Development of a Web-based tool to collect and display water system customer service areas for public health action.

Science.gov (United States)

Wong, Michelle; Wolff, Craig; Collins, Natalie; Guo, Liang; Meltzer, Dan; English, Paul

2015-01-01

Significant illness is associated with biological contaminants in drinking water, but little is known about health effects from low levels of chemical contamination in drinking water. To examine these effects in epidemiological studies, the sources of drinking water of study populations need to be known. The California Environmental Health Tracking Program developed an online application that would collect data on the geographic location of public water system (PWS) customer service areas in California, which then could be linked to demographic and drinking water quality data. We deployed the Water Boundary Tool (WBT), a Web-based geospatial crowdsourcing application that can manage customer service boundary data for each PWS in California and can track changes over time. We also conducted a needs assessment for expansion to other states. The WBT was designed for water system operators, local and state regulatory agencies, and government entities. Since its public launch in 2012, the WBT has collected service area boundaries for about 2300 individual PWS, serving more than 90% of the California population. Results of the needs assessment suggest interest and utility for deploying such a tool among states lacking statewide PWS service area boundary data. Although the WBT data set is incomplete, it has already been used for a variety of applications, including fulfilling legislatively mandated reporting requirements and linking customer service areas to drinking water quality data to better understand local water quality issues. Development of this tool holds promise to assist with outbreak investigations and prevention, environmental health monitoring, and emergency preparedness and response.

The Lwazi Community Communication Service: design and piloting of a voice-based information service

CSIR Research Space (South Africa)

Sharma Grover, A

2011-04-01

Full Text Available The authors present the design, development and pilot process of the Lwazi Community Communication Service (LCCS), a multilingual automated telephone-based information service. The service acts as a communication and dissemination tool that enables...

IMPLEMENTING A VALUE ASSESSMENT TOOL FOR SERVICE INNOVATION IDEAS

OpenAIRE

TOR HELGE AAS

2010-01-01

There has not been much discussion of how firms may assess the value of service innovation projects ex-ante in the extant research literature. This paper theoretically derives a value assessment tool for service innovation ideas called QSI (tool for pre-Qualification of Service Innovation projects). Thereafter QSI is implemented in three firms and it is explored to what degree the implementation improved managerial decision making on service innovation projects and investments. The findings i...

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.

A Reference Architecture for Provisioning of Tools as a Service: Meta-Model, Ontologies and Design Elements

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Chauhan, Muhammad Aufeef; Babar, Muhammad Ali; Sheng, Quan Z.

2016-01-01

Software Architecture (SA) plays a critical role in designing, developing and evolving cloud-based platforms that can be used to provision different types of services to consumers on demand. In this paper, we present a Reference Architecture (RA) for designing cloud-based Tools as a service SPACE...... (TSPACE) for provisioning a bundled suite of tools by following the Software as a Service (SaaS) model. The reference architecture has been designed by leveraging information structuring approaches and by using well-known architecture design principles and patterns. The RA has been documented using view...

Tool Supported Analysis of Web Services Protocols

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Marques, Abinoam P.; Ravn, Anders Peter; Srba, Jiri

2011-01-01

We describe an abstract protocol model suitable for modelling of web services and other protocols communicating via unreliable, asynchronous communication channels. The model is supported by a tool chain where the first step translates tables with state/transition protocol descriptions, often used...... e.g. in the design of web services protocols, into an intermediate XML format. We further translate this format into a network of communicating state machines directly suitable for verification in the model checking tool UPPAAL. We introduce two types of communication media abstractions in order...

DEVELOPMENT OF REMOTE TOOLS TO ASSESS THE EFFECTIVENESS AND QUALITY OF CAR SERVICE ENTERPRISES WORK

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Vladimir Kozlovskiy

2017-09-01

Full Text Available The paper is updated development problem of remote tools to assess the effectiveness and work quality of the corporate car service enterprises. This paper presents the author’s methodology of activity estimation car service enterprises based on corporate information reflecting the report on the production activities of the service company. Specialized information system has been developed and implemented based on the proposed methodology. Specialized information system is the analytical tool for assessing the activities of enterprises the brand network of car service, for one of the largest national carmakers. The aim of research is development and realization of a monitoring system for certain areas of the car service work that significantly affect the quality process of the maintenance service. In addition, the paper is devoted to solving urgent issues of collection and processing of real data on warranty defects of cars.

Towards a Reference Architecture to Provision Tools as a Service for Global Software Development

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Chauhan, Aufeef; Babar, Muhammad Ali

2014-01-01

Organizations involve in Global Software Development (GSD) face challenges in terms of having access to appropriate set of tools for performing distributed engineering and development activities, integration between heterogeneous desktop and web-based tools, management of artifacts developed...... distributed environment. In this paper, we argue the need to have a cloud-enabled platform for supporting GSD and propose reference architecture of a cloud based Platform for providing support to provision ecosystem of the Tools as a Service (PTaaS)....

Lwazi community communication service: Design and piloting of a telephone-based Information Service for South Africa

CSIR Research Space (South Africa)

Sharma, A

2010-09-01

Full Text Available We present in this paper the design, development and pilot process of the Lwazi community communication service (LCCS), a multilingual automated telephone-based information service. The service acts as a communication and dissemination tool...

An intention-based service design discipline for the product-service architecture.

OpenAIRE

Diogo de Souza Dutra

2016-01-01

From the 1990\\'s onwards, service science field has experienced a great growth, taking the Marketing academic field as the precursor, next gathering Management and also Engineering academic field. From business tool (i.e., e-commerce), new approaches in service delivery (e.g., IT-based self-service technology such as on-line ticketing and reservation, on-line bank account access, on-line package tracking, and so forth), and new ways of relating to customers (i.e., e-Customer Relationship Mana...

Collaboratively Conceived, Designed and Implemented: Matching Visualization Tools with Geoscience Data Collections and Geoscience Data Collections with Visualization Tools via the ToolMatch Service.

Science.gov (United States)

Hoebelheinrich, N. J.; Lynnes, C.; West, P.; Ferritto, M.

2014-12-01

Two problems common to many geoscience domains are the difficulties in finding tools to work with a given dataset collection, and conversely, the difficulties in finding data for a known tool. A collaborative team from the Earth Science Information Partnership (ESIP) has gotten together to design and create a web service, called ToolMatch, to address these problems. The team began their efforts by defining an initial, relatively simple conceptual model that addressed the two uses cases briefly described above. The conceptual model is expressed as an ontology using OWL (Web Ontology Language) and DCterms (Dublin Core Terms), and utilizing standard ontologies such as DOAP (Description of a Project), FOAF (Friend of a Friend), SKOS (Simple Knowledge Organization System) and DCAT (Data Catalog Vocabulary). The ToolMatch service will be taking advantage of various Semantic Web and Web standards, such as OpenSearch, RESTful web services, SWRL (Semantic Web Rule Language) and SPARQL (Simple Protocol and RDF Query Language). The first version of the ToolMatch service was deployed in early fall 2014. While more complete testing is required, a number of communities besides ESIP member organizations have expressed interest in collaborating to create, test and use the service and incorporate it into their own web pages, tools and / or services including the USGS Data Catalog service, DataONE, the Deep Carbon Observatory, Virtual Solar Terrestrial Observatory (VSTO), and the U.S. Global Change Research Program. In this session, presenters will discuss the inception and development of the ToolMatch service, the collaborative process used to design, refine, and test the service, and future plans for the service.

Cloud infrastructure for providing tools as a service: quality attributes and potential solutions

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Chauhan, Muhammad Aufeef; Ali Babar, Muhammad

2012-01-01

Cloud computing is being increasingly adopted in various domains for providing on-demand infrastructure and Software as a service (SaaS) by leveraging the utility computing model and virtualization technologies. One of the domains, where cloud computing is expected to gain huge traction is Global...... Software Development (GSD) that has emerged as a popular software development model. Despite several promised benefits, GSD is characterized by not only technical issues but also the complexities associated with its processes. One of the key challenges of GSD is to provide appropriate tools more...... efficiently and cost-effectively. Moreover, variations in tools available/used by different GSD team members can also pose challenges. We assert that providing Tools as a Service (TaaS) to GSD teams through a cloud-based infrastructure can be a promising solution to address the tools related challenges in GSD...

A Multi-Collaborative Ambient Assisted Living Service Description Tool

Science.gov (United States)

Falcó, Jorge L.; Vaquerizo, Esteban; Artigas, José Ignacio

2014-01-01

Collaboration among different stakeholders is a key factor in the design of Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) environments and services. Throughout several AAL projects we have found repeated difficulties in this collaboration and have learned lessons by the experience of solving real situations. This paper highlights identified critical items for collaboration among technicians, users, company and institutional stakeholders and proposes as a communication tool for a project steering committee a service description tool which includes information from the different fields in comprehensible format for the others. It was first generated in the MonAMI project to promote understanding among different workgroups, proven useful there, and further tested later in some other smaller AAL projects. The concept of scalable service description has proven useful for understanding of different disciplines and for participatory decision making throughout the projects to adapt to singularities and partial successes or faults of each action. This paper introduces such tool, relates with existing methodologies in cooperation in AAL and describes it with a example to offer to AAL community. Further work on this tool will significantly improve results in user-centered design of sustainable services in AAL. PMID:24897409

Design of Service Net based Correctness Verification Approach for Multimedia Conferencing Service Orchestration

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Cheng Bo

2012-02-01

Full Text Available Multimedia conferencing is increasingly becoming a very important and popular application over Internet. Due to the complexity of asynchronous communications and handle large and dynamically concurrent processes for multimedia conferencing, which confront relevant challenge to achieve sufficient correctness guarantees, and supporting the effective verification methods for multimedia conferencing services orchestration is an extremely difficult and challenging problem. In this paper, we firstly present the Business Process Execution Language (BPEL based conferencing service orchestration, and mainly focus on the service net based correction verification approach for multimedia conferencing services orchestration, which can automatically translated the BPEL based service orchestration into a corresponding Petri net model with the Petri Net Markup Language (PNML, and also present the BPEL service net reduction rules and multimedia conferencing service orchestration correction verification algorithms. We perform the correctness analysis and verification using the service net properties as safeness, reachability and deadlocks, and also provide an automated support tool for the formal analysis and soundness verification for the multimedia conferencing services orchestration scenarios. Finally, we give the comparison and evaluations.

User involvement and supporting tools in business-to-business service innovations: Insights from Facility Management services

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Nardelli, Giulia

is the generalizability of the findings to other business-to-business service sectors. More research conducted both in FM services and other service sectors would help to shed light on the generalizability of these findings. Originality/value – The study contributes with new and detailed insights into the complexity......Purpose – This article investigates and conceptualizes user involvement in business-to-business service innovations as well as the tools that are used to support interactions in such a service innovation process. Design/methodology/approach – The paper uses a qualitative research approach to answer...... the research question. By following Miles and Huberman (1984)’s this study started with a literature review of studies investigating service innovation, service innovations models, user roles and tools in service innovation in general, to conduct an empirical investigation in facility management (FM) services...

Accessing the SEED genome databases via Web services API: tools for programmers.

Science.gov (United States)

Disz, Terry; Akhter, Sajia; Cuevas, Daniel; Olson, Robert; Overbeek, Ross; Vonstein, Veronika; Stevens, Rick; Edwards, Robert A

2010-06-14

The SEED integrates many publicly available genome sequences into a single resource. The database contains accurate and up-to-date annotations based on the subsystems concept that leverages clustering between genomes and other clues to accurately and efficiently annotate microbial genomes. The backend is used as the foundation for many genome annotation tools, such as the Rapid Annotation using Subsystems Technology (RAST) server for whole genome annotation, the metagenomics RAST server for random community genome annotations, and the annotation clearinghouse for exchanging annotations from different resources. In addition to a web user interface, the SEED also provides Web services based API for programmatic access to the data in the SEED, allowing the development of third-party tools and mash-ups. The currently exposed Web services encompass over forty different methods for accessing data related to microbial genome annotations. The Web services provide comprehensive access to the database back end, allowing any programmer access to the most consistent and accurate genome annotations available. The Web services are deployed using a platform independent service-oriented approach that allows the user to choose the most suitable programming platform for their application. Example code demonstrate that Web services can be used to access the SEED using common bioinformatics programming languages such as Perl, Python, and Java. We present a novel approach to access the SEED database. Using Web services, a robust API for access to genomics data is provided, without requiring large volume downloads all at once. The API ensures timely access to the most current datasets available, including the new genomes as soon as they come online.

A Reference Architecture for Providing Tools as a Service to Support Global Software Development

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Chauhan, Aufeef

2014-01-01

-computing paradigm for addressing above-mentioned issues by providing a framework to select appropriate tools as well as associated services and reference architecture of the cloud-enabled middleware platform that allows on demand provisioning of software engineering Tools as a Service (TaaS) with focus......Global Software Development (GSD) teams encounter challenges that are associated with distribution of software development activities across multiple geographic regions. The limited support for performing collaborative development and engineering activities and lack of sufficient support......-based solutions. The restricted ability of the organizations to have desired alignment of tools with software engineering and development processes results in administrative and managerial overhead that incur increased development cost and poor product quality. Moreover, stakeholders involved in the projects have...

How to define the tool kit for the corrective maintenance service? : a tool kit definition model under the service performance criterion

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Chen, Denise

2009-01-01

Currently, the rule of defining tool kits is varied and more engineer's aspects oriented. However, the decision of the tool kit's definition is a trade-off problem between the cost and the service performance. This project is designed to develop a model that can integrate the engineer's preferences

AAVSO Target Tool: A Web-Based Service for Tracking Variable Star Observations (Abstract)

Science.gov (United States)

Burger, D.; Stassun, K. G.; Barnes, C.; Kafka, S.; Beck, S.; Li, K.

2018-06-01

(Abstract only) The AAVSO Target Tool is a web-based interface for bringing stars in need of observation to the attention of AAVSOís network of amateur and professional astronomers. The site currently tracks over 700 targets of interest, collecting data from them on a regular basis from AAVSOís servers and sorting them based on priority. While the target tool does not require a login, users can obtain visibility times for each target by signing up and entering a telescope location. Other key features of the site include filtering by AAVSO observing section, sorting by different variable types, formatting the data for printing, and exporting the data to a CSV file. The AAVSO Target Tool builds upon seven years of experience developing web applications for astronomical data analysis, most notably on Filtergraph (Burger, D., et al. 2013, Astronomical Data Analysis Software and Systems XXII, Astronomical Society of the Pacific, San Francisco, 399), and is built using the web2py web framework based on the python programming language. The target tool is available at http://filtergraph.com/aavso.

Reference-based pricing: an evidence-based solution for lab services shopping.

Science.gov (United States)

Melton, L Doug; Bradley, Kent; Fu, Patricia Lin; Armata, Raegan; Parr, James B

2014-01-01

To determine the effect of reference-based pricing (RBP) on the percentage of lab services utilized by members that were at or below the reference price. Retrospective, quasi-experimental, matched, case-control pilot evaluation of an RBP benefit for lab services. The study group included employees of a multinational grocery chain covered by a national health insurance carrier and subject to RBP for lab services; it had access to an online lab shopping tool and was informed about the RBP benefit through employer communications. The reference group was covered by the same insurance carrier but not subject to RBP. The primary end point was lab compliance, defined as the percentage of lab claims with total charges at or below the reference price. Difference-in-difference regression estimation evaluated changes in lab compliance between the 2 groups. Higher compliance per lab claim was evident for the study group compared with the reference group (69% vs 57%; Ponline shopping tool was used by 7% of the matched-adjusted study group prior to obtaining lab services. Lab compliance was 76% for study group members using the online tool compared with 68% among nonusers who were subject to RBP (P<.01). RBP can promote cost-conscious selection of lab services. Access to facilities that offer services below the reference price and education about RBP improve compliance. Evaluation of the effect of RBP on higher-cost medical services, including radiology, outpatient specialty, and elective inpatient procedures, is needed.

SOAP based web services and their future role in VO projects

Science.gov (United States)

Topf, F.; Jacquey, C.; Génot, V.; Cecconi, B.; André, N.; Zhang, T. L.; Kallio, E.; Lammer, H.; Facsko, G.; Stöckler, R.; Khodachenko, M.

2011-10-01

Modern state-of-the-art web services are from crucial importance for the interoperability of different VO tools existing in the planetary community. SOAP based web services assure the interconnectability between different data sources and tools by providing a common protocol for communication. This paper will point out a best practice approach with the Automated Multi-Dataset Analysis Tool (AMDA) developed by CDPP, Toulouse and the provision of VEX/MAG data from a remote database located at IWF, Graz. Furthermore a new FP7 project IMPEx will be introduced with a potential usage example of AMDA web services in conjunction with simulation models.

A software tool for ecosystem services assessments

Science.gov (United States)

Riegels, Niels; Klinting, Anders; Butts, Michael; Middelboe, Anne Lise; Mark, Ole

2017-04-01

The EU FP7 DESSIN project is developing methods and tools for assessment of ecosystem services (ESS) and associated economic values, with a focus on freshwater ESS in urban settings. Although the ESS approach has gained considerable visibility over the past ten years, operationalizing the approach remains a challenge. Therefore, DESSSIN is also supporting development of a free software tool to support users implementing the DESSIN ESS evaluation framework. The DESSIN ESS evaluation framework is a structured approach to measuring changes in ecosystem services. The main purpose of the framework is to facilitate the application of the ESS approach in the appraisal of projects that have impacts on freshwater ecosystems and their services. The DESSIN framework helps users evaluate changes in ESS by linking biophysical, economic, and sustainability assessments sequentially. It was developed using the Common International Classification of Ecosystem Services (CICES) and the DPSIR (Drivers, Pressures, States, Impacts, Responses) adaptive management cycle. The former is a standardized system for the classification of ESS developed by the European Union to enhance the consistency and comparability of ESS assessments. The latter is a well-known concept to disentangle the biophysical and social aspects of a system under study. As part of its analytical component, the DESSIN framework also integrates elements of the Final Ecosystem Goods and Services-Classification System (FEGS-CS) of the US Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA). As implemented in the software tool, the DESSIN framework consists of five parts: • In part I of the evaluation, the ecosystem is defined and described and the local stakeholders are identified. In addition, administrative details and objectives of the assessment are defined. • In part II, drivers and pressures are identified. Once these first two elements of the DPSIR scheme have been characterized, the claimed/expected capabilities of a

QUALITY MANAGEMENT TOOLS APPLYING IN THE STRATEGY OF LOGISTICS SERVICES QUALITY IMPROVEMENT

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Agnieszka Czajkowska

2015-11-01

Full Text Available Combination of factors such as: properly organized logistics process, lack of nonconformities, transport damages avoiding and transport in accordance Just In Time idea significantly reduces costs and streamlines the entire production process. This paper proposes the quality management tool for the logistics services assessment based on the results obtained in the selected company operating in Eastern Europe. Customers’ expectations and perceptions were compared using the SERVQUAL method that concerns the service quality assessment in five areas such as: materiality, reliability, promptness, competency and empathy. The research method SERVQUAL allows assessing the service quality level and identifying company areas that requires corrective actions within the improvement process.

Science data, tools and services available from NSIDC

Science.gov (United States)

Gergely, K.; Sheffield, E.

2011-12-01

While the name may be narrow in focus, the National Snow and Ice Data Center archives, distributes and supports data from many scientific disciplines. It is true that the majority of our holdings are on snow, sea ice, glaciers, ice sheets, and other cryospheric parameters. These are complimented by holdings on soil moisture, ocean data, global altimeter data, and human observations of environmental change, among other data. We facilitate access and use of our data through various tools, subsetters, and visualizing interfaces, and complete the package with a staff of hands-on user support specialists, available by email or phone to assist users with questions about our data and services. Based on user questions about general cryospheric physical processes over the past 35 years, we created a suite of online educational information on our areas of research, including snow, glaciers, sea ice, frozen ground, and others material of interest to the citizen scientist. Our excellent customer service has been noted on a widely distributed annual user survey.

The service blueprint as a tool for designing innovative pharmaceutical services.

Science.gov (United States)

Holdford, D A; Kennedy, D T

1999-01-01

To describe service blueprints, discuss their need and design, and provide examples of their use in advancing pharmaceutical care. Service blueprints are pictures or maps of service processes that permit the people involved in designing, providing, managing, and using the service to better understand them and deal with them objectively. A service blueprint simultaneously depicts the service process and the roles of consumers, service providers, and supporting services. Service blueprints can be useful in pharmacy because many of the obstacles to pharmaceutical care are a result of insufficient planning by service designers and/or poor communication between those designing services and those implementing them. One consequence of this poor design and communication is that many consumers and third party payers are uninformed about pharmacist roles. Service blueprints can be used by pharmacists to promote the value of pharmaceutical care to consumers and other decision makers. They can also assist in designing better pharmaceutical services. Blueprints are designed by identifying and mapping a process from the consumer's point of view, mapping employee actions and support activities, and adding visible evidence of service at each consumer action step. Key components of service blueprints are consumer actions, "onstage" and "backstage" employee actions, and support processes. Blueprints can help pharmacy managers identify and correct problems with the service process, provide pharmacy employees an opportunity to offer feedback in the planning stages of services, and demonstrate the value of pharmaceutical services to consumers. Service blueprints can be a valuable tool for designing, implementing, and evaluating pharmacy services.

