication protocol analysis: a method for the study of real-world design thinking

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Galle, Per; Kovacs, L. B.

1996-01-01

’ is refined into a method called ‘replication protocol analysis’ (RPA), and discussed from a methodological perspective of design research. It is argued that for the study of real-world design thinking this method offers distinct advantages over traditional ‘design protocol analysis’, which seeks to capture......Given the brief of an architectural competition on site planning, and the design awarded the first prize, the first author (trained as an architect but not a participant in the competition) produced a line of reasoning that might have led from brief to design. In the paper, such ‘design replication...... the designer’s authentic line of reasoning. To illustrate how RPA can be used, the site planning case is briefly presented, and part of the replicated line of reasoning analysed. One result of the analysis is a glimpse of a ‘logic of design’; another is an insight which sheds new light on Darke’s classical...

EZ and GOSSIP, two new VO compliant tools for spectral analysis

Science.gov (United States)

Franzetti, P.; Garill, B.; Fumana, M.; Paioro, L.; Scodeggio, M.; Paltani, S.; Scaramella, R.

2008-10-01

We present EZ and GOSSIP, two new VO compliant tools dedicated to spectral analysis. EZ is a tool to perform automatic redshift measurement; GOSSIP is a tool created to perform the SED fitting procedure in a simple, user friendly and efficient way. These two tools have been developed by the PANDORA Group at INAF-IASF (Milano); EZ has been developed in collaboration with Osservatorio Monte Porzio (Roma) and Integral Science Data Center (Geneve). EZ is released to the astronomical community; GOSSIP is currently in beta-testing.

A Gap Analysis Needs Assessment Tool to Drive a Care Delivery and Research Agenda for Integration of Care and Sharing of Best Practices Across a Health System.

Science.gov (United States)

Golden, Sherita Hill; Hager, Daniel; Gould, Lois J; Mathioudakis, Nestoras; Pronovost, Peter J

2017-01-01

In a complex health system, it is important to establish a systematic and data-driven approach to identifying needs. The Diabetes Clinical Community (DCC) of Johns Hopkins Medicine's Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality developed a gap analysis tool and process to establish the system's current state of inpatient diabetes care. The collectively developed tool assessed the following areas: program infrastructure; protocols, policies, and order sets; patient and health care professional education; and automated data access. For the purposes of this analysis, gaps were defined as those instances in which local resources, infrastructure, or processes demonstrated a variance against the current national evidence base or institutionally defined best practices. Following the gap analysis, members of the DCC, in collaboration with health system leadership, met to identify priority areas in order to integrate and synergize diabetes care resources and efforts to enhance quality and reduce disparities in care across the system. Key gaps in care identified included lack of standardized glucose management policies, lack of standardized training of health care professionals in inpatient diabetes management, and lack of access to automated data collection and analysis. These results were used to gain resources to support collaborative diabetes health system initiatives and to successfully obtain federal research funding to develop and pilot a pragmatic diabetes educational intervention. At a health system level, the summary format of this gap analysis tool is an effective method to clearly identify disparities in care to focus efforts and resources to improve care delivery. Copyright © 2016 The Joint Commission. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

BBAT: Bunch and bucket analysis tool

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Deng, D.P.

1995-01-01

BBAT is written to meet the need of an interactive graphical tool to explore the longitudinal phase space. It is driven for testing new ideas or new tricks quickly. It is especially suitable for machine physicists or operation staff as well both in the control room during machine studies or off-line to analyze the data. The heart of the package contains a set of c-routines to do the number crunching. The graphics part is wired with scripting language tcl/tk and BLT. The c-routines are general enough that one can write new applications such as animation of the bucket as a machine parameter varies via a sliding scale. BBAT deals with single rf system. For double rf system, one can use Dr. BBAT, which stands for Double rf Bunch and Bucket Analysis Tool. One usage of Dr. BBAT is to visualize the process of bunch coalescing and flat bunch creation

User-friendly Tool for Power Flow Analysis and Distributed ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Akorede

AKOREDE et al: TOOL FOR POWER FLOW ANALYSIS AND DISTRIBUTED GENERATION OPTIMISATION. 23 ... greenhouse gas emissions and the current deregulation of electric energy ..... Visual composition and temporal behaviour of GUI.