Towards Web Service-Based Educational Systems

Science.gov (United States)

Sampson, Demetrios G.

2005-01-01

The need for designing the next generation of web service-based educational systems with the ability of integrating components from different tools and platforms is now recognised as the major challenge in advanced learning technologies. In this paper, we discuss this issue and we present the conceptual design of such environment, referred to as…

NOAA Climate Information and Tools for Decision Support Services

Science.gov (United States)

Timofeyeva, M. M.; Higgins, W.; Strager, C.; Horsfall, F. M.

2013-12-01

provision of information that will help guide long-term preparedness for severe weather events and extreme conditions as well as climate variability and change GFCS recently summarized examples of existing initiatives to advance provision of climate services in the 2012 publication Climate ExChange. In this publication, NWS introduced the new Local Climate Analysis Tool (LCAT), a tool that is used to conduct local climate studies that are needed to create efficient and reliable guidance for DSS. LCAT allows for analyzing trends in local climate variables and identifying local impacts of climate variability (e.g., ENSO) on weather and water conditions. In addition to LCAT, NWS, working in partnership with the North East Regional Climate center, released xmACIS version 2, a climate data mining tool, for NWS field operations. During this talk we will demonstrate LCAT and xmACIS as well as outline several examples of their application to DSS and its potential use for achieving GFCS goals. The examples include LCAT-based temperature analysis for energy decisions, guidance on weather and water events leading to increased algal blooms and red tide months in advance, local climate sensitivities to droughts, probabilities of hot/cold conditions and their potential impacts on agriculture and fish kills or fish stress.

Web service based system for generating input data sets

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kralev, Velin; Kraleva, Radoslava

2011-01-01

This article deals with a three-layer architectural model of a distributed information system based on Web services, which will be used for automatic generation of sets of input data. The information system will be constructed of a client layer, a service layer and of a data layer. The web services as a tool of developing distributed software systems will be presented briefly. A web service and the implementation of its web methods will be described. A way to use the developed web methods in real application will be proposed. Keywords: web services

Interactive, open source, travel time scenario modelling: tools to facilitate participation in health service access analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

Fisher, Rohan; Lassa, Jonatan

2017-04-18

Modelling travel time to services has become a common public health tool for planning service provision but the usefulness of these analyses is constrained by the availability of accurate input data and limitations inherent in the assumptions and parameterisation. This is particularly an issue in the developing world where access to basic data is limited and travel is often complex and multi-modal. Improving the accuracy and relevance in this context requires greater accessibility to, and flexibility in, travel time modelling tools to facilitate the incorporation of local knowledge and the rapid exploration of multiple travel scenarios. The aim of this work was to develop simple open source, adaptable, interactive travel time modelling tools to allow greater access to and participation in service access analysis. Described are three interconnected applications designed to reduce some of the barriers to the more wide-spread use of GIS analysis of service access and allow for complex spatial and temporal variations in service availability. These applications are an open source GIS tool-kit and two geo-simulation models. The development of these tools was guided by health service issues from a developing world context but they present a general approach to enabling greater access to and flexibility in health access modelling. The tools demonstrate a method that substantially simplifies the process for conducting travel time assessments and demonstrate a dynamic, interactive approach in an open source GIS format. In addition this paper provides examples from empirical experience where these tools have informed better policy and planning. Travel and health service access is complex and cannot be reduced to a few static modeled outputs. The approaches described in this paper use a unique set of tools to explore this complexity, promote discussion and build understanding with the goal of producing better planning outcomes. The accessible, flexible, interactive and

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

Tools for Stakeholder Involvement in Facility Management Service Design

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Nardelli, Giulia; Scupola, Ada

that are more in line with the stakeholder needs and expectations, and may thus result in increased customer satisfaction, better services and, at the very end, an increased competitive advantage for the organization. Background: The background of this study lies in user involvement in service design...... in the design process as well as FM service provision processes. Research limitations: The major limitation of the study consists of the relatively small amount of interviews conducted, which is the basis for finding the tools in FM service design processes....

A generally applicable lightweight method for calculating a value structure for tools and services in bioinformatics infrastructure projects.

Science.gov (United States)

Mayer, Gerhard; Quast, Christian; Felden, Janine; Lange, Matthias; Prinz, Manuel; Pühler, Alfred; Lawerenz, Chris; Scholz, Uwe; Glöckner, Frank Oliver; Müller, Wolfgang; Marcus, Katrin; Eisenacher, Martin

2017-10-30

Sustainable noncommercial bioinformatics infrastructures are a prerequisite to use and take advantage of the potential of big data analysis for research and economy. Consequently, funders, universities and institutes as well as users ask for a transparent value model for the tools and services offered. In this article, a generally applicable lightweight method is described by which bioinformatics infrastructure projects can estimate the value of tools and services offered without determining exactly the total costs of ownership. Five representative scenarios for value estimation from a rough estimation to a detailed breakdown of costs are presented. To account for the diversity in bioinformatics applications and services, the notion of service-specific 'service provision units' is introduced together with the factors influencing them and the main underlying assumptions for these 'value influencing factors'. Special attention is given on how to handle personnel costs and indirect costs such as electricity. Four examples are presented for the calculation of the value of tools and services provided by the German Network for Bioinformatics Infrastructure (de.NBI): one for tool usage, one for (Web-based) database analyses, one for consulting services and one for bioinformatics training events. Finally, from the discussed values, the costs of direct funding and the costs of payment of services by funded projects are calculated and compared. © The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press.

The Ontology Lookup Service: more data and better tools for controlled vocabulary queries.

Science.gov (United States)

Côté, Richard G; Jones, Philip; Martens, Lennart; Apweiler, Rolf; Hermjakob, Henning

2008-07-01

The Ontology Lookup Service (OLS) (http://www.ebi.ac.uk/ols) provides interactive and programmatic interfaces to query, browse and navigate an ever increasing number of biomedical ontologies and controlled vocabularies. The volume of data available for querying has more than quadrupled since it went into production and OLS functionality has been integrated into several high-usage databases and data entry tools. Improvements have been made to both OLS query interfaces, based on user feedback and requirements, to improve usability and service interoperability and provide novel ways to perform queries.

Waqf as a Tool for Rendering Social Welfare Services in the Social Entrepreneurship Context

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Md. Mahmudul Alam

2018-01-01

Full Text Available The concept of Islamic entrepreneurship centers on ensuring community well-being as the priority, which is one of the important objectives (Maqasid of the Islamic Shari’ah. Historically, waqf played a significant role in the Islamic economic system, particularly in rendering exemplary welfare services in the areas of healthcare, education, social welfare, environmental, and other community-based programs. However, only a few success stories in recent history have institutionally utilized the properties of waqf under proper management to achieve its substantial objectives. This study uses the literature review as basis to analyze the reasons behind the successful utilization of waqf as an effective tool to ensure social welfare services in the past, as well as how this model can be replicated by considering current contexts. This study will assist Islamic valuecentric entrepreneurs, regulatory authorities, investors, and researchers to gain an overall insight into the potentials of waqf as a tool for rendering commendable social welfare services.

Adapting a Technology-Based Implementation Support Tool for Community Mental Health: Challenges and Lessons Learned.

Science.gov (United States)

Livet, Melanie; Fixsen, Amanda

2018-01-01

With mental health services shifting to community-based settings, community mental health (CMH) organizations are under increasing pressure to deliver effective services. Despite availability of evidence-based interventions, there is a gap between effective mental health practices and the care that is routinely delivered. Bridging this gap requires availability of easily tailorable implementation support tools to assist providers in implementing evidence-based intervention with quality, thereby increasing the likelihood of achieving the desired client outcomes. This study documents the process and lessons learned from exploring the feasibility of adapting such a technology-based tool, Centervention, as the example innovation, for use in CMH settings. Mixed-methods data on core features, innovation-provider fit, and organizational capacity were collected from 44 CMH providers. Lessons learned included the need to augment delivery through technology with more personal interactions, the importance of customizing and integrating the tool with existing technologies, and the need to incorporate a number of strategies to assist with adoption and use of Centervention-like tools in CMH contexts. This study adds to the current body of literature on the adaptation process for technology-based tools and provides information that can guide additional innovations for CMH settings.

AN EXPERIMENT ON USING ONLINE MARKETING TOOLS FOR PROMOTING HIGHER EDUCATION SERVICES

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Adela Laura Popa

2016-12-01

Full Text Available In this study we intended, in the first place, to analyse and determine if the online environment represents an efficient environment for promoting educational services offered by higher education institutions in Romania. Another major objective of this paper is to describe a context in which online marketing tools like Facebook and Google AdWords could contribute to promote higher education services in the online environment. In order to achieve the goal, a causal research based on experiment was designed and implemented. The type of the experiment is 'before-after with control group', design. For conducting the experiment, after developing the landing page, two advertising campaigns were designed: one of them through the tools offered by Facebook and the other one by using Google AdWords. The test units considered are two masters of the faculty of economics (one master is the experimental unit and the other is for control. The independent variable is the extent to which the masters are promoted in the online environment and the dependent variable is the number of students enrolled in the two masters during the admission period. Based on the results from this experiment, but also on data of other studies, we consider that the best results in designing online promotion campaigns for higher education institutions - when considering the tools involved in this experiment - are obtained when they are used as complementary tools. According with our observations, Google AdWords has more potential for attracting prospective students on the landing pages containing information dedicated to them, but Facebook’s features can be successfully used in particular for creating and developing relationships with potential students so that they will subsequently want to become students of that institution.

Developing Cyberinfrastructure Tools and Services for Metadata Quality Evaluation

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Mecum, B.; Gordon, S.; Habermann, T.; Jones, M. B.; Leinfelder, B.; Powers, L. A.; Slaughter, P.

2016-12-01

Metadata and data quality are at the core of reusable and reproducible science. While great progress has been made over the years, much of the metadata collected only addresses data discovery, covering concepts such as titles and keywords. Improving metadata beyond the discoverability plateau means documenting detailed concepts within the data such as sampling protocols, instrumentation used, and variables measured. Given that metadata commonly do not describe their data at this level, how might we improve the state of things? Giving scientists and data managers easy to use tools to evaluate metadata quality that utilize community-driven recommendations is the key to producing high-quality metadata. To achieve this goal, we created a set of cyberinfrastructure tools and services that integrate with existing metadata and data curation workflows which can be used to improve metadata and data quality across the sciences. These tools work across metadata dialects (e.g., ISO19115, FGDC, EML, etc.) and can be used to assess aspects of quality beyond what is internal to the metadata such as the congruence between the metadata and the data it describes. The system makes use of a user-friendly mechanism for expressing a suite of checks as code in popular data science programming languages such as Python and R. This reduces the burden on scientists and data managers to learn yet another language. We demonstrated these services and tools in three ways. First, we evaluated a large corpus of datasets in the DataONE federation of data repositories against a metadata recommendation modeled after existing recommendations such as the LTER best practices and the Attribute Convention for Dataset Discovery (ACDD). Second, we showed how this service can be used to display metadata and data quality information to data producers during the data submission and metadata creation process, and to data consumers through data catalog search and access tools. Third, we showed how the centrally

Payments for environmental services in Latin America as a tool for restoration and rural development.

Science.gov (United States)

Montagnini, Florencia; Finney, Christopher

2011-05-01

Payments for Environmental Services (PES) can encourage projects that enhance restoration, production, and rural development. When projects promote differentiated systems by paying farmers for the provision of services, the application of PES requires evaluation of the environmental services provided by each system. We present evaluations of carbon stocks and biodiversity in pure and mixed native tree plantations in Costa Rica. To illustrate how monetary values can be assigned, we discuss a project that awarded PES to silvopastoral systems in Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and Colombia based on carbon stocks and biodiversity. PES can promote positive environmental attitudes in farmers. Currently this project is being scaled up in Colombia based on their positive experiences with PES as a tool to promote adoption. Compared to PES systems that include only one environmental service, systems that incorporate bundling or layering of multiple services can make sustainable land uses more attractive to farmers and reduce perverse incentives.

A middleware-based platform for the integration of bioinformatic services

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Guzmán Llambías

2015-08-01

Full Text Available Performing Bioinformatic´s experiments involve an intensive access to distributed services and information resources through Internet. Although existing tools facilitate the implementation of workflow-oriented applications, they lack of capabilities to integrate services beyond low-scale applications, particularly integrating services with heterogeneous interaction patterns and in a larger scale. This is particularly required to enable a large-scale distributed processing of biological data generated by massive sequencing technologies. On the other hand, such integration mechanisms are provided by middleware products like Enterprise Service Buses (ESB, which enable to integrate distributed systems following a Service Oriented Architecture. This paper proposes an integration platform, based on enterprise middleware, to integrate Bioinformatics services. It presents a multi-level reference architecture and focuses on ESB-based mechanisms to provide asynchronous communications, event-based interactions and data transformation capabilities. The paper presents a formal specification of the platform using the Event-B model.

Marketing Strategy: A Tool for Library and Information Services ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Marketing Strategy: A Tool for Library and Information Services Delivery by ... delivery by academic libraries using the various technology driven facilities. ... Data were gathered using questionnaire and the findings revealed that face to face ...

Treatment Cost Analysis Tool (TCAT) for estimating costs of outpatient treatment services.

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Flynn, Patrick M; Broome, Kirk M; Beaston-Blaakman, Aaron; Knight, Danica K; Horgan, Constance M; Shepard, Donald S

2009-02-01

A Microsoft Excel-based workbook designed for research analysts to use in a national study was retooled for treatment program directors and financial officers to allocate, analyze, and estimate outpatient treatment costs in the U.S. This instrument can also be used as a planning and management tool to optimize resources and forecast the impact of future changes in staffing, client flow, program design, and other resources. The Treatment Cost Analysis Tool (TCAT) automatically provides feedback and generates summaries and charts using comparative data from a national sample of non-methadone outpatient providers. TCAT is being used by program staff to capture and allocate both economic and accounting costs, and outpatient service costs are reported for a sample of 70 programs. Costs for an episode of treatment in regular, intensive, and mixed types of outpatient treatment were $882, $1310, and $1381 respectively (based on 20% trimmed means and 2006 dollars). An hour of counseling cost $64 in regular, $85 intensive, and $86 mixed. Group counseling hourly costs per client were $8, $11, and $10 respectively for regular, intensive, and mixed. Future directions include use of a web-based interview version, much like some of the commercially available tax preparation software tools, and extensions for use in other modalities of treatment.

Developing a tool to assess motivation among health service providers working with public health system in India.

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Purohit, Bhaskar; Maneskar, Abhishek; Saxena, Deepak

2016-04-14

Addressing the shortage of health service providers (doctors and nurses) in rural health centres remains a huge challenge. The lack of motivation of health service providers to serve in rural areas is one of the major reasons for such shortage. While many studies have aimed at analysing the reasons for low motivation, hardly any studies in India have focused on developing valid and reliable tools to measure motivation among health service providers. Hence, the objective of the study was to test and develop a valid and reliable instrument to assess the motivation of health service providers working with the public health system in India and the extent to which the motivation factors included in the study motivate health service providers to perform better at work. The present study adapted an already developed tool on motivation. The reliability and validity of the tool were established using different methods. The first stage of the tool development involved content development and assessment where, after a detailed literature review, a predeveloped tool with 19 items was adapted. However, in light of the literature review and pilot test, the same tool was modified to suit the local context by adding 7 additional items so that the final modified tool comprised of 26 items. A correlation matrix was applied to check the pattern of relationships among the items. The total sample size for the study was 154 health service providers from one Western state in India. To understand the sampling adequacy, the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin measure of sampling adequacy and Bartlett's test of sphericity were applied and finally factor analysis was carried out to calculate the eigenvalues and to understand the relative impact of factors affecting motivation. A correlation matrix value of 0.017 was obtained narrating multi-co-linearity among the observations. Based on initial factor analysis, 8 out of 26 study factors were excluded from the study components with a cutoff range of less than

The Use of Economic Impact Studies as a Service Learning Tool in Undergraduate Business Programs

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Misner, John M.

2004-01-01

This paper examines the use of community based economic impact studies as service learning tools for undergraduate business programs. Economic impact studies are used to measure the economic benefits of a variety of activities such as community redevelopment, tourism, and expansions of existing facilities for both private and public producers.…

Analysis of pre-service physics teacher skills designing simple physics experiments based technology

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Susilawati; Huda, C.; Kurniawan, W.; Masturi; Khoiri, N.

2018-03-01

Pre-service physics teacher skill in designing simple experiment set is very important in adding understanding of student concept and practicing scientific skill in laboratory. This study describes the skills of physics students in designing simple experiments based technologicall. The experimental design stages include simple tool design and sensor modification. The research method used is descriptive method with the number of research samples 25 students and 5 variations of simple physics experimental design. Based on the results of interviews and observations obtained the results of pre-service physics teacher skill analysis in designing simple experimental physics charged technology is good. Based on observation result, pre-service physics teacher skill in designing simple experiment is good while modification and sensor application are still not good. This suggests that pre-service physics teacher still need a lot of practice and do experiments in designing physics experiments using sensor modifications. Based on the interview result, it is found that students have high enough motivation to perform laboratory activities actively and students have high curiosity to be skilled at making simple practicum tool for physics experiment.

Community-based field implementation scenarios of a short message service reporting tool for lymphatic filariasis case estimates in Africa and Asia.

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Mableson, Hayley E; Martindale, Sarah; Stanton, Michelle C; Mackenzie, Charles; Kelly-Hope, Louise A

2017-01-01

Lymphatic filariasis (LF) is a neglected tropical disease (NTD) targeted for global elimination by 2020. Currently there is considerable international effort to scale-up morbidity management activities in endemic countries, however there remains a need for rapid, cost-effective methods and adaptable tools for obtaining estimates of people presenting with clinical manifestations of LF, namely lymphoedema and hydrocele. The mHealth tool ' MeasureSMS-Morbidity ' allows health workers in endemic areas to use their own mobile phones to send clinical information in a simple format using short message service (SMS). The experience gained through programmatic use of the tool in five endemic countries across a diversity of settings in Africa and Asia is used here to present implementation scenarios that are suitable for adapting the tool for use in a range of different programmatic, endemic, demographic and health system settings. A checklist of five key factors and sub-questions was used to determine and define specific community-based field implementation scenarios for using the MeasureSMS-Morbidity tool in a range of settings. These factors included: (I) tool feasibility (acceptability; community access and ownership); (II) LF endemicity (high; low prevalence); (III) population demography (urban; rural); (IV) health system structure (human resources; community access); and (V) integration with other diseases (co-endemicity). Based on experiences in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Malawi, Nepal and Tanzania, four implementation scenarios were identified as suitable for using the MeasureSMS-Morbidity tool for searching and reporting LF clinical case data across a range of programmatic, endemic, demographic and health system settings. These include: (I) urban, high endemic setting with two-tier reporting; (II) rural, high endemic setting with one-tier reporting; (III) rural, high endemic setting with two-tier reporting; and (IV) low-endemic, urban and rural setting with one

Service users' perspectives in the design of an online tool for assisted self-help in mental health: a case study of implications.

Science.gov (United States)

Gammon, Deede; Strand, Monica; Eng, Lillian Sofie

2014-01-09

The involvement of persons with lived experiences of mental illness and service use is increasingly viewed as key to improving the relevance and utility of mental health research and service innovation. Guided by the principles of Community-Based Participatory Research we developed an online tool for assisted self-help in mental health. The resulting tool, PsyConnect, is ready for testing in two communities starting 2014. This case study reports from the design phase which entailed clarifying very basic questions: Who is the primary target group? What are the aims? What functions are priorities? Roles and responsibilities? What types of evidence can legitimize tool design decisions? Here we highlight the views of service users as a basis for discussing implications of user involvement for service design and research. PsyConnect has become a tool for those who expect to need assistance over long periods of time regardless of their specific condition(s). The aim is to support service users in gaining greater overview and control, legitimacy, and sense of continuity in relationships. It has a personalized "my control panel" which depicts status → process → goals. Functionality includes support for: mapping life domains; medication overview; crisis management; coping exercises; secure messaging; and social support. While the types of evidence that can legitimize design decisions are scattered and indirectly relevant, recent trends in recovery research will be used to guide further refinements. PsyConnect has undoubtedly become something other than it would have been without careful attention to the views of service users. The tool invites a proactive approach that is likely to challenge treatment cultures that are reactive, disorder-focused and consultation-based. Service user representatives will need to play central roles in training peers and clinicians in order to increase the likelihood of tool usage in line with intentions. Similarly, their influence on tool

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.