Surface Operations Data Analysis and Adaptation Tool, Phase II

Data.gov (United States)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — This effort undertook the creation of a Surface Operations Data Analysis and Adaptation (SODAA) tool to store data relevant to airport surface research and...

The evaluation of MRI protocols for the quantification of adiposity in the obese

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Tagami, Hirotaka; Taki, Tomomi; Ueoro, Kouichi

1998-01-01

Obesity is a recognized risk factor for the development of diseases such as atherosclerosis, diabetes mellitus and hypertension. The individual risk of the obesity can not be evaluated merely by the body weight or body mass index. The fat distribution is a key to evaluate it. So far, the MRI protocols in the literature tested for the evaluation of the fat distribution were spin-echo and inversion-recovery images. We tested both protocols and couldn't get good images basically due to motion artifacts. Therefore, the field-echo (FE) protocol, a rapid scan protocol, was evaluated. The transverse fat distributions at umbilical level of 8 male obese volunteers were examined with MRI FE protocol and X-ray computed tomography (CT). The excellent images were obtained with FE protocol and correlation with CT images was also satisfactory. The FE protocols for the evaluation of the fat distribution is of use and reasonable tool for the clinical usage. (author)

Performance Evaluation of AODV Routing Protocol in VANET with NS2

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Divya Rathi

2017-03-01

Full Text Available In intelligent transportation systems, the collaboration between vehicles and the road side units is essential to bring these systems to realization. The emerging Vehicular Ad Hoc Network (VANET is becoming more and more important as it provides intelligent transportation application, comfort, safety, entertainment for people in vehicles. In order to provide stable routes and to get good performance in VANET, there is a need of proper routing protocols must be designed. In this paper, we are working with the very well-known ad-hoc on-demand distance vector (AODV routing protocol. The existing Routing protocol AODV-L which is based on the Link expiration time is extended to propose a more reliable AODV-AD which is based on multichannel MAC protocol. For the performance evaluation of routing protocols, a simulation tool ‘NS2’ has been used. Simulation results show that the proposed AODV-AD protocol can achieves better performances in forms of high Route stability, Packet Delivery ratio and packet loss rate than traditional AODV-L and traditional AODV.

Tools for voltage stability analysis, including a probabilistic approach

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Vieira Filho, X; Martins, N; Bianco, A; Pinto, H J.C.P. [Centro de Pesquisas de Energia Eletrica (CEPEL), Rio de Janeiro, RJ (Brazil); Pereira, M V.F. [Power System Research (PSR), Inc., Rio de Janeiro, RJ (Brazil); Gomes, P; Santos, M.G. dos [ELETROBRAS, Rio de Janeiro, RJ (Brazil)

1994-12-31

This paper reviews some voltage stability analysis tools that are being used or envisioned for expansion and operational planning studies in the Brazilian system, as well as, their applications. The paper also shows that deterministic tools can be linked together in a probabilistic framework, so as to provide complementary help to the analyst in choosing the most adequate operation strategies, or the best planning solutions for a given system. (author) 43 refs., 8 figs., 8 tabs.

MEL-IRIS: An Online Tool for Audio Analysis and Music Indexing

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Dimitrios Margounakis

2009-01-01

Full Text Available Chroma is an important attribute of music and sound, although it has not yet been adequately defined in literature. As such, it can be used for further analysis of sound, resulting in interesting colorful representations that can be used in many tasks: indexing, classification, and retrieval. Especially in Music Information Retrieval (MIR, the visualization of the chromatic analysis can be used for comparison, pattern recognition, melodic sequence prediction, and color-based searching. MEL-IRIS is the tool which has been developed in order to analyze audio files and characterize music based on chroma. The tool implements specially designed algorithms and a unique way of visualization of the results. The tool is network-oriented and can be installed in audio servers, in order to manipulate large music collections. Several samples from world music have been tested and processed, in order to demonstrate the possible uses of such an analysis.

Software architecture analysis tool : software architecture metrics collection

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Muskens, J.; Chaudron, M.R.V.; Westgeest, R.