Tools for mapping ecosystem services

Science.gov (United States)

Palomo, Ignacio; Adamescu, Mihai; Bagstad, Kenneth J.; Cazacu, Constantin; Klug, Hermann; Nedkov, Stoyan; Burkhard, Benjamin; Maes, Joachim

2017-01-01

Mapping tools have evolved impressively in recent decades. From early computerised mapping techniques to current cloud-based mapping approaches, we have witnessed a technological evolution that has facilitated the democratisation of Geographic Information

Trust and Privacy Solutions Based on Holistic Service Requirements

Science.gov (United States)

Sánchez Alcón, José Antonio; López, Lourdes; Martínez, José-Fernán; Rubio Cifuentes, Gregorio

2015-01-01

The products and services designed for Smart Cities provide the necessary tools to improve the management of modern cities in a more efficient way. These tools need to gather citizens’ information about their activity, preferences, habits, etc. opening up the possibility of tracking them. Thus, privacy and security policies must be developed in order to satisfy and manage the legislative heterogeneity surrounding the services provided and comply with the laws of the country where they are provided. This paper presents one of the possible solutions to manage this heterogeneity, bearing in mind these types of networks, such as Wireless Sensor Networks, have important resource limitations. A knowledge and ontology management system is proposed to facilitate the collaboration between the business, legal and technological areas. This will ease the implementation of adequate specific security and privacy policies for a given service. All these security and privacy policies are based on the information provided by the deployed platforms and by expert system processing. PMID:26712752

Trust and Privacy Solutions Based on Holistic Service Requirements

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

José Antonio Sánchez Alcón

2015-12-01

Full Text Available The products and services designed for Smart Cities provide the necessary tools to improve the management of modern cities in a more efficient way. These tools need to gather citizens’ information about their activity, preferences, habits, etc. opening up the possibility of tracking them. Thus, privacy and security policies must be developed in order to satisfy and manage the legislative heterogeneity surrounding the services provided and comply with the laws of the country where they are provided. This paper presents one of the possible solutions to manage this heterogeneity, bearing in mind these types of networks, such as Wireless Sensor Networks, have important resource limitations. A knowledge and ontology management system is proposed to facilitate the collaboration between the business, legal and technological areas. This will ease the implementation of adequate specific security and privacy policies for a given service. All these security and privacy policies are based on the information provided by the deployed platforms and by expert system processing.

Trust and Privacy Solutions Based on Holistic Service Requirements.

Science.gov (United States)

Sánchez Alcón, José Antonio; López, Lourdes; Martínez, José-Fernán; Rubio Cifuentes, Gregorio

2015-12-24

The products and services designed for Smart Cities provide the necessary tools to improve the management of modern cities in a more efficient way. These tools need to gather citizens' information about their activity, preferences, habits, etc. opening up the possibility of tracking them. Thus, privacy and security policies must be developed in order to satisfy and manage the legislative heterogeneity surrounding the services provided and comply with the laws of the country where they are provided. This paper presents one of the possible solutions to manage this heterogeneity, bearing in mind these types of networks, such as Wireless Sensor Networks, have important resource limitations. A knowledge and ontology management system is proposed to facilitate the collaboration between the business, legal and technological areas. This will ease the implementation of adequate specific security and privacy policies for a given service. All these security and privacy policies are based on the information provided by the deployed platforms and by expert system processing.

Providing access to risk prediction tools via the HL7 XML-formatted risk web service.

Science.gov (United States)

Chipman, Jonathan; Drohan, Brian; Blackford, Amanda; Parmigiani, Giovanni; Hughes, Kevin; Bosinoff, Phil

2013-07-01

Cancer risk prediction tools provide valuable information to clinicians but remain computationally challenging. Many clinics find that CaGene or HughesRiskApps fit their needs for easy- and ready-to-use software to obtain cancer risks; however, these resources may not fit all clinics' needs. The HughesRiskApps Group and BayesMendel Lab therefore developed a web service, called "Risk Service", which may be integrated into any client software to quickly obtain standardized and up-to-date risk predictions for BayesMendel tools (BRCAPRO, MMRpro, PancPRO, and MelaPRO), the Tyrer-Cuzick IBIS Breast Cancer Risk Evaluation Tool, and the Colorectal Cancer Risk Assessment Tool. Software clients that can convert their local structured data into the HL7 XML-formatted family and clinical patient history (Pedigree model) may integrate with the Risk Service. The Risk Service uses Apache Tomcat and Apache Axis2 technologies to provide an all Java web service. The software client sends HL7 XML information containing anonymized family and clinical history to a Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI) server, where it is parsed, interpreted, and processed by multiple risk tools. The Risk Service then formats the results into an HL7 style message and returns the risk predictions to the originating software client. Upon consent, users may allow DFCI to maintain the data for future research. The Risk Service implementation is exemplified through HughesRiskApps. The Risk Service broadens the availability of valuable, up-to-date cancer risk tools and allows clinics and researchers to integrate risk prediction tools into their own software interface designed for their needs. Each software package can collect risk data using its own interface, and display the results using its own interface, while using a central, up-to-date risk calculator. This allows users to choose from multiple interfaces while always getting the latest risk calculations. Consenting users contribute their data for future

Tools for in service monitoring and testing of riser to prevent failure and extend service life

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Ward, Haakon; Bondevik, Jon Olav; Skjerve, Haavard; Tveit, Oeyvind [SeaFlex AS, Asker (Norway)

2005-07-01

Exploration and development of new oil and gas fields is heavily dependant on use of flexible pipes and many field developments would not have been possible without them. The number of flexible risers in service is constantly increasing since relatively few offshore projects have reached the estimated operational life and the operational lifetime of several fields in-service has been extended due to new and improved technology. Many risers have been in service over a large number of years. Some risers have been operated under demanding conditions such as severe dynamic loads, high pressure and temperatures. One may in some cases find that risers actually have shorter service life than estimated in the design phase due to the severe operational conditions. In order to extend the use of the riser, some risers may have to be modified and re-terminated and prepared for a new and less demanding application. In order to operate risers safely, it is important to re-assess the fatigue life in order to prevent potential riser failure. The operator should implement methods and tools for in-service monitoring and testing. This paper addresses efficient and reliable methods and tools for monitoring of critical operational parameters as well as in-service riser testing. A brief description of structural failure modes will also be given in order to understand how to interpret test results in view of potential failure modes. (author)

Energy service agreement as a tool of the program implementation aimed at raising of energy efficiency: challenges and opportunities

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tupikina Anastasia

2016-01-01

Full Text Available In this article relevance of energy service agreement as a tool of energy efficiency raising has been proved. On the basis of analysis of researches aimed at energy service agreements, legislative base and procedural framework, examples of implementation of energy service agreements the key challenges have been defined, slowing down the development of energy services market in Russia. Possible ways of solving these problems have been shown and the necessity of complex approach to dealing with these issues has been drawn.

Public - private interdependence: An effective tool in water supply services

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ana Elena Iosif

2014-11-01

Full Text Available The paper aims to study the impact of certain determinants on the choice of local authorities to use public - private interdependence for the provision of water supply services, based on the Spanish and Romanian local experiences. Being aware of their impact, the authorities could place a particular focus on the determinants that lead to local development. Several studies reveal that public – private interdependence is a powerful tool for building local development (Melo & do Carmo, 2008; Dessi & Floris, 2009 and states are interested in finding out ways to obtain it. The complex methodology of the paper was designed in accordance with the particularities of each country studied. Gathering the data for Romania implied conducting several interviews, and for Spain survey, exploratory analysis and semi-structured interviews were applied. The determinants’ influence was tested through logit or linear probability model. The analysis validates that population, density of population, indirect taxes, affiliation of the city representative to a certain political party is influencing the option of local public authorities. The paper brings recommendations on promoting public - private interdependence in water supply services. The paper is mainly valuable for the parallel that is made between Spain and Romania in water supply services and it brings progress in comparative country cases.

A service concept and tools to improve maternal and newborn health in Nigeria and Uganda.

Science.gov (United States)

Salgado, Mariana; Wendland, Melanie; Rodriguez, Damaris; Bohren, Meghan A; Oladapo, Olufemi T; Ojelade, Olubunmi A; Mugerwa, Kidza; Fawole, Bukola

2017-12-01

The "Better Outcomes in Labor Difficulty" (BOLD) project used a service design process to design a set of tools to improve quality of care during childbirth by strengthening linkages between communities and health facilities in Nigeria and Uganda. This paper describes the Passport to Safer Birth concept and the tools developed as a result. Service design methods were used to identify facilitators and barriers to quality care, and to develop human-centered solutions. The service design process had three phases: Research for Design, Concept Design, and Detail Design, undertaken in eight hospitals and catchment communities. The service concept "Better Beginnings" comprises three tools. The "Pregnancy Purse" provides educational information to women throughout pregnancy. The "Birth Board" is a visual communication tool that presents the labor and childbirth process. The "Family Pass" is a set of wearable passes for the woman and her supporter to facilitate communication of care preferences. The Better Beginnings service concept and tools form the basis for the promotion of access to information and knowledge acquisition, and could improve communication between the healthcare provider, the woman, and her family during childbirth. © 2017 International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics. The World Health Organization retains copyright and all other rights in the manuscript of this article as submitted for publication.

Sandia Agile MEMS Prototyping, Layout Tools, Education and Services Program

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Schriner, H.; Davies, B.; Sniegowski, J.; Rodgers, M.S.; Allen, J.; Shepard, C.

1998-05-01

Research and development in the design and manufacture of Microelectromechanical Systems (MEMS) is growing at an enormous rate. Advances in MEMS design tools and fabrication processes at Sandia National Laboratories` Microelectronics Development Laboratory (MDL) have broadened the scope of MEMS applications that can be designed and manufactured for both military and commercial use. As improvements in micromachining fabrication technologies continue to be made, MEMS designs can become more complex, thus opening the door to an even broader set of MEMS applications. In an effort to further research and development in MEMS design, fabrication, and application, Sandia National Laboratories has launched the Sandia Agile MEMS Prototyping, Layout Tools, Education and Services Program or SAMPLES program. The SAMPLES program offers potential partners interested in MEMS the opportunity to prototype an idea and produce hardware that can be used to sell a concept. The SAMPLES program provides education and training on Sandia`s design tools, analysis tools and fabrication process. New designers can participate in the SAMPLES program and design MEMS devices using Sandia`s design and analysis tools. As part of the SAMPLES program, participants` designs are fabricated using Sandia`s 4 level polycrystalline silicon surface micromachine technology fabrication process known as SUMMiT (Sandia Ultra-planar, Multi-level MEMS Technology). Furthermore, SAMPLES participants can also opt to obtain state of the art, post-fabrication services provided at Sandia such as release, packaging, reliability characterization, and failure analysis. This paper discusses the components of the SAMPLES program.

A web-based rapid assessment tool for production publishing solutions

Science.gov (United States)

Sun, Tong

2010-02-01

Solution assessment is a critical first-step in understanding and measuring the business process efficiency enabled by an integrated solution package. However, assessing the effectiveness of any solution is usually a very expensive and timeconsuming task which involves lots of domain knowledge, collecting and understanding the specific customer operational context, defining validation scenarios and estimating the expected performance and operational cost. This paper presents an intelligent web-based tool that can rapidly assess any given solution package for production publishing workflows via a simulation engine and create a report for various estimated performance metrics (e.g. throughput, turnaround time, resource utilization) and operational cost. By integrating the digital publishing workflow ontology and an activity based costing model with a Petri-net based workflow simulation engine, this web-based tool allows users to quickly evaluate any potential digital publishing solutions side-by-side within their desired operational contexts, and provides a low-cost and rapid assessment for organizations before committing any purchase. This tool also benefits the solution providers to shorten the sales cycles, establishing a trustworthy customer relationship and supplement the professional assessment services with a proven quantitative simulation and estimation technology.

Service management at CERN with Service-Now

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Toteva, Z; Fedorko, I; Hefferman, J; Lemaitre, S; Mira, O Pera; Alonso, R Alvarez; Cheimariou, M-E; Clavo, D Martin; Granda, E Alvarez; Pedreira, P Martinez

2012-01-01

The Information Technology (IT) and the General Services (GS) departments at CERN have decided to combine their extensive experience in support for IT and non-IT services towards a common goal – to bring the services closer to the end user based on Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) best practice. The collaborative efforts have so far produced definitions for the incident and the request fulfilment processes which are based on a unique two-dimensional service catalogue that combines both the user and the support team views of all services. After an extensive evaluation of the available industrial solutions, Service-now was selected as the tool to implement the CERN Service-Management processes. The initial release of the tool provided an attractive web portal for the users and successfully implemented two basic ITIL processes; the incident management and the request fulfilment processes. It also integrated with the CERN personnel databases and the LHC GRID ticketing system. Subsequent releases continued to integrate with other third-party tools like the facility management systems of CERN as well as to implement new processes such as change management. Independently from those new development activities it was decided to simplify the request fulfilment process in order to achieve easier acceptance by the CERN user community. We believe that due to the high modularity of the Service-now tool, the parallel design of ITIL processes e.g., event management and non-ITIL processes, e.g., computer centre hardware management, will be easily achieved. This presentation will describe the experience that we have acquired and the techniques that were followed to achieve the CERN customization of the Service-Now tool.

The service dominant business model : a service focused conceptualization

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Lüftenegger, E.R.; Comuzzi, M.; Grefen, P.W.P.J.; Weisleder, C.A.

2013-01-01

Existing approaches on business model tools are constrained by the goods dominant way of doing business. Nowadays, the shift from goods based approaches towards a service dominant strategy requires novel business model tools specially focused for service business. In this report we present the

ASSESSMENT OF GOOD PRACTICES IN HOSPITAL FOOD SERVICE BY COMPARING EVALUATION TOOLS.

Science.gov (United States)

Macedo Gonçalves, Juliana; Lameiro Rodrigues, Kelly; Santiago Almeida, Ângela Teresinha; Pereira, Giselda Maria; Duarte Buchweitz, Márcia Rúbia

2015-10-01

since food service in hospitals complements medical treatment, it should be produced in proper hygienic and sanitary conditions. It is a well-known fact that food-transmitted illnesses affect with greater severity hospitalized and immunosuppressed patients. good practices in hospital food service are evaluated by comparing assessment instruments. good practices were evaluated by a verification list following Resolution of Collegiate Directory n. 216 of the Brazilian Agency for Sanitary Vigilance. Interpretation of listed items followed parameters of RCD 216 and the Brazilian Association of Collective Meals Enterprises (BACME). Fisher's exact test was applied to detect whether there were statistically significant differences. Analysis of data grouping was undertaken with Unweighted Pair-group using Arithmetic Averages, coupled to a correlation study between dissimilarity matrixes to verify disagreement between the two methods. Good Practice was classified with mean total rates above 75% by the two methods. There were statistically significant differences between services and food evaluated by BACME instrument. Hospital Food Services have proved to show conditions of acceptable good practices. the comparison of interpretation tools based on RCD n. 216 and BACME provided similar results for the two classifications. Copyright AULA MEDICA EDICIONES 2014. Published by AULA MEDICA. All rights reserved.

Oh! Web 2.0, Virtual Reference Service 2.0, Tools & Techniques (II)

Science.gov (United States)

Arya, Harsh Bardhan; Mishra, J. K.

2012-01-01

The paper describes the theory and definition of the practice of librarianship, specifically addressing how Web 2.0 technologies (tools) such as synchronous messaging, collaborative reference service and streaming media, blogs, wikis, social networks, social bookmarking tools, tagging, RSS feeds, and mashups might intimate changes and how…

A Highly Scalable Data Service (HSDS) using Cloud-based Storage Technologies for Earth Science Data

Science.gov (United States)

Michaelis, A.; Readey, J.; Votava, P.; Henderson, J.; Willmore, F.

2017-12-01

Cloud based infrastructure may offer several key benefits of scalability, built in redundancy, security mechanisms and reduced total cost of ownership as compared with a traditional data center approach. However, most of the tools and legacy software systems developed for online data repositories within the federal government were not developed with a cloud based infrastructure in mind and do not fully take advantage of commonly available cloud-based technologies. Moreover, services bases on object storage are well established and provided through all the leading cloud service providers (Amazon Web Service, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, etc…) of which can often provide unmatched "scale-out" capabilities and data availability to a large and growing consumer base at a price point unachievable from in-house solutions. We describe a system that utilizes object storage rather than traditional file system based storage to vend earth science data. The system described is not only cost effective, but shows a performance advantage for running many different analytics tasks in the cloud. To enable compatibility with existing tools and applications, we outline client libraries that are API compatible with existing libraries for HDF5 and NetCDF4. Performance of the system is demonstrated using clouds services running on Amazon Web Services.

Cultural competency assessment tool for hospitals: evaluating hospitals' adherence to the culturally and linguistically appropriate services standards.

Science.gov (United States)

Weech-Maldonado, Robert; Dreachslin, Janice L; Brown, Julie; Pradhan, Rohit; Rubin, Kelly L; Schiller, Cameron; Hays, Ron D

2012-01-01

The U.S. national standards for culturally and linguistically appropriate services (CLAS) in health care provide guidelines on policies and practices aimed at developing culturally competent systems of care. The Cultural Competency Assessment Tool for Hospitals (CCATH) was developed as an organizational tool to assess adherence to the CLAS standards. First, we describe the development of the CCATH and estimate the reliability and validity of the CCATH measures. Second, we discuss the managerial implications of the CCATH as an organizational tool to assess cultural competency. We pilot tested an initial draft of the CCATH, revised it based on a focus group and cognitive interviews, and then administered it in a field test with a sample of California hospitals. The reliability and validity of the CCATH were evaluated using factor analysis, analysis of variance, and Cronbach's alphas. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses identified 12 CCATH composites: leadership and strategic planning, data collection on inpatient population, data collection on service area, performance management systems and quality improvement, human resources practices, diversity training, community representation, availability of interpreter services, interpreter services policies, quality of interpreter services, translation of written materials, and clinical cultural competency practices. All the CCATH scales had internal consistency reliability of .65 or above, and the reliability was .70 or above for 9 of the 12 scales. Analysis of variance results showed that not-for-profit hospitals have higher CCATH scores than for-profit hospitals in five CCATH scales and higher CCATH scores than government hospitals in two CCATH scales. The CCATH showed adequate psychometric properties. Managers and policy makers can use the CCATH as a tool to evaluate hospital performance in cultural competency and identify and target improvements in hospital policies and practices that undergird the provision

Information Technology Research Services: Powerful Tools to Keep Up with a Rapidly Moving Field

Science.gov (United States)

Hunter, Paul

2010-01-01

Marty firms offer Information Technology Research reports, analyst calls, conferences, seminars, tools, leadership development, etc. These entities include Gartner, Forrester Research, IDC, The Burton Group, Society for Information Management, 1nfoTech Research, The Corporate Executive Board, and so on. This talk will cover how a number of such services are being used at the Goddard Space Flight Center to improve our IT management practices, workforce skills, approach to innovation, and service delivery. These tools and services are used across the workforce, from the executive leadership to the IT worker. The presentation will cover the types of services each vendor provides and their primary engagement model. The use of these services at other NASA Centers and Headquarters will be included. In addition, I will explain how two of these services are available now to the entire NASA IT workforce through enterprise-wide subscriptions.

PTaaS: Platform for Providing Software Developing Applications and Tools as a Service

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Chauhan, Muhammad Aufeef; Babar, Muhammad Ali

2014-01-01

technological support for it that is not limited to one specific tools and a particular phase of software development life cycle. In this thesis, we have explored the possibility of offering software development applications and tools as services that can be acquired on demand according to the software...... with process. Information gained from the review of literature on GSD tools and processes is used to extract functional requirements for the middleware platform for provisioning of software development applications and tools as services. Finding from the review of literature on architecture solutions for cloud......Cloud computing has become an established paradigm for enabling organizations to build scalable software systems and to meet challenges of rapid demand of computing and storage resources. There has been a significant success in building cloud-enabled applications for many disciplines ranging from...

Using Augmented Reality Tools to Enhance Children's Library Services

Science.gov (United States)

Meredith, Tamara R.

2015-01-01

Augmented reality (AR) has been used and documented for a variety of commercial and educational purposes, and the proliferation of mobile devices has increased the average person's access to AR systems and tools. However, little research has been done in the area of using AR to supplement traditional library services, specifically for patrons aged…

The development of daily monitoring tool in a service part manufacturing company

Science.gov (United States)

Marpaung, Seamus Tadeo; Rosyidi, Cucuk Nur

2018-02-01

Production lead time is one of the key measures to assess whether a production system is running well or not. A short lead time will lead to higher customer satisfaction and will be a solid proof that a system is well-organized. To shorten the production lead time, a good production planning and control are required. There are many obstacles which can occur at any time, for instance shortage of material and worker, or poor production scheduling. Service Parts Planning Department works with many parties from the beginning of service parts production until it is delivered to the customer. This research was conducted to find an appropriate production monitoring tool for Service Parts Planning Department, which is a control method that make problems appears to the surface and can be overcome quickly so that the production process can run normally. The tool development started with a field study to find out the production flow from start to finish, a literature review and a interview with some employees who will later use the production control tool, and the creation of a daily control that went through several modifications until finally meet the needs of the department. In this research, a production monitoring tool which is developed can be used to monitor the entire order status, the production lead time, and also serves as the records and reports for presentation.