2002-01-01

The Software Engineering discipline lacks the ability to evaluate software architectures. Here we describe a tool for software architecture analysis that is based on metrics. Metrics can be used to detect possible problems and bottlenecks in software architectures. Even though metrics do not give a

Evaluation of static analysis tools used to assess software important to nuclear power plant safety

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Ourghanlian, Alain [EDF Lab CHATOU, Simulation and Information Technologies for Power Generation Systems Department, EDF R and D, Cedex (France)

2015-03-15

We describe a comparative analysis of different tools used to assess safety-critical software used in nuclear power plants. To enhance the credibility of safety assessments and to optimize safety justification costs, Electricit e de France (EDF) investigates the use of methods and tools for source code semantic analysis, to obtain indisputable evidence and help assessors focus on the most critical issues. EDF has been using the PolySpace tool for more than 10 years. Currently, new industrial tools based on the same formal approach, Abstract Interpretation, are available. Practical experimentation with these new tools shows that the precision obtained on one of our shutdown systems software packages is substantially improved. In the first part of this article, we present the analysis principles of the tools used in our experimentation. In the second part, we present the main characteristics of protection-system software, and why these characteristics are well adapted for the new analysis tools.

STRESS TESTS FOR VIDEOSTREAMING SERVICES BASED ON RTSP PROTOCOL

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Gabriel Elías Chanchí Golondrino

2015-11-01

Full Text Available Video-streaming is a technology with major implications these days in such diverse contexts as education, health and the business sector; all of this regarding the ease it provides for remote access to live or recorded media content, allowing communication regardless of geographic location. One standard protocol that enables implementation of this technology is real time streaming protocol, or RTSP. However, since most application servers and Internet services are supported on HTTP requests, very little research has been done on generating tools for carrying out stress tests on streaming servers. This paper presents a stress measuring tool called Hermes, developed in Python, which allows calculation of response times for establishing RTSP connections to streaming servers, as well as obtaining RAM memory consumption and CPU usage rate data from these servers. Hermes was deployed in a video-streaming environment where stress testing was carried out on the LIVE555 server, using calls in the background to VLC and OpenRTSP open source clients. 

Performance Analysis of the IEEE 802.11p Multichannel MAC Protocol in Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks.

Science.gov (United States)

Song, Caixia

2017-12-12

Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks (VANETs) employ multichannel to provide a variety of safety and non-safety applications, based on the IEEE 802.11p and IEEE 1609.4 protocols. The safety applications require timely and reliable transmissions, while the non-safety applications require efficient and high throughput. In the IEEE 1609.4 protocol, operating interval is divided into alternating Control Channel (CCH) interval and Service Channel (SCH) interval with an identical length. During the CCH interval, nodes transmit safety-related messages and control messages, and Enhanced Distributed Channel Access (EDCA) mechanism is employed to allow four Access Categories (ACs) within a station with different priorities according to their criticality for the vehicle's safety. During the SCH interval, the non-safety massages are transmitted. An analytical model is proposed in this paper to evaluate performance, reliability and efficiency of the IEEE 802.11p and IEEE 1609.4 protocols. The proposed model improves the existing work by taking serval aspects and the character of multichannel switching into design consideration. Extensive performance evaluations based on analysis and simulation help to validate the accuracy of the proposed model and analyze the capabilities and limitations of the IEEE 802.11p and IEEE 1609.4 protocols, and enhancement suggestions are given.

Collaborative writing: Tools and tips.

Science.gov (United States)

Eapen, Bell Raj

2007-01-01

Majority of technical writing is done by groups of experts and various web based applications have made this collaboration easy. Email exchange of word processor documents with tracked changes used to be the standard technique for collaborative writing. However web based tools like Google docs and Spreadsheets have made the process fast and efficient. Various versioning tools and synchronous editors are available for those who need additional functionality. Having a group leader who decides the scheduling, communication and conflict resolving protocols is important for successful collaboration.

Protocols for Scholarly Communication

CERN Document Server

Pepe, Alberto; Pepe, Alberto; Yeomans, Joanne

2007-01-01

CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, has operated an institutional preprint repository for more than 10 years. The repository contains over 850,000 records of which more than 450,000 are full-text OA preprints, mostly in the field of particle physics, and it is integrated with the library's holdings of books, conference proceedings, journals and other grey literature. In order to encourage effective propagation and open access to scholarly material, CERN is implementing a range of innovative library services into its document repository: automatic keywording, reference extraction, collaborative management tools and bibliometric tools. Some of these services, such as user reviewing and automatic metadata extraction, could make up an interesting testbed for future publishing solutions and certainly provide an exciting environment for e-science possibilities. The future protocol for scientific communication should naturally guide authors towards OA publication and CERN wants to help reach a full...