Measuring the food service environment: development and implementation of assessment tools.

Science.gov (United States)

Minaker, Leia M; Raine, Kim D; Cash, Sean B

2009-01-01

The food environment is increasingly being implicated in the obesity epidemic, though few reported measures of it exist. In order to assess the impact of the food environment on food intake, valid measures must be developed and tested. The current study describes the development of a food service environment assessment tool and its implementation in a community setting. A descriptive study with mixed qualitative and quantitative methods at a large, North American university campus was undertaken. Measures were developed on the basis of a conceptual model of nutrition environments. Measures of community nutrition environment were the number, type and hours of operation of each food service outlet on campus. Measures of consumer nutrition environment were food availability, food affordability, food promotion and nutrition information availability. Seventy-five food service outlets within the geographic boundaries were assessed. Assessment tools could be implemented in a reasonable amount of time and showed good face and content validity. The food environments were described and measures were grouped so that food service outlet types could be compared in terms of purchasing convenience, cost/value, healthy food promotion and health. Food service outlet types that scored higher in purchasing convenience and cost/value tended to score lower in healthy food promotion and health. This study adds evidence that food service outlet types that are convenient to consumers and supply high value (in terms of calories per dollar) tend to be less health-promoting. Results from this study also suggest the possibility of characterizing the food environment according to the type of food service outlet observed.

Electronic tools for health information exchange: an evidence-based analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

2013-01-01

As patients experience transitions in care, there is a need to share information between care providers in an accurate and timely manner. With the push towards electronic medical records and other electronic tools (eTools) (and away from paper-based health records) for health information exchange, there remains uncertainty around the impact of eTools as a form of communication. To examine the impact of eTools for health information exchange in the context of care coordination for individuals with chronic disease in the community. A literature search was performed on April 26, 2012, using OVID MEDLINE, OVID MEDLINE In-Process and Other Non-Indexed Citations, OVID EMBASE, EBSCO Cumulative Index to Nursing & Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), the Wiley Cochrane Library, and the Centre for Reviews and Dissemination database, for studies published until April 26, 2012 (no start date limit was applied). A systematic literature search was conducted, and meta-analysis conducted where appropriate. Outcomes of interest fell into 4 categories: health services utilization, disease-specific clinical outcomes, process-of-care indicators, and measures of efficiency. The quality of the evidence was assessed individually for each outcome. Expert panels were assembled for stakeholder engagement and contextualization. Eleven articles were identified (4 randomized controlled trials and 7 observational studies). There was moderate quality evidence of a reduction in hospitalizations, hospital length of stay, and emergency department visits following the implementation of an electronically generated laboratory report with recommendations based on clinical guidelines. The evidence showed no difference in disease-specific outcomes; there was no evidence of a positive impact on process-of-care indicators or measures of efficiency. A limited body of research specifically examined eTools for health information exchange in the population and setting of interest. This evidence included a

Investigating the role of Fuzzy as confirmatory tool for service quality assessment (Case study: Comparison of Fuzzy SERVQUAL and SERVQUAL in hotel service evaluation)

Science.gov (United States)

Wahyudi, R. D.

2017-11-01

The problem was because of some indicators qualitatively assessed had been discussed in engineering field. Whereas, qualitative assessment was presently used in certain occasion including in engineering field, for instance, the assessment of service satisfaction. Probably, understanding of satisfaction definition caused bias if customers had their own definition of satisfactory level of service. Therefore, the use of fuzzy logic in SERVQUAL as service satisfaction measurement tool would probably be useful. This paper aimed to investigate the role of fuzzy in SERVQUAL by comparing result measurement of SERVQUAL and fuzzy SERVQUAL for study case of hotel service evaluation. Based on data processing, initial result showed that there was no significant different between them. Thus, either implementation of fuzzy SERVQUAL in different case or study about the role of fuzzy logic in SERVQUAL would be interesting further discussed topic.

An Innovative Interactive Modeling Tool to Analyze Scenario-Based Physician Workforce Supply and Demand

Science.gov (United States)

Gupta, Saurabh; Black-Schaffer, W. Stephen; Crawford, James M.; Gross, David; Karcher, Donald S.; Kaufman, Jill; Knapman, Doug; Prystowsky, Michael B.; Wheeler, Thomas M.; Bean, Sarah; Kumar, Paramhans; Sharma, Raghav; Chamoli, Vaibhav; Ghai, Vikrant; Gogia, Vineet; Weintraub, Sally; Cohen, Michael B.

2015-01-01

Effective physician workforce management requires that the various organizations comprising the House of Medicine be able to assess their current and future workforce supply. This information has direct relevance to funding of graduate medical education. We describe a dynamic modeling tool that examines how individual factors and practice variables can be used to measure and forecast the supply and demand for existing and new physician services. The system we describe, while built to analyze the pathologist workforce, is sufficiently broad and robust for use in any medical specialty. Our design provides a computer-based software model populated with data from surveys and best estimates by specialty experts about current and new activities in the scope of practice. The model describes the steps needed and data required for analysis of supply and demand. Our modeling tool allows educators and policy makers, in addition to physician specialty organizations, to assess how various factors may affect demand (and supply) of current and emerging services. Examples of factors evaluated include types of professional services (3 categories with 16 subcategories), service locations, elements related to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, new technologies, aging population, and changing roles in capitated, value-based, and team-based systems of care. The model also helps identify where physicians in a given specialty will likely need to assume new roles, develop new expertise, and become more efficient in practice to accommodate new value-based payment models. PMID:28725751

An Innovative Interactive Modeling Tool to Analyze Scenario-Based Physician Workforce Supply and Demand

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Saurabh Gupta BPharm

2015-10-01

Full Text Available Effective physician workforce management requires that the various organizations comprising the House of Medicine be able to assess their current and future workforce supply. This information has direct relevance to funding of graduate medical education. We describe a dynamic modeling tool that examines how individual factors and practice variables can be used to measure and forecast the supply and demand for existing and new physician services. The system we describe, while built to analyze the pathologist workforce, is sufficiently broad and robust for use in any medical specialty. Our design provides a computer-based software model populated with data from surveys and best estimates by specialty experts about current and new activities in the scope of practice. The model describes the steps needed and data required for analysis of supply and demand. Our modeling tool allows educators and policy makers, in addition to physician specialty organizations, to assess how various factors may affect demand (and supply of current and emerging services. Examples of factors evaluated include types of professional services (3 categories with 16 subcategories, service locations, elements related to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, new technologies, aging population, and changing roles in capitated, value-based, and team-based systems of care. The model also helps identify where physicians in a given specialty will likely need to assume new roles, develop new expertise, and become more efficient in practice to accommodate new value-based payment models.

An Innovative Interactive Modeling Tool to Analyze Scenario-Based Physician Workforce Supply and Demand.

Science.gov (United States)

Gupta, Saurabh; Black-Schaffer, W Stephen; Crawford, James M; Gross, David; Karcher, Donald S; Kaufman, Jill; Knapman, Doug; Prystowsky, Michael B; Wheeler, Thomas M; Bean, Sarah; Kumar, Paramhans; Sharma, Raghav; Chamoli, Vaibhav; Ghai, Vikrant; Gogia, Vineet; Weintraub, Sally; Cohen, Michael B; Robboy, Stanley J

2015-01-01

Effective physician workforce management requires that the various organizations comprising the House of Medicine be able to assess their current and future workforce supply. This information has direct relevance to funding of graduate medical education. We describe a dynamic modeling tool that examines how individual factors and practice variables can be used to measure and forecast the supply and demand for existing and new physician services. The system we describe, while built to analyze the pathologist workforce, is sufficiently broad and robust for use in any medical specialty. Our design provides a computer-based software model populated with data from surveys and best estimates by specialty experts about current and new activities in the scope of practice. The model describes the steps needed and data required for analysis of supply and demand. Our modeling tool allows educators and policy makers, in addition to physician specialty organizations, to assess how various factors may affect demand (and supply) of current and emerging services. Examples of factors evaluated include types of professional services (3 categories with 16 subcategories), service locations, elements related to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, new technologies, aging population, and changing roles in capitated, value-based, and team-based systems of care. The model also helps identify where physicians in a given specialty will likely need to assume new roles, develop new expertise, and become more efficient in practice to accommodate new value-based payment models.

A new tool for quality of multimedia estimation based on network behaviour

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jaroslav Frnda

2016-03-01

Full Text Available In this paper, we present a software tool capable of predicting the final quality of triple play services by using the most common assessment metrics. The quality of speech and video in network environment is a growing concern of all the internet service providers to carry the multimedia traffic without the excessive delays and losses, which degrade the quality of multimedia as it is perceived by the end users. Prediction mathematical model is based on results obtained from many performed testing scenarios simulating real behavior in the network. Based on the proposed model, speech or video quality is calculated with regard to policies applied for packet processing by routers and to the level of total network utilization. The application cannot only predict QoS parameters but also generate the source code of particular QoS policy setting according to the user interaction and apply the policy to the routers in the network. Contribution of the work consists of a new software tool enables network administrators and designers to improve and optimize network traffic efficiently.

Queued Service Observing (QSO) at CFHT II. Queue Preparation and Observation Tools

Science.gov (United States)

Vermeulen, T.; Savalle, R.; Martin, P.; Shapiro, J.

In order to maximize the scientific productivity of the CFH12K mosaic wide-field imager, a Queued Service Observing (QSO) mode of operations was implemented at CFHT . To support this new operational model, a two-tiered system consisting of a Swing-based Java client and a relational database was developed. The various software components were designed to handle selection, scheduling, execution, and validation of programs submitted by the investigators through the CFHT Phase 2 Tool (PH2). This paper will discuss the technical architecture, the reasons behind our choice of technology, and our experience implementing this system during the first two semesters of Queue observing.

Are patient surveys valuable as a service-improvement tool in health services? An overview

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Patwardhan A

2012-05-01

Full Text Available Anjali Patwardhan,1 Charles H Spencer21Nationwide Children’s Hospital Columbus, 2Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USAAbstract: Improving the quality of care in international health services was made a high priority in 1977. The World Health Assembly passed a resolution to greatly improve “Health for all” by the year 2000. Since 1977, the use of patient surveys for quality improvement has become a common practice in the health-care industry. The use of surveys reflects the concept that patient satisfaction is closely linked with that of organizational performance, which is in turn closely linked with organizational culture. This article is a review of the role of patient surveys as a quality-improvement tool in health care. The article explores the characteristics, types, merits, and pitfalls of various patient surveys, as well as the impact of their wide-ranging application in dissimilar scenarios to identify gaps in service provision. It is demonstrated that the conducting of patient surveys and using the results to improve the quality of care are two different processes. The value of patient surveys depends on the interplay between these two processes and several other factors that can influence the final outcome. The article also discusses the business aspect of the patient surveys in detail. Finally, the authors make future recommendations on how the patient survey tool can be best used to improve the quality of care in the health-care sector.Keywords: patient surveys, quality improvement, service gaps 

Index of Access: a new innovative and dynamic tool for rural health service and workforce planning.

Science.gov (United States)

McGrail, Matthew R; Russell, Deborah J; Humphreys, John S

2017-10-01

Objective Improving access to primary health care (PHC) remains a key issue for rural residents and health service planners. This study aims to show that how access to PHC services is measured has important implications for rural health service and workforce planning. Methods A more sophisticated tool to measure access to PHC services is proposed, which can help health service planners overcome the shortcomings of existing measures and long-standing access barriers to PHC. Critically, the proposed Index of Access captures key components of access and uses a floating catchment approach to better define service areas and population accessibility levels. Moreover, as demonstrated through a case study, the Index of Access enables modelling of the effects of workforce supply variations. Results Hypothetical increases in supply are modelled for a range of regional centres, medium and small rural towns, with resulting changes of access scores valuable to informing health service and workforce planning decisions. Conclusions The availability and application of a specific 'fit-for-purpose' access measure enables a more accurate empirical basis for service planning and allocation of health resources. This measure has great potential for improved identification of PHC access inequities and guiding redistribution of PHC services to correct such inequities. What is known about the topic? Resource allocation and health service planning decisions for rural and remote health settings are currently based on either simple measures of access (e.g. provider-to-population ratios) or proxy measures of access (e.g. standard geographical classifications). Both approaches have substantial limitations for informing rural health service planning and decision making. What does this paper add? The adoption of a new improved tool to measure access to PHC services, the Index of Access, is proposed to assist health service and workforce planning. Its usefulness for health service planning is

LOCATION-BASED SERVICES USING SIP

OpenAIRE

Abdullah Azfar,; Md. Sakhawat Hossen,; María José Peroza Marval; Razib Hayat Khan

2010-01-01

Due to the popularity of Location-Based Services and IP telephony, we decided to review a number of different proposals to implement Location-Based Services over a SIP-based mobile network. The result is an interesting overview about the potential functionalities of Location-Based Services and the capabilities of SIP for implementingthese services.

41 CFR 301-50.7 - Should I use the online self-service booking tool once ETS is available within my agency?

Science.gov (United States)

2010-07-01

... SERVICES § 301-50.7 Should I use the online self-service booking tool once ETS is available within my agency? Yes, you should use the online self-service booking tool offered by ETS or your agency's TMS... self-service booking tool once ETS is available within my agency? 301-50.7 Section 301-50.7 Public...

Innovative methods and tools for professionals working in supported living services for intellectually disabled persons.

Science.gov (United States)

Gruiz, Katalin

2015-01-01

Autonomy of mid-seriously and seriously intellectually disabled persons is encouraged both by legislations on human rights and the modern social care and services. The process leading to the maximum possible autonomy is illustrated by a developmental spiral in our model. Specialty of the development is that the personal educational projects are realized during everyday activities. The process requires conscious professionals with an empowering and motivating attitude, with adult relationship to the intellectually disabled persons and versatile skills and tools. In this educational relationship the social professional and the supported person are equal partners moving together along the spiral of human development. An innovative tool-battery has been developed aiding support-staff in the 'pedagogical' task embedded into everyday social services. The tool-battery and its first application in supported living services of the Hungarian Down Foundation are introduced in this paper.

Designing a New Car Rental Service Using Location-Based Services

OpenAIRE

Dessie, Solomon

2015-01-01

This thesis concentrates on improving the car rental services offered by the case company by introducing location-based services. For many years, the company has conducted a rental business in a similar manner with other car rental companies, and now it is introducing a new service system based on online interaction and location-based services. The outcome of the study is a blueprint for the case company regarding the design of a car rental service using location-based services. This stud...

Web-service architecture for tools supporting life-long e-Learning platforms

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Dimov, Alexander; Stefanov, Krassen

2009-01-01

Dimov, A., & Stefanov, K. (2008). Web-service architecture for tools supporting life-long e-Learning platforms. In R. Koper, K. Stefanov & D. Dicheva (Eds.), Proceedings of the 5th International TENCompetence Open Workshop "Stimulating Personal Development and Knowledge Sharing" (pp. 67-71).

Resource Planning in Glaucoma: A Tool to Evaluate Glaucoma Service Capacity.

Science.gov (United States)

Batra, Ruchika; Sharma, Hannah E; Elaraoud, Ibrahim; Mohamed, Shabbir

2017-12-28

The National Patient Safety Agency (2009) publication advising timely follow-up of patients with established glaucoma followed several reported instances of visual loss due to postponed appointments and patients lost to follow-up. The Royal College of Ophthalmologists Quality Standards Development Group stated that all hospital appointments should occur within 15% of the intended follow-up period. To determine whether: 1. Glaucoma follow-up appointments at a teaching hospital occur within the requested time 2. Appointments are requested at appropriate intervals based on the NICE Guidelines 3. The capacity of the glaucoma service is adequate Methods: A two-part audit was undertaken of 98 and 99 consecutive patients respectively attending specialist glaucoma clinics. In the first part, the reasons for delayed appointments were recorded. In the second part the requested follow-up was compared with NICE guidelines where applicable. Based on the findings, changes were implemented and a re-audit of 100 patients was carried out. The initial audit found that although clinical decisions regarding follow-up intervals were 100% compliant with NICE guidelines where applicable, 24% of appointments were delayed beyond 15% of the requested period, due to administrative errors and inadequate capacity, leading to significant clinical deterioration in two patients. Following the introduction of an electronic appointment tracker and increased clinical capacity created by extra clinics and clinicians, the re-audit found a marked decrease in the percentage of appointments being delayed (9%). This audit is a useful tool to evaluate glaucoma service provision, assist in resource planning for the service and bring about change in a non-confrontational way. It can be widely applied and adapted for use in other medical specialities.

EPA Region 1 - Map Layers for Valley ID Tool (Hosted Feature Service)

Data.gov (United States)

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency — The Valley Service Feature Layer hosts spatial data for EPA Region 1's Valley Identification Tool. These layers contain attribute information added by EPA R1 GIS...

The Pathologist Workforce in the United States: II. An Interactive Modeling Tool for Analyzing Future Qualitative and Quantitative Staffing Demands for Services.

Science.gov (United States)

Robboy, Stanley J; Gupta, Saurabh; Crawford, James M; Cohen, Michael B; Karcher, Donald S; Leonard, Debra G B; Magnani, Barbarajean; Novis, David A; Prystowsky, Michael B; Powell, Suzanne Z; Gross, David J; Black-Schaffer, W Stephen

2015-11-01

Pathologists are physicians who make diagnoses based on interpretation of tissue and cellular specimens (surgical/cytopathology, molecular/genomic pathology, autopsy), provide medical leadership and consultation for laboratory medicine, and are integral members of their institutions' interdisciplinary patient care teams. To develop a dynamic modeling tool to examine how individual factors and practice variables can forecast demand for pathologist services. Build and test a computer-based software model populated with data from surveys and best estimates about current and new pathologist efforts. Most pathologists' efforts focus on anatomic (52%), laboratory (14%), and other direct services (8%) for individual patients. Population-focused services (12%) (eg, laboratory medical direction) and other professional responsibilities (14%) (eg, teaching, research, and hospital committees) consume the rest of their time. Modeling scenarios were used to assess the need to increase or decrease efforts related globally to the Affordable Care Act, and specifically, to genomic medicine, laboratory consolidation, laboratory medical direction, and new areas where pathologists' expertise can add value. Our modeling tool allows pathologists, educators, and policy experts to assess how various factors may affect demand for pathologists' services. These factors include an aging population, advances in biomedical technology, and changing roles in capitated, value-based, and team-based medical care systems. In the future, pathologists will likely have to assume new roles, develop new expertise, and become more efficient in practicing medicine to accommodate new value-based delivery models.

Evaluating the utility of workplace-based assessment tools for speciality training.

Science.gov (United States)

Setna, Z; Jha, V; Boursicot, K A M; Roberts, T E

2010-12-01

Workplace assessment has been incorporated into speciality training in the UK following changes in the training and work patterns within the National Health Service (NHS). There are various types of assessment tools that have been adopted to assess the clinical competence of trainees. In obstetrics and gynaecology, these include mini-CEX, Objective Structured Assessment of Technical skills (OSATS) and case-based discussion (CbDs). This review provides a theoretical background of workplace assessment and the educational framework that may be adopted to evaluate their effectiveness. It summarises current evidence for the utility of these tools with regard to reliability, validity, acceptability, educational impact and cost. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Monitoring CMS tracker construction and data quality using a Grid/Web service based on a visualization tool

CERN Document Server

Zito, Giuseppe; Regano, A

2004-01-01

The complexity of the CMS tracker (more than 50 million channels to monitor) now in construction in ten laboratories worldwide with hundreds of interested people, will require new tools for monitoring both the hardware and the software. In our approach we use both visualization tools and Grid services to make this monitoring possible. The use of visualization enables us to represent in a single computer screen all those million channels at once. The Grid will make it possible to get enough data and computing power in order to check every channel and also to reach the experts everywhere in the world allowing the early discovery of problems. We report here on a first prototype developed using the Grid environment already available now in CMS i.e. LCG2. This prototype consists on a Java client which implements the GUI for tracker visualization and two data servers connected to the tracker construction database and to Grid catalogs of event datasets. All the communication between client and servers is done using ...

Selecting a Web 2.0 Presentation Tool

Science.gov (United States)

Hodges, Charles B.; Clark, Kenneth

2011-01-01

Web-based presentation tools are sometimes referred to as "next generation presentation tools" (EDUCAUSE, 2010). At the most basic level, these tools are simply online versions of traditional presentation software, such as Microsoft's PowerPoint or Apple's Keynote, but some services offer features like web-based collaboration, online presentation…

A business intelligence approach using web search tools and online data reduction techniques to examine the value of product-enabled services

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Tanev, Stoyan; Liotta, Giacomo; Kleismantas, Andrius

2015-01-01

in Canada and Europe. It adopts an innovative methodology based on online textual data that could be implemented in advanced business intelligence tools aiming at the facilitation of innovation, marketing and business decision making. Combinations of keywords referring to different aspects of service value......-service innovation as a competitive advantage on the marketplace. On the other hand, the focus of EU firms on innovative hybrid offerings is not explicitly related to business differentiation and competitiveness....

Qbox-Services: Towards a Service-Oriented Quality Platform

Science.gov (United States)

González, Laura; Peralta, Verónika; Bouzeghoub, Mokrane; Ruggia, Raúl

The data quality market is characterized by a sparse offer of tools, providing individual functionalities which have their own interest with respect to quality assessment. But interoperating among these tools remains a technical challenge because of the heterogeneity of their models and access patterns. On the other side, quality analysts require more and more integration facilities that allow them to consolidate and aggregate multiple quality measures acquired from different observations. The QBox platform, developed within the ANR Quadris project, aims at filling this gap by supplying a service-based integration infrastructure that allows interoperability among several quality tools and provides an OLAP-based quality model to support multidimensional analysis. This paper focuses on the architectural principles of this infrastructure and illustrates its use through specific examples of quality services.

Formation and Assessment of a Tool to Evaluate STEM Literacy in Service-Learning Projects

Science.gov (United States)

Hayford, Barbara; Blomstrom, Sally; Mumpower, Lori

2015-01-01

The purpose of the authors' research was to create a tool to evaluate science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) literacy in service-learning projects. The researchers posited that components of service-learning, which in this case included the deliverable and reflections, are examples of fundamental STEM literacy and thus can be…

BENCHMARKING - MANAGEMENT APPROACH FOR PUBLIC SERVICES BASED ON PERFORMANCE CRITERIA

OpenAIRE

Elena TUDOSE (IORGA)

2013-01-01

Objective assessment of the efficiency/effectiveness of an organization’s activity, based on realistic, measurable indicators, is a fundamental premise for successful strategic planning. Although traditionally associated with the business sector and the concept of economic productivity, benchmarking has become today an important tool used by public agencies in planning their activities and evaluating processes and outcomes. The public utility services sector is one of the fields that require ...

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...

77 FR 70809 - Agency Information Collection Activities: Assessment Tools for Park-Based Youth Education and...

Science.gov (United States)

2012-11-27

....Y00000] Agency Information Collection Activities: Assessment Tools for Park-Based Youth Education and...) Usefulness of work experience. The SHRUB program provides education and in-depth involvement for students and their families in grade school. The EcoHelpers program provides one-day service learning programs to...

77 FR 70808 - Agency Information Collection Activities: Assessment Tools for Park-Based Youth Education and...

Science.gov (United States)

2012-11-27

....Y00000] Agency Information Collection Activities: Assessment Tools for Park-Based Youth Education and...) Usefulness of work experience. The SHRUB program provides education and in-depth involvement for students and their families in grade school. The EcoHelpers program provides one-day service learning programs to...

Using geographical information systems and cartograms as a health service quality improvement tool.

Science.gov (United States)

Lovett, Derryn A; Poots, Alan J; Clements, Jake T C; Green, Stuart A; Samarasundera, Edgar; Bell, Derek

2014-07-01

Disease prevalence can be spatially analysed to provide support for service implementation and health care planning, these analyses often display geographic variation. A key challenge is to communicate these results to decision makers, with variable levels of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) knowledge, in a way that represents the data and allows for comprehension. The present research describes the combination of established GIS methods and software tools to produce a novel technique of visualising disease admissions and to help prevent misinterpretation of data and less optimal decision making. The aim of this paper is to provide a tool that supports the ability of decision makers and service teams within health care settings to develop services more efficiently and better cater to the population; this tool has the advantage of information on the position of populations, the size of populations and the severity of disease. A standard choropleth of the study region, London, is used to visualise total emergency admission values for Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease and bronchiectasis using ESRI's ArcGIS software. Population estimates of the Lower Super Output Areas (LSOAs) are then used with the ScapeToad cartogram software tool, with the aim of visualising geography at uniform population density. An interpolation surface, in this case ArcGIS' spline tool, allows the creation of a smooth surface over the LSOA centroids for admission values on both standard and cartogram geographies. The final product of this research is the novel Cartogram Interpolation Surface (CartIS). The method provides a series of outputs culminating in the CartIS, applying an interpolation surface to a uniform population density. The cartogram effectively equalises the population density to remove visual bias from areas with a smaller population, while maintaining contiguous borders. CartIS decreases the number of extreme positive values not present in the underlying data as can be

Investigations on Evaluation of Some QoS Aspects of Service Oriented Computing System Based on Web Services

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Subhash MEDHI

2017-02-01

Full Text Available Service Oriented Computing is a design paradigm that utilizes autonomous heterogeneous service applications as the fundamental elements to develop new composite functionalities at reduced cost and time. Web service is the standard way to implement the service oriented computing concepts in which business functions and resources are published, described, discovered, orchestrated and invoked using open standards and protocols. The web services emerged as an intelligent middleware web based technology for sharing business processes and resources amongst the disparate enterprises over the internet. Performance evaluation of service is an important criterion to be assessed by end users and service providers before adopting web services to deal with the challenging global markets. In this perspective, we propose to implement a composite ATM services using. Net technology to evaluate trustworthiness of web services in dealing with massive users. The uniqueness of our proposed system is the hierarchically designed parent and child services where the parent service authenticates a user to access resources and redirects the user’s query for executing child service for adequate solutions. The industry standard testing software tool, Mercury LoadRunner was deployed to test our proposed e-ATM system and record the performance metrics to analyse the quality aspects of the service. The outcome of the experiment will help in adoption and usage of the web services in diverse business enterprises. We present here the architecture, framework of testing, transaction status and reliability estimation of web services under massive stress of service users.

Developing Information Services and Tools to Access and Evaluate Data Quality in Global Satellite-based Precipitation Products

Science.gov (United States)

Liu, Z.; Shie, C. L.; Meyer, D. J.

2017-12-01

Global satellite-based precipitation products have been widely used in research and applications around the world. Compared to ground-based observations, satellite-based measurements provide precipitation data on a global scale, especially in remote continents and over oceans. Over the years, satellite-based precipitation products have evolved from single sensor and single algorithm to multi-sensors and multi-algorithms. As a result, many satellite-based precipitation products have been enhanced such as spatial and temporal coverages. With inclusion of ground-based measurements, biases of satellite-based precipitation products have been significantly reduced. However, data quality issues still exist and can be caused by many factors such as observations, satellite platform anomaly, algorithms, production, calibration, validation, data services, etc. The NASA Goddard Earth Sciences (GES) Data and Information Services Center (DISC) is home to NASA global precipitation product archives including the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM), the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM), as well as other global and regional precipitation products. Precipitation is one of the top downloaded and accessed parameters in the GES DISC data archive. Meanwhile, users want to easily locate and obtain data quality information at regional and global scales to better understand how precipitation products perform and how reliable they are. As data service providers, it is necessary to provide an easy access to data quality information, however, such information normally is not available, and when it is available, it is not in one place and difficult to locate. In this presentation, we will present challenges and activities at the GES DISC to address precipitation data quality issues.

H.264/AVC error resilience tools suitable for 3G mobile video services

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

LIU Lin; YE Xiu-zi; ZHANG San-yuan; ZHANG Yin

2005-01-01

The emergence of third generation mobile system (3G) makes video transmission in wireless environment possible,and the latest 3GPP/3GPP2 standards require 3G terminals support H.264/AVC. Due to high packet loss rate in wireless environment, error resilience for 3G terminals is necessary. Moreover, because of the hardware restrictions, 3G mobile terminals support only part of H.264/AVC error resilience tool. This paper analyzes various error resilience tools and their functions, and presents 2 error resilience strategies for 3G mobile streaming video services and mobile conversational services. Performances of the proposed error resilience strategies were tested using off-line common test conditions. Experiments showed that the proposed error resilience strategies can yield reasonably satisfactory results.

MAST – A Mobile Agent-based Security Tool

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Marco Carvalho

2004-08-01

Full Text Available One of the chief computer security problems is not the long list of viruses and other potential vulnerabilities, but the vast number of systems that continue to be easy prey, as their system administrators or owners simply are not able to keep up with all of the available patches, updates, or needed configuration changes in order to protect them from those known vulnerabilities. Even up-to-date systems could become vulnerable to attacks, due to inappropriate configuration or combined used of applications and services. Our mobile agent-based security tool (MAST is designed to bridge this gap, and provide automated methods to make sure that all of the systems in a specific domain or network are secured and up-to-date with all patches and updates. The tool is also designed to check systems for misconfigurations that make them vulnerable. Additionally, this user interface is presented in a domain knowledge model known as a Concept Map that provides a continuous learning experience for the system administrator.

Taking advantage of Google's Web-based applications and services.

Science.gov (United States)

Brigham, Tara J

2014-01-01

Google is a company that is constantly expanding and growing its services and products. While most librarians possess a "love/hate" relationship with Google, there are a number of reasons you should consider exploring some of the tools Google has created and made freely available. Applications and services such as Google Docs, Slides, and Google+ are functional and dynamic without the cost of comparable products. This column will address some of the issues users should be aware of before signing up to use Google's tools, and a description of some of Google's Web applications and services, plus how they can be useful to librarians in health care.

Consumer Intervention Mapping—A Tool for Designing Future Product Strategies within Circular Product Service Systems

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Matt Sinclair

2018-06-01

Full Text Available Re-distributed manufacturing presents a number of opportunities and challenges for New Product Development in a future Circular Economy. It has been argued that small-scale, flexible and localised production systems will reduce resource consumption, lower transport emissions and extend product lifetimes. At the same time smart products within the Internet of Things will gather and report data on user behaviour and product status. Many sustainable design tools have previously been developed but few are able to imagine and develop visions of how future sustainable product service systems might be manifested. This paper introduces the concept of Consumer Intervention Mapping as a tool for creating future product strategies. The tool visualises the points within a product’s lifecycle where stakeholders are able to intervene in the product’s expected journey. This perspective enables the rapid construction of scenarios that explore and describe future circular product service systems. Validation of the tool in three workshops is described and the outcomes are presented. Consumer Intervention Mapping is successful in creating scenarios that describe existing product service systems and new product concepts adapted to a Circular Economy paradigm. Further work is required to refine the tool’s performance in more focused and reflective design exercises.

A service oriented approach for guidelines-based clinical decision support using BPMN.

Science.gov (United States)

Rodriguez-Loya, Salvador; Aziz, Ayesha; Chatwin, Chris

2014-01-01

Evidence-based medical practice requires that clinical guidelines need to be documented in such a way that they represent a clinical workflow in its most accessible form. In order to optimize clinical processes to improve clinical outcomes, we propose a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) based approach for implementing clinical guidelines that can be accessed from an Electronic Health Record (EHR) application with a Web Services enabled communication mechanism with the Enterprise Service Bus. We have used Business Process Modelling Notation (BPMN) for modelling and presenting the clinical pathway in the form of a workflow. The aim of this study is to produce spontaneous alerts in the healthcare workflow in the diagnosis of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD). The use of BPMN as a tool to automate clinical guidelines has not been previously employed for providing Clinical Decision Support (CDS).

Port performance evaluation tool based on microsimulation model

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tsavalista Burhani Jzolanda

2017-01-01

Full Text Available As port performance is becoming correlative to national competitiveness, the issue of port performance evaluation has significantly raised. Port performances can simply be indicated by port service levels to the ship (e.g., throughput, waiting for berthing etc., as well as the utilization level of equipment and facilities within a certain period. The performances evaluation then can be used as a tool to develop related policies for improving the port’s performance to be more effective and efficient. However, the evaluation is frequently conducted based on deterministic approach, which hardly captures the nature variations of port parameters. Therefore, this paper presents a stochastic microsimulation model for investigating the impacts of port parameter variations to the port performances. The variations are derived from actual data in order to provide more realistic results. The model is further developed using MATLAB and Simulink based on the queuing theory.

Teachers' Opinion Survey on the Use of ICT Tools to Support Attendance-Based Teaching

Science.gov (United States)

Castro Sanchez, Jose Juan; Aleman, Elena Chirino

2011-01-01

The present paper reports on the results obtained from a teachers' opinion survey on the use of ICT tools to support of attendance-based teaching. In order to carry out this study, it was necessary to design a questionnaire to collect data among all in-service teachers with access to the university virtual campus. The findings show that…

Introduction to Mobile Trajectory Based Services: A New Direction in Mobile Location Based Services

Science.gov (United States)

Khokhar, Sarfraz; Nilsson, Arne A.

The mandate of E911 gave birth to the idea of Location Based Services (LBS) capitalizing on the knowledge of the mobile location. The underlying estimated location is a feasible area. There is yet another class of mobile services that could be based on the mobility profiling of a mobile user. The mobility profile of a mobile user is a set of the routine trajectories of his or her travel paths. We called such services as Mobile Trajectory Based Services (MTBS). This paper introduces MTBS and functional architecture of an MTBS system. Suitability of different location estimation technologies for MTBS has been discussed and supported with simulation results.

A Framework for IT-based Design Tools

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hartvig, Susanne C

The thesis presents a new apprach to develop design tools that can be integrated, bypresenting a framework consisting of a set of guidelines for design tools, an integration andcommunication scheme, and a set of design tool schemes.This framework has been based onanalysis of requirements to integ...... to integrated design enviornments, and analysis of engineeringdesign and design problem solving methods. And the developed framework has been testedby applying it to development of prototype design tools for realistic design scenarios.......The thesis presents a new apprach to develop design tools that can be integrated, bypresenting a framework consisting of a set of guidelines for design tools, an integration andcommunication scheme, and a set of design tool schemes.This framework has been based onanalysis of requirements...

An Acuity Tool for Heart Failure Case Management: Quantifying Workload, Service Utilization, and Disease Severity.

Science.gov (United States)

Kilgore, Matthew D

The cardiology service line director at a health maintenance organization (HMO) in Washington State required a valid, reliable, and practical means for measuring workloads and other productivity factors for six heart failure (HF) registered nurse case managers located across three geographical regions. The Kilgore Heart Failure Case Management (KHFCM) Acuity Tool was systematically designed, developed, and validated to measure workload as a dependent function of the number of heart failure case management (HFCM) services rendered and the duration of times spent on various care duties. Research and development occurred at various HMO-affiliated internal medicine and cardiology offices throughout Western Washington. The concepts, methods, and principles used to develop the KHFCM Acuity Tool are applicable for any type of health care professional aiming to quantify workload using a high-quality objective tool. The content matter, scaling, and language on the KHFCM Acuity Tool are specific to HFCM settings. The content matter and numeric scales for the KHFCM Acuity Tool were developed and validated using a mixed-method participant action research method applied to a group of six outpatient HF case managers and their respective caseloads. The participant action research method was selected, because the application of this method requires research participants to become directly involved in the diagnosis of research problems, the planning and execution of actions taken to address those problems, and the implementation of progressive strategies throughout the course of the study, as necessary, to produce the most credible and practical practice improvements (; ; ; ). Heart failure case managers served clients with New York Heart Association Functional Class III-IV HF (), and encounters were conducted primarily by telephone or in-office consultation. A mix of qualitative and quantitative results demonstrated a variety of quality improvement outcomes achieved by the design

Innovation pressure : service companies race to improve their horizontal multi-frac completion tools and techniques

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Chandler, G.

2010-11-15

This article described innovations in horizontal multi-frac completion tools and techniques that service companies are providing in the field. BJ Services has developed coiled tubing technology for annular fracing in cased-hole horizontal wells, which enables producers to complete with closer spacing, and frac sleeves that form an integral part of the casing string. Trican Well Service Ltd. recommends pumping through casing to create an unobstructed conduit, reducing friction and allowing the high pressure needed to create complex fractures. The Burst Port System is designed for selective fracturing: integrated casing collars that contain pre-milled ports are placed into the horizontal well casing; the C2C, a selective fracturing cup tool with a unique pressure equalization valve, straddles the port; and pressure is built up the designated burst point, leaving an isolated conduit to the formation. Recent chemical innovations include ecologically safe frac fluids and fluids designed to work in cold temperatures. The Viking PW (produced water) system can accommodate produced water, recycled water, and recycled oil-based frac systems and tolerates other contaminants. Non-toxic EcoClean fluids protect water wells and aquifers during treatments. A new frac fluid modifies the surface property of proppant, allowing deeper penetration with less settling and banking. Advances in well simulation technology, micro-seismic techniques that can listen and locate fracing events in real time, and directional drillers were also described. Low gas prices are inspiring companies to improve efficiency ad lower costs, which is creating a greater emphasis on development. 2 figs.

Service tailoring: a method and tool for user-centric creation of integrated IT-based homecare services to support independent living of elderly

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Zarifi Eslami, Mohammed

2013-01-01

This thesis addresses the problem of supporting independent living of elderly people through IT-based homecare services. Independent living is seen as one way to deal with the consequences of an aging population (especially in industrialized countries), which include rising healthcare expenditures

A Javascript GIS Platform Based on Invocable Geospatial Web Services

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Konstantinos Evangelidis

2018-04-01

Full Text Available Semantic Web technologies are being increasingly adopted by the geospatial community during last decade through the utilization of open standards for expressing and serving geospatial data. This was also dramatically assisted by the ever-increasing access and usage of geographic mapping and location-based services via smart devices in people’s daily activities. In this paper, we explore the developmental framework of a pure JavaScript client-side GIS platform exclusively based on invocable geospatial Web services. We also extend JavaScript utilization on the server side by deploying a node server acting as a bridge between open source WPS libraries and popular geoprocessing engines. The vehicle for such an exploration is a cross platform Web browser capable of interpreting JavaScript commands to achieve interaction with geospatial providers. The tool is a generic Web interface providing capabilities of acquiring spatial datasets, composing layouts and applying geospatial processes. In an ideal form the end-user will have to identify those services, which satisfy a geo-related need and put them in the appropriate row. The final output may act as a potential collector of freely available geospatial web services. Its server-side components may exploit geospatial processing suppliers composing that way a light-weight fully transparent open Web GIS platform.

Personalization of Rule-based Web Services.

Science.gov (United States)

Choi, Okkyung; Han, Sang Yong

2008-04-04

Nowadays Web users have clearly expressed their wishes to receive personalized services directly. Personalization is the way to tailor services directly to the immediate requirements of the user. However, the current Web Services System does not provide any features supporting this such as consideration of personalization of services and intelligent matchmaking. In this research a flexible, personalized Rule-based Web Services System to address these problems and to enable efficient search, discovery and construction across general Web documents and Semantic Web documents in a Web Services System is proposed. This system utilizes matchmaking among service requesters', service providers' and users' preferences using a Rule-based Search Method, and subsequently ranks search results. A prototype of efficient Web Services search and construction for the suggested system is developed based on the current work.

An Analysis of Pre-Service Elementary Teachers' Understanding of Inquiry-Based Science Teaching

Science.gov (United States)

Lee, Carole K.; Shea, Marilyn

2016-01-01

This study examines how pre-service elementary teachers (PSETs) view inquiry-based science learning and teaching, and how the science methods course builds their confidence to teach inquiry science. Most PSETs think that inquiry is asking students questions rather than a formal set of pedagogical tools. In the present study, three groups of PSETs…

ServiceBlueprinting as a service management tool in radiology

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Maurer, Martin H.; Hamm, Bernd; Teichgraeber, Ulf

2011-01-01

Purpose: To describe the ServiceBlueprint model as a suitable method of service management in clinical medicine using the example of the routine clinical setting of a radiological department. Materials and methods: ServiceBlueprinting is a concept for the analysis, visualization, and optimization of service processes. To investigate whether the model will also provide a suitable representation of medical services, particularly the provision of radiological services, ServiceBlueprints were created for the modality computed tomography (CT). To this end, an independent observer analyzed the workflow of 40 consecutive CT examinations. Results: The ServiceBlueprint provided an analysis of the status quo of the service processes in CT imaging modality. Weak points in the processes thus became immediately apparent. The model could also be used for personnel management in that it helped to define the roles of staff members from different categories in the value-added process. It served as a basis for the implementation of quality management systems according to Total Quality Management (TQM) and DIN-EN-ISO-9001:2000. Conclusions: The ServiceBlueprint model is a service management concept that is also suitable to visualize medical service processes in routine clinical settings like in a radiology department and has a multifarious potential in process optimization, implementation of quality management systems, and human resources management.

A Process Framework for Designing Software Reference Architectures for Providing Tools as a Service

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Chauhan, Muhammad Aufeef; Babar, Muhammad Ali; Probst, Christian W.

2016-01-01

of software systems need customized and systematic SRA design and evaluation methods. In this paper, we present a software Reference Architecture Design process Framework (RADeF) that can be used for analysis, design and evaluation of the SRA for provisioning of Tools as a Service as part of a cloud......Software Reference Architecture (SRA), which is a generic architecture solution for a specific type of software systems, provides foundation for the design of concrete architectures in terms of architecture design guidelines and architecture elements. The complexity and size of certain types......-enabled workSPACE (TSPACE). The framework is based on the state of the art results from literature and our experiences with designing software architectures for cloud-based systems. We have applied RADeF SRA design two types of TSPACE: software architecting TSPACE and software implementation TSPACE...