The Security Analysis of Two-Step Quantum Direct Communication Protocol in Collective-Rotation Noise Channel

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Li Jian; Sun Feng-Qi; Pan Ze-Shi; Nie Jin-Rui; Chen Yan-Hua; Yuan Kai-Guo

2015-01-01

To analyze the security of two-step quantum direct communication protocol (QDCP) by using Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen pair proposed by Deng et al. [Phys. Rev. A 68 (2003) 042317] in collective-rotation noise channel, an excellent model of noise analysis is proposed. In the security analysis, the method of the entropy theory is introduced, and is compared with QDCP, an error rate point Q 0 (M : (Q 0 , 1.0)) is given. In different noise levels, if Eve wants to obtain the same amount of information, the error rate Q is distinguishable. The larger the noise level ϵ is, the larger the error rate Q is. When the noise level ϵ is lower than 11%, the high error rate is 0.153 without eavesdropping. Lastly, the security of the proposed protocol is discussed. It turns out that the quantum channel will be safe when Q < 0.153. Similarly, if error rate Q > 0.153 = Q 0 , eavesdropping information I > 1, which means that there exist eavesdroppers in the quantum channel, and the quantum channel will not be safe anymore. (paper)

Capturing district nursing through a knowledge-based electronic caseload analysis tool (eCAT).

Science.gov (United States)

Kane, Kay

2014-03-01

The Electronic Caseload Analysis Tool (eCAT) is a knowledge-based software tool to assist the caseload analysis process. The tool provides a wide range of graphical reports, along with an integrated clinical advisor, to assist district nurses, team leaders, operational and strategic managers with caseload analysis by describing, comparing and benchmarking district nursing practice in the context of population need, staff resources, and service structure. District nurses and clinical lead nurses in Northern Ireland developed the tool, along with academic colleagues from the University of Ulster, working in partnership with a leading software company. The aim was to use the eCAT tool to identify the nursing need of local populations, along with the variances in district nursing practice, and match the workforce accordingly. This article reviews the literature, describes the eCAT solution and discusses the impact of eCAT on nursing practice, staff allocation, service delivery and workforce planning, using fictitious exemplars and a post-implementation evaluation from the trusts.

Analysis of protection spanning-tree protocol

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Б.Я. Корнієнко

2007-01-01

Full Text Available  Extraordinary sweeping  of  IT – development  causes vulnerabilities and, thereafter, attacks that use these vulnerabilities. That is why one must post factum or even in advance speed up invention of new information  security systems as well as develop the old ones. The matter of article concerns Spanning-Tree Protocol  – the vivid example of the case, when the cure of the vulnerability creates dozen of new "weak spots".

A novel region-growing based semi-automatic segmentation protocol for three-dimensional condylar reconstruction using cone beam computed tomography (CBCT.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tong Xi

Full Text Available OBJECTIVE: To present and validate a semi-automatic segmentation protocol to enable an accurate 3D reconstruction of the mandibular condyles using cone beam computed tomography (CBCT. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Approval from the regional medical ethics review board was obtained for this study. Bilateral mandibular condyles in ten CBCT datasets of patients were segmented using the currently proposed semi-automatic segmentation protocol. This segmentation protocol combined 3D region-growing and local thresholding algorithms. The segmentation of a total of twenty condyles was performed by two observers. The Dice-coefficient and distance map calculations were used to evaluate the accuracy and reproducibility of the segmented and 3D rendered condyles. RESULTS: The mean inter-observer Dice-coefficient was 0.98 (range [0.95-0.99]. An average 90th percentile distance of 0.32 mm was found, indicating an excellent inter-observer similarity of the segmented and 3D rendered condyles. No systematic errors were observed in the currently proposed segmentation protocol. CONCLUSION: The novel semi-automated segmentation protocol is an accurate and reproducible tool to segment and render condyles in 3D. The implementation of this protocol in the clinical practice allows the CBCT to be used as an imaging modality for the quantitative analysis of condylar morphology.

Early functional outcome of two surgical protocols used in the repair ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

A wide range of cleft lip and palate management protocols currently exists throughout ... surgery. It includes subjective as well as objective measures of evaluation. Postoperative ... tools that include visual assessment of the lip, teeth, alveolar.