A Flexible Component based Access Control Architecture for OPeNDAP Services

Science.gov (United States)

Kershaw, Philip; Ananthakrishnan, Rachana; Cinquini, Luca; Lawrence, Bryan; Pascoe, Stephen; Siebenlist, Frank

2010-05-01

Network data access services such as OPeNDAP enable widespread access to data across user communities. However, without ready means to restrict access to data for such services, data providers and data owners are constrained from making their data more widely available. Even with such capability, the range of different security technologies available can make interoperability between services and user client tools a challenge. OPeNDAP is a key data access service in the infrastructure under development to support the CMIP5 (Couple Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5). The work is being carried out as part of an international collaboration including the US Earth System Grid and Curator projects and the EU funded IS-ENES and Metafor projects. This infrastructure will bring together Petabytes of climate model data and associated metadata from over twenty modelling centres around the world in a federation with a core archive mirrored at three data centres. A security system is needed to meet the requirements of organisations responsible for model data including the ability to restrict data access to registered users, keep them up to date with changes to data and services, audit access and protect finite computing resources. Individual organisations have existing tools and services such as OPeNDAP with which users in the climate research community are already familiar. The security system should overlay access control in a way which maintains the usability and ease of access to these services. The BADC (British Atmospheric Data Centre) has been working in collaboration with the Earth System Grid development team and partner organisations to develop the security architecture. OpenID and MyProxy were selected at an early stage in the ESG project to provide single sign-on capability across the federation of participating organisations. Building on the existing OPeNDAP specification an architecture based on pluggable server side components has been developed at the BADC

Single Tree Vegetation Depth Estimation Tool for Satellite Services Link Design

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Z. Hasirci

2016-04-01

Full Text Available Attenuation caused by tree shadowing is an important factor for describing the propagation channel of satellite services. Thus, vegetation effects should be determined by experimental studies or empirical formulations. In this study, tree types in the Black Sea Region of Turkey are classified based on their geometrical shapes into four groups such as conic, ellipsoid, spherical and hemispherical. The variations of the vegetation depth according to different tree shapes are calculated with ray tracing method. It is showed that different geometrical shapes have different vegetation depths even if they have same foliage volume for different elevation angles. The proposed method is validated with the related literature in terms of average single tree attenuation. On the other hand, due to decrease system requirements (speed, memory usage etc. of ray tracing method, an artificial neural network is proposed as an alternative. A graphical user interface is created for the above processes in MATLAB environment named vegetation depth estimation tool (VdET.

[Ecosystem services evaluation based on geographic information system and remote sensing technology: a review].

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Wen-Jie; Zhang, Shi-Huang; Wang, Hui-Min

2011-12-01

Ecosystem services evaluation is a hot topic in current ecosystem management, and has a close link with human beings welfare. This paper summarized the research progress on the evaluation of ecosystem services based on geographic information system (GIS) and remote sensing (RS) technology, which could be reduced to the following three characters, i. e., ecological economics theory is widely applied as a key method in quantifying ecosystem services, GIS and RS technology play a key role in multi-source data acquisition, spatiotemporal analysis, and integrated platform, and ecosystem mechanism model becomes a powerful tool for understanding the relationships between natural phenomena and human activities. Aiming at the present research status and its inadequacies, this paper put forward an "Assembly Line" framework, which was a distributed one with scalable characteristics, and discussed the future development trend of the integration research on ecosystem services evaluation based on GIS and RS technologies.

Conceptualization of competency based curricula in pre-service nursing and midwifery education: A grounded theory approach.

Science.gov (United States)

Muraraneza, Claudine; Mtshali, Gloria Ntombifikile

2018-01-01

In health professional education, the competency-based curriculum concept has been an important driver of reform in the training of competent graduates for the 21st century. In African countries, although there has been implementing it in pre-service nursing and midwifery education and the literature reports a lack of understanding of what is it on the part of the implementers. This article explores the meaning of competency based curriculum in pre-service nursing and midwifery education in Rwanda. A grounded theory approach, following Corbin and Strauss, was used. Following ethical clearance by the university ethical committee, data was collected from 17 participants through in-depth individual interviews of staff. Four categories emerged: (a) transformation, (b) tool for primary health care philosophy, (c) technological approach to education, (d) and modular system. Competency-based curriculum is confirmed as an appropriate educational tool in producing competent graduates for today and the future. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Perceptions of Pre-Service Teachers of Using Video Games as Teaching Tools

Science.gov (United States)

Bensiger, Joy

2012-01-01

Teachers' beliefs and perceptions are very critical to the integration of video games in the classrooms. This study was conducted to investigate the perceptions of pre-service teachers in using video games as one of their teaching tools. Along with this initial purpose, the intent was to understand the anticipated barriers involved in…

Database Aspects of Location-Based Services

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jensen, Christian Søndergaard

2004-01-01

in the databases underlying high-quality services. Several integrated representations - which capture different aspects of the same infrastructure - are needed. Further, all other content that can be related to geographical space must be integrated with the infrastructure representations. The chapter describes...... the general concepts underlying one approach to data modeling for location-based services. The chapter also covers techniques that are needed to keep a database for location-based services up to date with the reality it models. As part of this, caching is touched upon briefly. The notion of linear referencing......Adopting a data management perspective on location-based services, this chapter explores central challenges to data management posed by location-based services. Because service users typically travel in, and are constrained to, transportation infrastructures, such structures must be represented...

Selecting a risk-based tool to aid in decision making

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Bendure, A.O.

1995-03-01

Selecting a risk-based tool to aid in decision making is as much of a challenge as properly using the tool once it has been selected. Failure to consider customer and stakeholder requirements and the technical bases and differences in risk-based decision making tools will produce confounding and/or politically unacceptable results when the tool is used. Selecting a risk-based decisionmaking tool must therefore be undertaken with the same, if not greater, rigor than the use of the tool once it is selected. This paper presents a process for selecting a risk-based tool appropriate to a set of prioritization or resource allocation tasks, discusses the results of applying the process to four risk-based decision-making tools, and identifies the ``musts`` for successful selection and implementation of a risk-based tool to aid in decision making.

Web-based Tool Identifies and Quantifies Potential Cost Savings Measures at the Hanford Site

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Renevitz, Marisa J.; Peschong, Jon C.; Charboneau, Briant L.; Simpson, Brett C.

2014-01-01

The Technical Improvement system is an approachable web-based tool that is available to Hanford DOE staff, site contractors, and general support service contractors as part of the baseline optimization effort underway at the Hanford Site. Finding and implementing technical improvements are a large part of DOE's cost savings efforts. The Technical Improvement dashboard is a key tool for brainstorming and monitoring the progress of submitted baseline optimization and potential cost/schedule efficiencies. The dashboard is accessible to users over the Hanford Local Area Network (HLAN) and provides a highly visual and straightforward status to management on the ideas provided, alleviating the need for resource intensive weekly and monthly reviews

Using registries to integrate bioinformatics tools and services into workbench environments

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Ménager, Hervé; Kalaš, Matúš; Rapacki, Kristoffer

2016-01-01

The diversity and complexity of bioinformatics resources presents significant challenges to their localisation, deployment and use, creating a need for reliable systems that address these issues. Meanwhile, users demand increasingly usable and integrated ways to access and analyse data, especially......, a software component that will ease the integration of bioinformatics resources in a workbench environment, using their description provided by the existing ELIXIR Tools and Data Services Registry....

A Novel Protective Framework for Defeating HTTP-Based Denial of Service and Distributed Denial of Service Attacks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mohammed A. Saleh

2015-01-01

Full Text Available The growth of web technology has brought convenience to our life, since it has become the most important communication channel. However, now this merit is threatened by complicated network-based attacks, such as denial of service (DoS and distributed denial of service (DDoS attacks. Despite many researchers’ efforts, no optimal solution that addresses all sorts of HTTP DoS/DDoS attacks is on offer. Therefore, this research aims to fix this gap by designing an alternative solution called a flexible, collaborative, multilayer, DDoS prevention framework (FCMDPF. The innovative design of the FCMDPF framework handles all aspects of HTTP-based DoS/DDoS attacks through the following three subsequent framework’s schemes (layers. Firstly, an outer blocking (OB scheme blocks attacking IP source if it is listed on the black list table. Secondly, the service traceback oriented architecture (STBOA scheme is to validate whether the incoming request is launched by a human or by an automated tool. Then, it traces back the true attacking IP source. Thirdly, the flexible advanced entropy based (FAEB scheme is to eliminate high rate DDoS (HR-DDoS and flash crowd (FC attacks. Compared to the previous researches, our framework’s design provides an efficient protection for web applications against all sorts of DoS/DDoS attacks.

The prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV cascade analysis tool: supporting health managers to improve facility-level service delivery.

Science.gov (United States)

Gimbel, Sarah; Voss, Joachim; Mercer, Mary Anne; Zierler, Brenda; Gloyd, Stephen; Coutinho, Maria de Joana; Floriano, Florencia; Cuembelo, Maria de Fatima; Einberg, Jennifer; Sherr, Kenneth

2014-10-21

The objective of the prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission (pMTCT) cascade analysis tool is to provide frontline health managers at the facility level with the means to rapidly, independently and quantitatively track patient flows through the pMTCT cascade, and readily identify priority areas for clinic-level improvement interventions. Over a period of six months, five experienced maternal-child health managers and researchers iteratively adapted and tested this systems analysis tool for pMTCT services. They prioritized components of the pMTCT cascade for inclusion, disseminated multiple versions to 27 health managers and piloted it in five facilities. Process mapping techniques were used to chart PMTCT cascade steps in these five facilities, to document antenatal care attendance, HIV testing and counseling, provision of prophylactic anti-retrovirals, safe delivery, safe infant feeding, infant follow-up including HIV testing, and family planning, in order to obtain site-specific knowledge of service delivery. Seven pMTCT cascade steps were included in the Excel-based final tool. Prevalence calculations were incorporated as sub-headings under relevant steps. Cells not requiring data inputs were locked, wording was simplified and stepwise drop-offs and maximization functions were included at key steps along the cascade. While the drop off function allows health workers to rapidly assess how many patients were lost at each step, the maximization function details the additional people served if only one step improves to 100% capacity while others stay constant. Our experience suggests that adaptation of a cascade analysis tool for facility-level pMTCT services is feasible and appropriate as a starting point for discussions of where to implement improvement strategies. The resulting tool facilitates the engagement of frontline health workers and managers who fill out, interpret, apply the tool, and then follow up with quality improvement activities. Research on

Latest Community Coordinated Modeling Center (CCMC) services and innovative tools supporting the space weather research and operational communities.

Science.gov (United States)

Mendoza, A. M. M.; Rastaetter, L.; Kuznetsova, M. M.; Mays, M. L.; Chulaki, A.; Shim, J. S.; MacNeice, P. J.; Taktakishvili, A.; Collado-Vega, Y. M.; Weigand, C.; Zheng, Y.; Mullinix, R.; Patel, K.; Pembroke, A. D.; Pulkkinen, A. A.; Boblitt, J. M.; Bakshi, S. S.; Tsui, T.

2017-12-01

The Community Coordinated Modeling Center (CCMC), with the fundamental goal of aiding the transition of modern space science models into space weather forecasting while supporting space science research, has been serving as an integral hub for over 15 years, providing invaluable resources to both space weather scientific and operational communities. CCMC has developed and provided innovative web-based point of access tools varying from: Runs-On-Request System - providing unprecedented global access to the largest collection of state-of-the-art solar and space physics models, Integrated Space Weather Analysis (iSWA) - a powerful dissemination system for space weather information, Advanced Online Visualization and Analysis tools for more accurate interpretation of model results, Standard Data formats for Simulation Data downloads, and Mobile apps to view space weather data anywhere to the scientific community. In addition to supporting research and performing model evaluations, CCMC also supports space science education by hosting summer students through local universities. In this poster, we will showcase CCMC's latest innovative tools and services, and CCMC's tools that revolutionized the way we do research and improve our operational space weather capabilities. CCMC's free tools and resources are all publicly available online (http://ccmc.gsfc.nasa.gov).

Formal Modeling of Service Session Management

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Le, V.M.; van Beijnum, Bernhard J.F.; de Goede, Leo; Almeroth, Kevin C.; Hasan, Masum

2002-01-01

This paper proposes a concept to apply modeling tools to Multi-Provider Telematics Service Management. The service architecture is based on the framework called “Open Service Components” which serves as building blocks to compose end-to-end telematics services in terms of service components offered

Integration of evidence-based and experience-based design: contributions from a study in a health care service

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mirela S. da Rosa

2015-06-01

Full Text Available The purpose this paper is to present an integrated study of Service Design and the Mechanism of the Production Function (MPF for redesigning the health care services to improve the perceived value of the patient and increase the productivity of hospital operations by eliminating wastes. The method used was action research and applied in an ICU of a private hospital in southern Brazil. The techniques of participant observation, interviews, archival research and meetings co-creation with a team of the hospital were used to collect data. Data were analyzed through content analysis of the interviews and the Design Service and Production Engineering tools. Evidence based approaches tends to contribute to the replication of the project outcomes in future cases. The MPF can support project development in the field of Design, as well the integrated approach developed in the healthcare sector, helped to devote more time to the phases of diagnosis and implementation. The findings are useful to demonstrate that can use simultaneously approaches the Service Design and MPF for the development of more robust solutions in health care environment. Further research could be done in other private or public hospitals as well as in other hospital units besides the ICUs. Limitations include the work done in a single hospital and service unit, data collected from a small group of people in the hospital. Integrating Evidence-Based Design, Experience-Based Design and the MPF can produce a more robust way to justify and define the focus of improvements in health care services.

Managing and monitoring tuberculosis using web-based tools in combination with traditional approaches.

Science.gov (United States)

Chapman, Ann Ln; Darton, Thomas C; Foster, Rachel A

2013-01-01

Tuberculosis (TB) remains a global health emergency. Ongoing challenges include the coordination of national and international control programs, high levels of drug resistance in many parts of the world, and availability of accurate and rapid diagnostic tests. The increasing availability and reliability of Internet access throughout both affluent and resource-limited countries brings new opportunities to improve TB management and control through the integration of web-based technologies with traditional approaches. In this review, we explore current and potential future use of web-based tools in the areas of TB diagnosis, treatment, epidemiology, service monitoring, and teaching and training.

A cloud based tool for knowledge exchange on local scale flood risk.

Science.gov (United States)

Wilkinson, M E; Mackay, E; Quinn, P F; Stutter, M; Beven, K J; MacLeod, C J A; Macklin, M G; Elkhatib, Y; Percy, B; Vitolo, C; Haygarth, P M

2015-09-15

There is an emerging and urgent need for new approaches for the management of environmental challenges such as flood hazard in the broad context of sustainability. This requires a new way of working which bridges disciplines and organisations, and that breaks down science-culture boundaries. With this, there is growing recognition that the appropriate involvement of local communities in catchment management decisions can result in multiple benefits. However, new tools are required to connect organisations and communities. The growth of cloud based technologies offers a novel way to facilitate this process of exchange of information in environmental science and management; however, stakeholders need to be engaged with as part of the development process from the beginning rather than being presented with a final product at the end. Here we present the development of a pilot Local Environmental Virtual Observatory Flooding Tool. The aim was to develop a cloud based learning platform for stakeholders, bringing together fragmented data, models and visualisation tools that will enable these stakeholders to make scientifically informed environmental management decisions at the local scale. It has been developed by engaging with different stakeholder groups in three catchment case studies in the UK and a panel of national experts in relevant topic areas. However, these case study catchments are typical of many northern latitude catchments. The tool was designed to communicate flood risk in locally impacted communities whilst engaging with landowners/farmers about the risk of runoff from the farmed landscape. It has been developed iteratively to reflect the needs, interests and capabilities of a wide range of stakeholders. The pilot tool combines cloud based services, local catchment datasets, a hydrological model and bespoke visualisation tools to explore real time hydrometric data and the impact of flood risk caused by future land use changes. The novel aspects of the

Web-Based Self-Service Systems for Managed IT Support: Service Provider Perspectives of Stakeholder-Based Issues

Science.gov (United States)

Cooper, Vanessa A.; Lichtenstein, Sharman; Smith, Ross

This chapter explores the provision of after-sales information technology (IT) support services using Web-based self-service systems (WSSs) in a business-to-business (B2B) context. A recent study conducted at six large multi-national IT support organisations revealed a number of critical success factors (CSFs) and stakeholder-based issues. To better identify and understand these important enablers and barriers, we explain how WSSs should be considered within a complex network of service providers, business partners and customer firms. The CSFs and stakeholder-based issues are discussed. The chapter highlights that for more successful service provision using WSSs, IT service providers should collaborate more effectively with enterprise customers and business partners and should better integrate their WSSs.

Service design based on ITIL V3 a management guide

CERN Document Server

Bon, Jan van; Kolthof, Axel

2010-01-01

This Management Guide is a concise summary of the IT Service Management ? An Introduction. A quick, portable reference tool to the standards used within the Service Management community.What are the key service management processes? What is the ?lifecycle? approach?What are the elements of ISO20000? All this and descriptions of other popular frameworks are covered.

The ICNP BaT - from translation tool to translation web service.

Science.gov (United States)

Schrader, Ulrich

2009-01-01

The ICNP BaT has been developed as a web application to support the collaborative translation of different versions of the ICNP into different languages. A prototype of a web service is described that could reuse the translations in the database of the ICNP BaT to provide automatic translations of nursing content based on the ICNP terminology globally. The translation web service is based on a service-oriented architecture making it easy to interoperate with different applications. Such a global translation server would free individual institutions from the maintenance costs of realizing their own translation services.

How to construct a service quality index in performance based ratemaking

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Alexander, B.R.

1996-04-01

Nothing will derail the movement to competition quicker than a falloff in service quality. During the uncertain transition to a more competitive electricity market, utility regulators should carry out their duty to ensure adequate service quality by adopting innovative performance tracking methods. Despite all the talk - and there is plenty of that - the restructuring of the electric utility industry is not yet upon us. But many state regulatory bodies - having already experienced restructuring in the telecommunications industry, in which many employed new regulatory models known under the rubric of performance-based regulation - are beginning to experiment with some form of PBR in the increasingly competitive electricity industry. PBR is usually undertaken on the assumption that, in a more competitive industry, a lighter regulatory hand coupled with the discipline of market competition will produce better results for both utility customers and shareholders. PBR, as an alternative to traditional base rate regulation, typically retains strict control over basic service rates for core customers, either by freezing prices or establishing a formula that restricts the utility`s ability to raise prices for these customer groups. The utilty is usually given significant pricing and marketing flexibility over more competitive services and the ability to retain earnings from these services. A hallmark of these alternative schemes is their multi-year nature: the utility is offered the opportunity to earn higher profits over, say, a two-to-five year period, in return for stricter regulatory controls on prices charged to core customers. The purpose of this article, based in large part on the telecommunications experience, is to describe why it is necessary to address customer service issues that are inherent in PBR and to provide the basic tools to create a customer service and reliability index that can be included in any alternative rate plan for a utilty.

Mobile Manipulation, Tool Use, and Intuitive Interaction for Cognitive Service Robot Cosero

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jörg Stückler

2016-11-01

Full Text Available Cognitive service robots that shall assist persons in need in performing their activities of daily living have recently received much attention in robotics research.Such robots require a vast set of control and perception capabilities to provide useful assistance through mobile manipulation and human-robot interaction.In this article, we present hardware design, perception, and control methods for our cognitive service robot Cosero.We complement autonomous capabilities with handheld teleoperation interfaces on three levels of autonomy.The robot demonstrated various advanced skills, including the use of tools.With our robot we participated in the annual international RoboCup@Home competitions, winning them three times in a row.

The power of collaboration: using internet-based tools to facilitate networking and benchmarking within a consortium of academic health centers.

Science.gov (United States)

Korner, Eli J; Oinonen, Michael J; Browne, Robert C

2003-02-01

The University HealthSystem Consortium (UHC) represents a strategic alliance of 169 academic health centers and associated institutions engaged in knowledge sharing and idea-generation. The use of the Internet as a tool in the delivery of UHC's products and services has increased dramatically over the past year and will continue to increase during the foreseeable future. This paper examines the current state of UHC-member institution driven tools and services that utilize the Web as a fundamental component in their delivery. The evolution of knowledge management at UHC, its management information and reporting tools, and expansion of e-commerce provide real world examples of Internet use in health care delivery and management. Health care workers are using these Web-based tools to help manage rising costs and optimize patient outcomes. Policy, technical, and organizational issues must be resolved to facilitate rapid adoption of Internet applications.