Generalized Aliasing as a Basis for Program Analysis Tools

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

O'Callahan, Robert

2000-01-01

.... This dissertation describes the design of a system, Ajax, that addresses this problem by using semantics-based program analysis as the basis for a number of different tools to aid Java programmers...

Anaphe - OO libraries and tools for data analysis

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Couet, O.; Ferrero-Merlino, B.; Molnar, Z.; Moscicki, J.T.; Pfeiffer, A.; Sang, M.

2001-01-01

The Anaphe project is an ongoing effort to provide an Object Oriented software environment for data analysis in HENP experiments. A range of commercial and public domain libraries is used to cover basic functionalities; on top of these libraries a set of HENP-specific C++ class libraries for histogram management, fitting, plotting and ntuple-like data analysis has been developed. In order to comply with the user requirements for a command-line driven tool, the authors have chosen to use a scripting language (Python) as the front-end for a data analysis tool. The loose coupling provided by the consequent use of (AIDA compliant) Abstract Interfaces for each component in combination with the use of shared libraries for their implementation provides an easy integration of existing libraries into modern scripting languages thus allowing for rapid application development. This integration is simplified even further using a specialised toolkit (SWIG) to create 'shadow classes' for the Python language, which map the definitions of the Abstract Interfaces almost at a one-to-one level. The authors will give an overview of the architecture and design choices and will present the current status and future developments of the project

Automated Verification of Quantum Protocols using MCMAS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

F. Belardinelli

2012-07-01

Full Text Available We present a methodology for the automated verification of quantum protocols using MCMAS, a symbolic model checker for multi-agent systems The method is based on the logical framework developed by D'Hondt and Panangaden for investigating epistemic and temporal properties, built on the model for Distributed Measurement-based Quantum Computation (DMC, an extension of the Measurement Calculus to distributed quantum systems. We describe the translation map from DMC to interpreted systems, the typical formalism for reasoning about time and knowledge in multi-agent systems. Then, we introduce dmc2ispl, a compiler into the input language of the MCMAS model checker. We demonstrate the technique by verifying the Quantum Teleportation Protocol, and discuss the performance of the tool.

Microgrid Analysis Tools Summary

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Jimenez, Antonio [National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Haase, Scott G [National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Mathur, Shivani [Formerly NREL

2018-03-05

The over-arching goal of the Alaska Microgrid Partnership is to reduce the use of total imported fuel into communities to secure all energy services by at least 50% in Alaska's remote microgrids without increasing system life cycle costs while also improving overall system reliability, security, and resilience. One goal of the Alaska Microgrid Partnership is to investigate whether a combination of energy efficiency and high-contribution (from renewable energy) power systems can reduce total imported energy usage by 50% while reducing life cycle costs and improving reliability and resiliency. This presentation provides an overview of the following four renewable energy optimization tools. Information is from respective tool websites, tool developers, and author experience. Distributed Energy Resources Customer Adoption Model (DER-CAM) Microgrid Design Toolkit (MDT) Renewable Energy Optimization (REopt) Tool Hybrid Optimization Model for Electric Renewables (HOMER).

Development of a physical activity monitoring tool for Thai medical schools: a protocol for a mixed methods study

Science.gov (United States)

Wattanapisit, Apichai; Vijitpongjinda, Surasak; Saengow, Udomsak; Amaek, Waluka; Thanamee, Sanhapan; Petchuay, Prachyapan

2017-01-01

Introduction Physical activity (PA) is important in promoting health, as well as in the treatment and prevention of diseases. However, insufficient PA is still a global health problem and it is also a problem in medical schools. PA training in medical curricula is still sparse or non-existent. There is a need for a comprehensive understanding of the extent of PA in medical schools through several indicators, including people, places and policies. This study includes a survey of the PA prevalence in a medical school and development of a tool, the Medical School Physical Activity Report Card (MSPARC), which will contain concise and understandable infographics and information for exploring, monitoring and reporting information relating to PA prevalence. Methods and analysis This mixed methods study will run from January to September 2017. We will involve the School of Medicine, Walailak University, Thailand, and its medical students (n=285). Data collection will consist of both primary and secondary data, divided into four parts: general information, people, places and policies. We will investigate the PA metrics about (1) people: the prevalence of PA and sedentary behaviours; (2) place: the quality and accessibility of walkable neighbourhoods, bicycle facilities and recreational areas; and (3) policy: PA promotion programmes for medical students, education metrics and investments related to PA. The MSPARC will be developed using simple symbols, infographics and short texts to evaluate the PA metrics of the medical school. Ethics and dissemination This study has been approved by the Human Research Ethics Committee of Walailak University (protocol number: WUEC-16-005-01). Findings will be published in peer-reviewed journals and presented at national or international conferences. The MSPARC and full report will be disseminated to relevant stakeholders, policymakers, staff and clients. PMID:28963299