A Rough VIKOR-Based QFD for Prioritizing Design Attributes of Product-Related Service

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Xiuzhen Li

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Many manufacturers today are striving to offer high value-added product-related services (PRS due to increasing competition and environmental pressure. PRS can reduce the negative impact on the environment, because it extends the life of products and minimizes the cost. Product and service planning has been considered as the critical factor to the success of PRS. Quality function deployment (QFD has been recognized as an efficient planning tool which can convert customer needs (CNs into design attributes of PRS involving product attributes (PAs and service attributes (SAs. However, the subjective and vague information in the design of PRS with QFD may lead to inaccurate priority of PAs and SAs. To solve this problem, a novel rough VIKOR- (VIseKriterijumska Optimizaciji I Kompromisno Resenje- based QFD is proposed. The proposed approach integrates the strength of rough number (RN in manipulating vague concepts with less a priori information and the merit of VIKOR in structuring framework of compromise decision-making. Finally, an application in compressor-based service design is presented to illustrate the potential of the proposed method.

BROSMAP: A Novel Broadcast Based Secure Mobile Agent Protocol for Distributed Service Applications

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Dina Shehada

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Mobile agents are smart programs that migrate from one platform to another to perform the user task. Mobile agents offer flexibility and performance enhancements to systems and service real-time applications. However, security in mobile agent systems is a great concern. In this paper, we propose a novel Broadcast based Secure Mobile Agent Protocol (BROSMAP for distributed service applications that provides mutual authentication, authorization, accountability, nonrepudiation, integrity, and confidentiality. The proposed system also provides protection from man in the middle, replay, repudiation, and modification attacks. We proved the efficiency of the proposed protocol through formal verification with Scyther verification tool.

Distributed medical services within the ATM-based Berlin regional test bed

Science.gov (United States)

Thiel, Andreas; Bernarding, Johannes; Krauss, Manfred; Schulz, Sandra; Tolxdorff, Thomas

1996-05-01

The ATM-based Metropolitan Area Network (MAN) of Berlin connects two university hospitals (Benjamin Franklin University Hospital and Charite) with the computer resources of the Technical University of Berlin (TUB). Distributed new medical services have been implemented and will be evaluated within the highspeed MAN of Berlin. The network with its data transmission rates of up to 155 Mbit/s renders these medical services externally available to practicing physicians. Resource and application sharing is demonstrated by the use of two software systems. The first software system is an interactive 3D reconstruction tool (3D- Medbild), based on a client-server mechanism. This structure allows the use of high- performance computers at the TUB from the low-level workstations in the hospitals. A second software system, RAMSES, utilizes a tissue database of Magnetic Resonance Images. For the remote control of the software, the developed applications use standards such as DICOM 3.0 and features of the World Wide Web. Data security concepts are being tested and integrated for the needs of the sensitive medical data. The highspeed network is the necessary prerequisite for the clinical evaluation of data in a joint teleconference. The transmission of digitized real-time sequences such as video and ultrasound and the interactive manipulation of data are made possible by Multi Media tools.

Elder Abuse and Neglect: Assessment Tools, Interventions, and Recommendations for Effective Service Provision

Science.gov (United States)

Imbody, Bethany; Vandsburger, Etty

2011-01-01

With our communities rapidly aging, there is always a clear need for greater knowledge on how to serve elders. Professionals must be able to recognize cases of abuse and neglect and provide appropriate follow up services. Through reviewing recent literature, this paper surveys existing assessment tools and interventions, describes characteristics…

Materials selection for cutting tools

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Burkhis, Adel M.

2008-01-01

The selection of proper tool steel for a given application is a difficult task. So; the most important selection factors in choosing cutting tool materials are based on their tool material requirements, cutting tool design and service conditions which is mainly considered as functional requirements. The processability requirements concerns in heat treat ability of the material tool. The classification of these tool materials were discussed with their properties requirement and percent of alloying element which is added to give best properties with a little increase in cost that highly appear in comparison of the selection. The cutting tool materials were evaluated based on two cases; The first was in case of rough surface; the high speed steels is the best material and the other was the ceramic material is the highest performance in cutting of soft or high rate of metal removal. (author)

Oh! Web 2.0, Virtual Reference Service 2.0, Tools and Techniques (I): A Basic Approach

Science.gov (United States)

Arya, Harsh Bardhan; Mishra, J. K.

2011-01-01

This study targets librarians and information professionals who use Web 2.0 tools and applications with a view to providing snapshots on how Web 2.0 technologies are used. It also aims to identify values and impact that such tools have exerted on libraries and their services, as well as to detect various issues associated with the implementation…

Combinational Services for NGN based IPTV

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Mikóczy, E.; Schumann, S.; Stokking, H.M.; Deventer, M.O. van; Niamut, O.A.

2009-01-01

This paper describes the general concept of combinational/blended services for IP-based Television (IPTV) services in next generation networks towards its service oriented architecture concept (SOA). Besides introducing general approaches of service reusability (SOA concepts), the service enables

The EMBL-EBI bioinformatics web and programmatic tools framework.

Science.gov (United States)

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

2015-07-01

Since 2009 the EMBL-EBI Job Dispatcher framework has provided free access to a range of mainstream sequence analysis applications. These include sequence similarity search services (https://www.ebi.ac.uk/Tools/sss/) such as BLAST, FASTA and PSI-Search, multiple sequence alignment tools (https://www.ebi.ac.uk/Tools/msa/) such as Clustal Omega, MAFFT and T-Coffee, and other sequence analysis tools (https://www.ebi.ac.uk/Tools/pfa/) such as InterProScan. Through these services users can search mainstream sequence databases such as ENA, UniProt and Ensembl Genomes, utilising a uniform web interface or systematically through Web Services interfaces (https://www.ebi.ac.uk/Tools/webservices/) using common programming languages, and obtain enriched results with novel visualisations. Integration with EBI Search (https://www.ebi.ac.uk/ebisearch/) and the dbfetch retrieval service (https://www.ebi.ac.uk/Tools/dbfetch/) further expands the usefulness of the framework. New tools and updates such as NCBI BLAST+, InterProScan 5 and PfamScan, new categories such as RNA analysis tools (https://www.ebi.ac.uk/Tools/rna/), new databases such as ENA non-coding, WormBase ParaSite, Pfam and Rfam, and new workflow methods, together with the retirement of depreciated services, ensure that the framework remains relevant to today's biological community. © The Author(s) 2015. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Nucleic Acids Research.

Privacy-Preserving Location-Based Services

Science.gov (United States)

Chow, Chi Yin

2010-01-01

Location-based services (LBS for short) providers require users' current locations to answer their location-based queries, e.g., range and nearest-neighbor queries. Revealing personal location information to potentially untrusted service providers could create privacy risks for users. To this end, our objective is to design a privacy-preserving…

SOFTWARE ARCHITECTURE DESIGN OF GIS WEB SERVICE AGGREGATION BASED ON SERVICE GROUP

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

J.-C. Liu

2012-08-01

Full Text Available Based on the analysis of research status of domestic and international GIS web service aggregation and development tendency of public platform of GIS web service, the paper designed software architecture of GIS web service aggregation based on GIS web service group. Firstly, using heterogeneous GIS services model, the software architecture converted a variety of heterogeneous services to a unified interface of GIS services, and divided different types of GIS services into different service groups referring to description of GIS services. Secondly, a service aggregation process model was designed. This model completed the task of specific service aggregation instance, by automatically selecting member GIS Web services in the same service group. Dynamic capabilities and automatic adaptation of GIS Web services aggregation process were achieved. Thirdly, this paper designed a service evaluation model of GIS web service aggregation based on service group from three aspects, i.e. GIS Web Service itself, networking conditions and service consumer. This model implemented effective quality evaluation and performance monitoring of GIS web service aggregation. It could be used to guide the execution, monitor and service selection of aggregation process. Therefore, robustness of aggregated GIS web service was improved. Finally, the software architecture has been widely used in public platform of GIS web service and a number of geo-spatial framework constructions for digital city in Sichuan Province, and aggregated various GIS web services such as World Map(National Public Platform of Geo-spatial Service, ArcGIS, SuperMap, MapGIS, NewMap etc. Applications of items showed that this software architecture was practicability.

Cluster-based DBMS Management Tool with High-Availability

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jae-Woo Chang

2005-02-01

Full Text Available A management tool which is needed for monitoring and managing cluster-based DBMSs has been little studied. So, we design and implement a cluster-based DBMS management tool with high-availability that monitors the status of nodes in a cluster system as well as the status of DBMS instances in a node. The tool enables users to recognize a single virtual system image and provides them with the status of all the nodes and resources in the system by using a graphic user interface (GUI. By using a load balancer, our management tool can increase the performance of a cluster-based DBMS as well as can overcome the limitation of the existing parallel DBMSs.

Short Message Service (SMS) as an Educational Tool during Pregnancy: A Literature Review

Science.gov (United States)

Lamont, Kim; Sliwa, Karen; Stewart, Simon; Carrington, Melinda; Pretorius, Sandra; Libhaber, Elena; Wiysonge, Charles S.; Adebayo, Esther F.; Klipstein-Grobusch, Kerstin

2016-01-01

Background: In many low- and middle-income countries, access to health information during pregnancy is poor. The rapid adoption of mobile phones in these countries has created new opportunities for disseminating such information. Objective: This paper reviews existing information on the use of short message services (SMSs) as a feasible tool to…

Process-Based Quality (PBQ) Tools Development

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Cummins, J.L.

2001-12-03

The objective of this effort is to benchmark the development of process-based quality tools for application in CAD (computer-aided design) model-based applications. The processes of interest are design, manufacturing, and quality process applications. A study was commissioned addressing the impact, current technologies, and known problem areas in application of 3D MCAD (3-dimensional mechanical computer-aided design) models and model integrity on downstream manufacturing and quality processes. The downstream manufacturing and product quality processes are profoundly influenced and dependent on model quality and modeling process integrity. The goal is to illustrate and expedite the modeling and downstream model-based technologies for available or conceptual methods and tools to achieve maximum economic advantage and advance process-based quality concepts.

Service quality, trust, and patient satisfaction in interpersonal-based medical service encounters.

Science.gov (United States)

Chang, Ching-Sheng; Chen, Su-Yueh; Lan, Yi-Ting

2013-01-16

Interaction between service provider and customer is the primary core of service businesses of different natures, and the influence of trust on service quality and customer satisfaction could not be ignored in interpersonal-based service encounters. However, lack of existing literature on the correlation between service quality, patient trust, and satisfaction from the prospect of interpersonal-based medical service encounters has created a research gap in previous studies. Therefore, this study attempts to bridge such a gap with an evidence-based practice study. We adopted a cross-sectional design using a questionnaire survey of outpatients in seven medical centers of Taiwan. Three hundred and fifty copies of questionnaire were distributed, and 285 valid copies were retrieved, with a valid response rate of 81.43%. The SPSS 14.0 and AMOS 14.0 (structural equation modeling) statistical software packages were used for analysis. Structural equation modeling clarifies the extent of relationships between variables as well as the chain of cause and effect. Restated, SEM results do not merely show empirical relationships between variables when defining the practical situation. For this reason, SEM was used to test the hypotheses. Perception of interpersonal-based medical service encounters positively influences service quality and patient satisfaction. Perception of service quality among patients positively influences their trust. Perception of trust among patients positively influences their satisfaction. According to the findings, as interpersonal-based medical service encounters will positively influence service quality and patient satisfaction, and the differences for patients' perceptions of the professional skill and communication attitude of personnel in interpersonal-based medical service encounters will influence patients' overall satisfaction in two ways: (A) interpersonal-based medical service encounter directly affects patient satisfaction, which represents a

Service quality, trust, and patient satisfaction in interpersonal-based medical service encounters

Science.gov (United States)

2013-01-01

Background Interaction between service provider and customer is the primary core of service businesses of different natures, and the influence of trust on service quality and customer satisfaction could not be ignored in interpersonal-based service encounters. However, lack of existing literature on the correlation between service quality, patient trust, and satisfaction from the prospect of interpersonal-based medical service encounters has created a research gap in previous studies. Therefore, this study attempts to bridge such a gap with an evidence-based practice study. Methods We adopted a cross-sectional design using a questionnaire survey of outpatients in seven medical centers of Taiwan. Three hundred and fifty copies of questionnaire were distributed, and 285 valid copies were retrieved, with a valid response rate of 81.43%. The SPSS 14.0 and AMOS 14.0 (structural equation modeling) statistical software packages were used for analysis. Structural equation modeling clarifies the extent of relationships between variables as well as the chain of cause and effect. Restated, SEM results do not merely show empirical relationships between variables when defining the practical situation. For this reason, SEM was used to test the hypotheses. Results Perception of interpersonal-based medical service encounters positively influences service quality and patient satisfaction. Perception of service quality among patients positively influences their trust. Perception of trust among patients positively influences their satisfaction. Conclusions According to the findings, as interpersonal-based medical service encounters will positively influence service quality and patient satisfaction, and the differences for patients’ perceptions of the professional skill and communication attitude of personnel in interpersonal-based medical service encounters will influence patients’ overall satisfaction in two ways: (A) interpersonal-based medical service encounter directly

Service quality, trust, and patient satisfaction in interpersonal-based medical service encounters

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Chang Ching-Sheng

2013-01-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Interaction between service provider and customer is the primary core of service businesses of different natures, and the influence of trust on service quality and customer satisfaction could not be ignored in interpersonal-based service encounters. However, lack of existing literature on the correlation between service quality, patient trust, and satisfaction from the prospect of interpersonal-based medical service encounters has created a research gap in previous studies. Therefore, this study attempts to bridge such a gap with an evidence-based practice study. Methods We adopted a cross-sectional design using a questionnaire survey of outpatients in seven medical centers of Taiwan. Three hundred and fifty copies of questionnaire were distributed, and 285 valid copies were retrieved, with a valid response rate of 81.43%. The SPSS 14.0 and AMOS 14.0 (structural equation modeling statistical software packages were used for analysis. Structural equation modeling clarifies the extent of relationships between variables as well as the chain of cause and effect. Restated, SEM results do not merely show empirical relationships between variables when defining the practical situation. For this reason, SEM was used to test the hypotheses. Results Perception of interpersonal-based medical service encounters positively influences service quality and patient satisfaction. Perception of service quality among patients positively influences their trust. Perception of trust among patients positively influences their satisfaction. Conclusions According to the findings, as interpersonal-based medical service encounters will positively influence service quality and patient satisfaction, and the differences for patients’ perceptions of the professional skill and communication attitude of personnel in interpersonal-based medical service encounters will influence patients’ overall satisfaction in two ways: (A interpersonal-based medical

An overview of game-based learning in building services engineering education

Science.gov (United States)

Alanne, Kari

2016-03-01

To ensure proper competence development and short graduation times for engineering students, it is essential that the study motivation is encouraged by new learning methods. In game-based learning, the learner's engagement is increased and learning is made meaningful by applying game-like features such as competition and rewarding through virtual promotions or achievement badges. In this paper, the state of the art of game-based learning in building services engineering education at university level is reviewed and discussed. A systematic literature review indicates that educational games have been reported in the field of related disciplines, such as mechanical and civil engineering. The development of system-level educational games that realistically simulate work life in building services engineering is still in its infancy. Novel rewarding practices and more comprehensive approaches entailing the state-of-the-art information tools such as building information modelling, geographic information systems, building management systems and augmented reality are needed in the future.

Validation of a tool for assessing the quality of pharmaceutical services

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Cosendey Marly Aparecida E.

2003-01-01

Full Text Available This paper presents the validation process for a tool assessing basic pharmaceutical services through an analysis of the implementation of a Basic Pharmaceuticals Distribution Program by the Brazilian Federal government. The process began with the drafting of a theoretical model, based on a state-of-the-art review and allowing the selection of various conceptual dimensions and respective criteria that best represented the construct. The second step involved weighting indicators for the construction of quality scores. Three models were tested for ranking implementation levels, and seven simulations were conducted, determining the score most closely reflecting the selected indicators in two different matrices. The objective was to select the most coherent and consistent version between implementation levels and expected outcomes, while simultaneously enhancing validity of chosen criteria. Testing of the various models and the results obtained showed that augmenting the validity of the study was possible without altering data. This endeavor is justified in understanding the scope and limitations of these measurements and of the choices involved in issues concerning their weighting and interpretation.

HIV/AIDS testing sites and locator services

Data.gov (United States)

U.S. Department of Health & Human Services — The HIV Testing Sites & Care Services Locator is a first-of-its-kind, location-based search tool that allows you to search for testing services, housing...

Considerations about using OLAP Cubes and Self-Service BI Tools for BI Systems’ Development

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Gianina MIHAI

2017-12-01

Full Text Available Nowadays, the decision-making process must be an extremely fast one. This is why any decision-maker in a company must obtain information from the multiple available data source used in its transactional systems as easily and as quickly as possible. Business Intelligence (BI systems are the ones that provide the tools necessary for obtaining this information. In this article, we shall present the strengths and weaknesses regarding data analyses in a BI system using OLAP cubes and self-service BI tools.

State Health Mapper: An Interactive, Web-Based Tool for Physician Workforce Planning, Recruitment, and Health Services Research.

Science.gov (United States)

Krause, Denise D

2015-11-01

Health rankings in Mississippi are abysmal. Mississippi also has fewer physicians to serve its population compared with all other states. Many residents of this predominately rural state do not have access to healthcare providers. To better understand the demographics and distribution of the current health workforce in Mississippi, the main objective of the study was to design a Web-based, spatial, interactive application to visualize and explore the physician workforce. A Web application was designed to assist in health workforce planning. Secondary datasets of licensure and population information were obtained, and live feeds from licensure systems are being established. Several technologies were used to develop an intuitive, user-friendly application. Custom programming was completed in JavaScript so the application could run on most platforms, including mobile devices. The application allows users to identify and query geographic locations of individual or aggregated physicians based on attributes included in the licensure data, to perform drive time or buffer analyses, and to explore sociodemographic population data by geographic area of choice. This Web-based application with analytical tools visually represents the physician workforce licensed in Mississippi and its attributes, and provides access to much-needed information for statewide health workforce planning and research. The success of the application is not only based on the practicality of the tool but also on its ease of use. Feedback has been positive and has come from a wide variety of organizations across the state.

A tool for planning retinoblastoma services in sub-Saharan Africa.

Science.gov (United States)

Hampejsková, Lindsay; Bascaran, Covadonga; Zondervan, Marcia

2017-04-01

Cancer care remains inadequate in low-middle income countries (LMICs). Children with cancer have 80% chance of surviving in high-income countries compared to 20% in LMICs. Retinoblastoma (RB), an aggressive eye cancer of childhood and top childhood cancer in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), has a low survival rate, due to a delay in diagnosis and abandonment of treatment. The purpose of this study is to provide a tool for planning human resources required to manage RB in SSA. Online tool was developed with 19 modifiable fields and 23 estimates. Routine data were used to populate modifiable fields: population, birthrate, infant mortality rate, and total fertility rate. Values were held constant: frequency, 1:17,000; familial cases, 8%; unilateral RB, 74%; extraocular disease, 70%; and survival postextraocular treatment, 10%. One thousand twenty-three RB incident and familial cases are estimated each year across Ethiopia, Ghana, Malawi, Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe: 75 familial, 700 unilateral, 717 extraocular disease, and 645 palliative. Nigeria represents 431 cases and Zimbabwe 33 cases. Over the eight countries, a total of 41,558 patient visits are estimated each year consisting of unilateral enucleation, follow-up visits, intensive treatment, and familial screening, with a total of 2,802 prosthetic eyes being required each year. In the absence of data, estimates are essential for planning countrywide medical services. More attention is needed around planning for services from the Ministry level including emphasis on building multidisciplinary teams for diseases such as RB, including countrywide database and integrated clinical practice guidelines among all levels of care. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

A Web service substitution method based on service cluster nets

Science.gov (United States)

Du, YuYue; Gai, JunJing; Zhou, MengChu

2017-11-01

Service substitution is an important research topic in the fields of Web services and service-oriented computing. This work presents a novel method to analyse and substitute Web services. A new concept, called a Service Cluster Net Unit, is proposed based on Web service clusters. A service cluster is converted into a Service Cluster Net Unit. Then it is used to analyse whether the services in the cluster can satisfy some service requests. Meanwhile, the substitution methods of an atomic service and a composite service are proposed. The correctness of the proposed method is proved, and the effectiveness is shown and compared with the state-of-the-art method via an experiment. It can be readily applied to e-commerce service substitution to meet the business automation needs.

Effect-based tools for monitoring and predicting the ecotoxicological effects of chemicals in the aquatic environment.

Science.gov (United States)

Connon, Richard E; Geist, Juergen; Werner, Inge

2012-01-01

Ecotoxicology faces the challenge of assessing and predicting the effects of an increasing number of chemical stressors on aquatic species and ecosystems. Herein we review currently applied tools in ecological risk assessment, combining information on exposure with expected biological effects or environmental water quality standards; currently applied effect-based tools are presented based on whether exposure occurs in a controlled laboratory environment or in the field. With increasing ecological relevance the reproducibility, specificity and thus suitability for standardisation of methods tends to diminish. We discuss the use of biomarkers in ecotoxicology including ecotoxicogenomics-based endpoints, which are becoming increasingly important for the detection of sublethal effects. Carefully selected sets of biomarkers allow an assessment of exposure to and effects of toxic chemicals, as well as the health status of organisms and, when combined with chemical analysis, identification of toxicant(s). The promising concept of "adverse outcome pathways (AOP)" links mechanistic responses on the cellular level with whole organism, population, community and potentially ecosystem effects and services. For most toxic mechanisms, however, practical application of AOPs will require more information and the identification of key links between responses, as well as key indicators, at different levels of biological organization, ecosystem functioning and ecosystem services.