Preparation of tools for lithographically controlled wetting and soft lithography

OpenAIRE

sprotocols

2015-01-01

Authors: Massmiliano Cavallini, Denis Gentili, Pierpaolo Greco, Francesco Valle & Fabio Biscarini ### Abstract This protocol provides the instructions for designing and fabricating stamping tools with features ranging from nanometer to micrometer scale, including the fabrication using commercial tools such as compact disks or digital video disks. In particular the reported procedures are oriented towards the tools fabrication for lithographically controlled wetting and soft lithograph...

A compilation of Web-based research tools for miRNA analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

Shukla, Vaibhav; Varghese, Vinay Koshy; Kabekkodu, Shama Prasada; Mallya, Sandeep; Satyamoorthy, Kapaettu

2017-09-01

Since the discovery of microRNAs (miRNAs), a class of noncoding RNAs that regulate the gene expression posttranscriptionally in sequence-specific manner, there has been a release of number of tools useful for both basic and advanced applications. This is because of the significance of miRNAs in many pathophysiological conditions including cancer. Numerous bioinformatics tools that have been developed for miRNA analysis have their utility for detection, expression, function, target prediction and many other related features. This review provides a comprehensive assessment of web-based tools for the miRNA analysis that does not require prior knowledge of any computing languages. © The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

A fresh look at the freeze-all protocol: a SWOT analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

Blockeel, Christophe; Drakopoulos, Panagiotis; Santos-Ribeiro, Samuel; Polyzos, Nikolaos P; Tournaye, Herman

2016-03-01

The 'freeze-all' strategy with the segmentation of IVF treatment, namely with the use of a GnRH antagonist protocol, GnRH agonist triggering, the elective cryopreservation of all embryos by vitrification and a frozen-thawed embryo transfer in a subsequent cycle, has become more popular. However, the approach still encounters drawbacks. In this opinion paper, a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis sheds light on the different aspects of this strategy. © The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

A secure key agreement protocol based on chaotic maps

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Wang Xing-Yuan; Luan Da-Peng

2013-01-01

To guarantee the security of communication in the public channel, many key agreement protocols have been proposed. Recently, Gong et al. proposed a key agreement protocol based on chaotic maps with password sharing. In this paper, Gong et al.'s protocol is analyzed, and we find that this protocol exhibits key management issues and potential security problems. Furthermore, the paper presents a new key agreement protocol based on enhanced Chebyshev polynomials to overcome these problems. Through our analysis, our key agreement protocol not only provides mutual authentication and the ability to resist a variety of common attacks, but also solve the problems of key management and security issues existing in Gong et al.'s protocol

Development of a site analysis tool for distributed wind projects

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Shaw, Shawn [The Cadmus Group, Inc., Waltham MA (United States)

2012-02-28

The Cadmus Group, Inc., in collaboration with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and Encraft, was awarded a grant from the Department of Energy (DOE) to develop a site analysis tool for distributed wind technologies. As the principal investigator for this project, Mr. Shawn Shaw was responsible for overall project management, direction, and technical approach. The product resulting from this project is the Distributed Wind Site Analysis Tool (DSAT), a software tool for analyzing proposed sites for distributed wind technology (DWT) systems. This user-friendly tool supports the long-term growth and stability of the DWT market by providing reliable, realistic estimates of site and system energy output and feasibility. DSAT-which is accessible online and requires no purchase or download of software-is available in two account types; Standard: This free account allows the user to analyze a limited number of sites and to produce a system performance report for each; and Professional: For a small annual fee users can analyze an unlimited number of sites, produce system performance reports, and generate other customizable reports containing key information such as visual influence and wind resources. The tool’s interactive maps allow users to create site models that incorporate the obstructions and terrain types present. Users can generate site reports immediately after entering the requisite site information. Ideally, this tool also educates users regarding good site selection and effective evaluation practices.