Effect-Based Tools for Monitoring and Predicting the Ecotoxicological Effects of Chemicals in the Aquatic Environment

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Richard E. Connon

2012-09-01

Full Text Available Ecotoxicology faces the challenge of assessing and predicting the effects of an increasing number of chemical stressors on aquatic species and ecosystems. Herein we review currently applied tools in ecological risk assessment, combining information on exposure with expected biological effects or environmental water quality standards; currently applied effect-based tools are presented based on whether exposure occurs in a controlled laboratory environment or in the field. With increasing ecological relevance the reproducibility, specificity and thus suitability for standardisation of methods tends to diminish. We discuss the use of biomarkers in ecotoxicology including ecotoxicogenomics-based endpoints, which are becoming increasingly important for the detection of sublethal effects. Carefully selected sets of biomarkers allow an assessment of exposure to and effects of toxic chemicals, as well as the health status of organisms and, when combined with chemical analysis, identification of toxicant(s. The promising concept of “adverse outcome pathways (AOP” links mechanistic responses on the cellular level with whole organism, population, community and potentially ecosystem effects and services. For most toxic mechanisms, however, practical application of AOPs will require more information and the identification of key links between responses, as well as key indicators, at different levels of biological organization, ecosystem functioning and ecosystem services.

The impact of NHS based primary care complementary therapy services on health outcomes and NHS costs: a review of service audits and evaluations

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Wye Lesley

2009-03-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background The aim of this study was to review evaluations and audits of primary care complementary therapy services to determine the impact of these services on improving health outcomes and reducing NHS costs. Our intention is to help service users, service providers, clinicians and NHS commissioners make informed decisions about the potential of NHS based complementary therapy services. Methods We searched for published and unpublished studies of NHS based primary care complementary therapy services located in England and Wales from November 2003 to April 2008. We identified the type of information included in each document and extracted comparable data on health outcomes and NHS costs (e.g. prescriptions and GP consultations. Results Twenty-one documents for 14 services met our inclusion criteria. Overall, the quality of the studies was poor, so few conclusions can be made. One controlled and eleven uncontrolled studies using SF36 or MYMOP indicated that primary care complementary therapy services had moderate to strong impact on health status scores. Data on the impact of primary care complementary therapy services on NHS costs were scarcer and inconclusive. One controlled study of a medical osteopathy service found that service users did not decrease their use of NHS resources. Conclusion To improve the quality of evaluations, we urge those evaluating complementary therapy services to use standardised health outcome tools, calculate confidence intervals and collect NHS cost data from GP medical records. Further discussion is needed on ways to standardise the collection and reporting of NHS cost data in primary care complementary therapy services evaluations.

Implementing iRound: A Computer-Based Auditing Tool.

Science.gov (United States)

Brady, Darcie

Many hospitals use rounding or auditing as a tool to help identify gaps and needs in quality and process performance. Some hospitals are also using rounding to help improve patient experience. It is known that purposeful rounding helps improve Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems scores by helping manage patient expectations, provide service recovery, and recognize quality caregivers. Rounding works when a standard method is used across the facility, where data are comparable and trustworthy. This facility had a pen-and-paper process in place that made data reporting difficult, created a silo culture between departments, and most audits and rounds were completed differently on each unit. It was recognized that this facility needed to standardize the rounding and auditing process. The tool created by the Advisory Board called iRound was chosen as the tool this facility would use for patient experience rounds as well as process and quality rounding. The success of the iRound tool in this facility depended on several factors that started many months before implementation to current everyday usage.

In-Service Science Teachers' and the Use of Multimedia as a Teaching Tool

Science.gov (United States)

Ameyaw, Y.; Quansah, E.

2013-01-01

The study investigated the attitudes of in-service teachers' towards the use of multimedia as a tool for science teaching in Junior High Schools in the Greater Accra Region of Ghana. The population sample consisted of 100 Junior High School (JHS) science teachers made up of 60 urban teachers and 40 rural teachers from three selected districts…

Provider cost analysis supports results-based contracting out of maternal and newborn health services: an evidence-based policy perspective.

Science.gov (United States)

Hatcher, Peter; Shaikh, Shiraz; Fazli, Hassan; Zaidi, Shehla; Riaz, Atif

2014-11-13

There is dearth of evidence on provider cost of contracted out services particularly for Maternal and Newborn Health (MNH). The evidence base is weak for policy makers to estimate resources required for scaling up contracting. This paper ascertains provider unit costs and expenditure distribution at contracted out government primary health centers to inform the development of optimal resource envelopes for contracting out MNH services. This is a case study of provider costs of MNH services at two government Rural Health Centers (RHCs) contracted out to a non-governmental organization in Pakistan. It reports on four selected Basic Emergency Obstetrical and Newborn Care (BEmONC) services provided in one RHC and six Comprehensive Emergency Obstetrical and Newborn Care (CEmONC) services in the other. Data were collected using staff interviews and record review to compile resource inputs and service volumes, and analyzed using the CORE Plus tool. Unit costs are based on actual costs of MNH services and are calculated for actual volumes in 2011 and for volumes projected to meet need with optimal resource inputs. The unit costs per service for actual 2011 volumes at the BEmONC RHC were antenatal care (ANC) visit USD$ 18.78, normal delivery US$ 84.61, newborn care US$ 16.86 and a postnatal care (PNC) visit US$ 13.86; and at the CEmONC RHC were ANC visit US$ 45.50, Normal Delivery US$ 148.43, assisted delivery US$ 167.43, C-section US$ 183.34, Newborn Care US$ 41.07, and PNC visit US$ 27.34. The unit costs for the projected volumes needed were lower due to optimal utilization of resources. The percentage distribution of expenditures at both RHCs was largest for salaries of technical staff, followed by salaries of administrative staff, and then operating costs, medicines, medical and diagnostic supplies. The unit costs of MNH services at the two contracted out government rural facilities remain higher than is optimal, primarily due to underutilization. Provider cost analysis

Mapping Ecosystem Services

OpenAIRE

Georgiev,Teodor; Burkhard,Benjamin; Maes,Joachim

2017-01-01

Ecosystem services are the contributions of ecosystem structure and function (in combination with other inputs) to human well-being. That means, humankind is strongly dependent on well-functioning ecosystems and natural capital that are the base for a constant flow of ecosystem services from nature to society. Therefore ecosystem services have the potential to become a major tool for policy and decision making on global, national, regional and local scales. Possible applications are manifold:...

Collaborative Tools for e-Participation across Networks: The Comuno Networking Site for Public Governance and Services

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Michael Kaschesky

2010-04-01

Full Text Available This paper presents collaborative tools for public participation across multiple networking sites. The tools are part of the Comuno networking site for public governance and services, which is particularly targeted at the public sector (currently in alpha testing at http://comuno.org. The Broadcast tool allows cross-posting content from Comuno to a wide variety of other networking sites, such as Facebook or Twitter. The UserFeed and TopicFeed tools build RSS feeds from content published by a specific user or under a specific topic. The LifeStream tool gathers a user’s activities across multiple networking sites in the private account section at Comuno. These tools and related aspects of the Comuno networking site are discussed and presented in the context of deliberation and opinion-forming in a Swiss bilingual city.

ADRIA: A summary of different tools for motor and generator field service activities in the international market

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Krell, M.; Wuehler, H.

2012-01-01

AREVA Drive In Application (ADRIA) – is an innovative program for use at sites all over the world. ADRIA is a full package for medium voltage motor and generator services growth in the long-term, which presents a wide range of applications for nuclear- , thermal- , renewable hydro power plants and all industrial plants. ADRIA support our customers with an optimized product in MV motor management systems e.g., dismantling, maintenance, repair, tools, containers with full equipped working tools or measure equipment. Are you planning to open a site? You will need special equipment and very special diagnostic methods for electrical analysis for preventive maintenance scheduling and planning; special support from experts, ADRIA is a good, unitized, and flexible solution which can be adapted to different customer requirements. • Technical modules show low service and maintenance costs due to the life time of electrical machines. • Measurement module – a solution for the actual condition of the MV motors and generators (vibration, partial discharge, infrared technology, cable analysis, motor – current – analysis) • Documentation module – for all projects in joining with quality management • Tools module – support for all activities in service (working tools, office / store containers) • Man power module – for all service in the field (Experts with world wide experience) • For pre-maintenance we use, for example, infrared technology. Experts monitor different cycles and find out which parts are creating problems. The maintenance strategy will be clear, shorter and more effective for the next outage. ADRIA offers great advantages for the global maintenance market providing time, efficiency and preventive scheduling, efforts and saving of costs. This new technology method has been successfully applied in various motor refurbishment projects in German, Spain or Brazil nuclear power plants since 2010. Further follow-up orders in German and

Develop risk-based procurement management tools for SMEs

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Staal, Anne; Hagelaar, Geoffrey; Walhof, Gert; Holman, Richard

2016-01-01

This paper provides guidance for developing risk-based management tools to improve the procurement (purchasing) performance of SMEs. Extant academic literature only offers little support on developing such tools and does not consider the wide variety of SMEs. The paper defines a procurement tool for

Tool-Based Curricula and Visual Learning

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Dragica Vasileska

2013-12-01

Full Text Available In the last twenty years nanotechnology hasrevolutionized the world of information theory, computers andother important disciplines, such as medicine, where it hascontributed significantly in the creation of more sophisticateddiagnostic tools. Therefore, it is important for people working innanotechnology to better understand basic concepts to be morecreative and productive. To further foster the progress onNanotechnology in the USA, the National Science Foundation hascreated the Network for Computational Nanotechnology (NCNand the dissemination of all the information from member andnon-member participants of the NCN is enabled by thecommunity website www.nanoHUB.org. nanoHUB’s signatureservices online simulation that enables the operation ofsophisticated research and educational simulation engines with acommon browser. No software installation or local computingpower is needed. The simulation tools as well as nano-conceptsare augmented by educational materials, assignments, and toolbasedcurricula, which are assemblies of tools that help studentsexcel in a particular area.As elaborated later in the text, it is the visual mode of learningthat we are exploiting in achieving faster and better results withstudents that go through simulation tool-based curricula. Thereare several tool based curricula already developed on thenanoHUB and undergoing further development, out of which fiveare directly related to nanoelectronics. They are: ABACUS –device simulation module; ACUTE – Computational Electronicsmodule; ANTSY – bending toolkit; and AQME – quantummechanics module. The methodology behind tool-based curriculais discussed in details. Then, the current status of each module ispresented, including user statistics and student learningindicatives. Particular simulation tool is explored further todemonstrate the ease by which students can grasp information.Representative of Abacus is PN-Junction Lab; representative ofAQME is PCPBT tool; and

DAE Tools: equation-based object-oriented modelling, simulation and optimisation software

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Dragan D. Nikolić

2016-04-01

Full Text Available In this work, DAE Tools modelling, simulation and optimisation software, its programming paradigms and main features are presented. The current approaches to mathematical modelling such as the use of modelling languages and general-purpose programming languages are analysed. The common set of capabilities required by the typical simulation software are discussed, and the shortcomings of the current approaches recognised. A new hybrid approach is introduced, and the modelling languages and the hybrid approach are compared in terms of the grammar, compiler, parser and interpreter requirements, maintainability and portability. The most important characteristics of the new approach are discussed, such as: (1 support for the runtime model generation; (2 support for the runtime simulation set-up; (3 support for complex runtime operating procedures; (4 interoperability with the third party software packages (i.e. NumPy/SciPy; (5 suitability for embedding and use as a web application or software as a service; and (6 code-generation, model exchange and co-simulation capabilities. The benefits of an equation-based approach to modelling, implemented in a fourth generation object-oriented general purpose programming language such as Python are discussed. The architecture and the software implementation details as well as the type of problems that can be solved using DAE Tools software are described. Finally, some applications of the software at different levels of abstraction are presented, and its embedding capabilities and suitability for use as a software as a service is demonstrated.

Designing Personalization in Technology-Based Services

Science.gov (United States)

Lee, Min Kyung

2013-01-01

Personalization technology has the potential to optimize service for each person's unique needs and characteristics. One way to optimize service is to allow people to customize the service themselves; another is to proactively tailor services based on information provided by people or inferred from their past behaviors. These approaches function…

Connecticut's Value-Based Insurance Plan Increased The Use Of Targeted Services And Medication Adherence.

Science.gov (United States)

Hirth, Richard A; Cliff, Elizabeth Q; Gibson, Teresa B; McKellar, M Richard; Fendrick, A Mark

2016-04-01

In 2011 Connecticut implemented the Health Enhancement Program for state employees. This voluntary program followed the principles of value-based insurance design (VBID) by lowering patient costs for certain high-value primary and chronic disease preventive services, coupled with requirements that enrollees receive these services. Nonparticipants in the program, including those removed for noncompliance with its requirements, were assessed a premium surcharge. The program was intended to curb cost growth and improve health through adherence to evidence-based preventive care. To evaluate its efficacy in doing so, we compared changes in service use and spending after implementation of the program to trends among employees of six other states. Compared to employees of other states, Connecticut employees were similar in age and sex but had a slightly higher percentage of enrollees with chronic conditions and substantially higher spending at baseline. During the program's first two years, the use of targeted services and adherence to medications for chronic conditions increased, while emergency department use decreased, relative to the situation in the comparison states. The program's impact on costs was inconclusive and requires a longer follow-up period. This novel combination of VBID principles and participation requirements may be a tool that can help plan sponsors increase the use of evidence-based preventive services. Project HOPE—The People-to-People Health Foundation, Inc.

Software tools for microprocessor based systems

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Halatsis, C.

1981-01-01

After a short review of the hardware and/or software tools for the development of single-chip, fixed instruction set microprocessor-based sytems we focus on the software tools for designing systems based on microprogrammed bit-sliced microprocessors. Emphasis is placed on meta-microassemblers and simulation facilties at the register-transfer-level and architecture level. We review available meta-microassemblers giving their most important features, advantages and disadvantages. We also make extentions to higher-level microprogramming languages and associated systems specifically developed for bit-slices. In the area of simulation facilities we first discuss the simulation objectives and the criteria for chosing the right simulation language. We consertrate to simulation facilities already used in bit-slices projects and discuss the gained experience. We conclude by describing the way the Signetics meta-microassembler and the ISPS simulation tool have been employed in the design of a fast microprogrammed machine, called MICE, made out of ECL bit-slices. (orig.)

Towards an EO-based Landslide Web Mapping and Monitoring Service

Science.gov (United States)

Hölbling, Daniel; Weinke, Elisabeth; Albrecht, Florian; Eisank, Clemens; Vecchiotti, Filippo; Friedl, Barbara; Kociu, Arben

2017-04-01

National and regional authorities and infrastructure maintainers in mountainous regions require accurate knowledge of the location and spatial extent of landslides for hazard and risk management. Information on landslides is often collected by a combination of ground surveying and manual image interpretation following landslide triggering events. However, the high workload and limited time for data acquisition result in a trade-off between completeness, accuracy and detail. Remote sensing data offers great potential for mapping and monitoring landslides in a fast and efficient manner. While facing an increased availability of high-quality Earth Observation (EO) data and new computational methods, there is still a lack in science-policy interaction and in providing innovative tools and methods that can easily be used by stakeholders and users to support their daily work. Taking up this issue, we introduce an innovative and user-oriented EO-based web service for landslide mapping and monitoring. Three central design components of the service are presented: (1) the user requirements definition, (2) the semi-automated image analysis methods implemented in the service, and (3) the web mapping application with its responsive user interface. User requirements were gathered during semi-structured interviews with regional authorities. The potential users were asked if and how they employ remote sensing data for landslide investigation and what their expectations to a landslide web mapping service regarding reliability and usability are. The interviews revealed the capability of our service for landslide documentation and mapping as well as monitoring of selected landslide sites, for example to complete and update landslide inventory maps. In addition, the users see a considerable potential for landslide rapid mapping. The user requirements analysis served as basis for the service concept definition. Optical satellite imagery from different high resolution (HR) and very high

Development and Evaluation of a Novel Survey Tool Assessing Inpatient Consult Service Performance.

Science.gov (United States)

Miloslavsky, Eli M; Chang, Yuchiao

2017-12-01

Subspecialty consultation in inpatient medicine is increasing, and enhancing performance of consultation services may have a broad-reaching impact. Multisource feedback is an important tool in assessing competence and improving performance. A mechanism for primary team resident feedback on performance of consult services has not been described. We developed and evaluated an instrument designed to assess internal medicine (IM) subspecialty inpatient consult service performance. We hypothesized that the instrument would be feasible to administer and provide important information to fellowship directors. The instrument was administered in 2015 and 2016 at a single academic center. All IM residents were invited to evaluate 10 IM subspecialty consult services on 4 items and an overall satisfaction rating. The instrument allowed for free-text feedback to fellows. Program directors completed another survey assessing the impact of the consult service evaluation. A total of 113 residents responded (47 in 2015 and 66 in 2016, for a combined response rate of 35%). Each of the 4 items measured (communication, professionalism, teaching, and pushback) correlated significantly with the overall satisfaction rating in univariate and multivariate analyses. There were no differences in ratings across postgraduate year or year of administration. There was considerable variation in ratings among the services evaluated. The 7 program directors who provided feedback found the survey useful and made programmatic changes following evaluation implementation. A primary team resident evaluation of inpatient medicine subspecialty consult services is feasible, provides valuable information, and is associated with changes in consult service structure and curricula.

Internet-Based Indoor Navigation Services

OpenAIRE

Zeinalipour-Yazti, Demetrios; Laoudias, Christos; Georgiou, Kyriakos

2017-01-01

Smartphone advances are leading to a class of Internet-based Indoor Navigation services. IIN services rely on geolocation databases that store indoor models, comprising floor maps and points of interest, along with wireless, light, and magnetic signals for localizing users. Developing IIN services creates new information management challenges - such as crowdsourcing indoor models, acquiring and fusing big data velocity signals, localization algorithms, and custodians' location privacy. Here, ...

Exploring JavaScript and ROOT technologies to create Web-based ATLAS analysis and monitoring tools

CERN Document Server

Sanchez, Arturo; The ATLAS collaboration

2015-01-01

We explore the potentialities of current web applications to create online interfaces that allow the visualization, interaction and real physics cut-based analysis and monitoring of processes trough a web browser. The project consists in the initial development of web-based and cloud computing services to allow students and researches to perform fast and very useful cut-based analysis on a browser, reading and using real data and official Monte-Carlo simulations stored in ATLAS computing facilities. Several tools are considered: ROOT, JavaScript and HTML. Our study case is the current cut-based $H \\rightarrow ZZ \\rightarrow llqq$ analysis of the ATLAS experiment. Preliminary but satisfactory results have been obtained online.

Exploring JavaScript and ROOT technologies to create Web-based ATLAS analysis and monitoring tools

CERN Document Server

Pineda, A S

2015-01-01

We explore the potential of current web applications to create online interfaces that allow the visualization, interaction and real cut-based physics analysis and monitoring of processes through a web browser. The project consists in the initial development of web- based and cloud computing services to allow students and researchers to perform fast and very useful cut-based analysis on a browser, reading and using real data and official Monte- Carlo simulations stored in ATLAS computing facilities. Several tools are considered: ROOT, JavaScript and HTML. Our study case is the current cut-based H → ZZ → llqq analysis of the ATLAS experiment. Preliminary but satisfactory results have been obtained online.

Nástroj pre podporu vývoja na platforme ServiceNow

OpenAIRE

Paulech, Matej

2014-01-01

The topic of this paper is creation of new ServiceNow development tool. ServiceNow is cloud based IT service support management tool. It is widely customizable, mainly by creating scripts. The problem is that scripts are created via web browser, which is not very user friendly. The main goal of this paper is to design better solution for creating scripts in ServiceNow and implement it for selected integrated development environment - Eclipse. Created development tool should support these oper...

Designing Android Based Augmented Reality Location-Based Service Application

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Alim Hardiansyah

2018-01-01

Full Text Available Android is an operating system for Linux based smartphone. Android provides an open platform for the developers to create their own application. The most developed and used application now is location based application. This application gives personalization service for mobile device user and is customized to their location. Location based service also gives an opportunity for the developers to develop and increase the value of service. One of the technologies that could be combined with location based application is augmented reality. Augmented reality combines the virtual world with the real one. By the assistance of augmented reality, our surrounding environment could interact in digital form. Information of objects and environment surround us could be added to the augmented reality system and presented. Based on the background, the writers tried to implement those technologies on now rapidly developing android application as a final project to achieve bachelor degree in Department of Informatics Engineering, Faculty of Information Technology and Visual Communication, Al Kamal Science and Technology Institute. This application could be functioned to locate school by using location based service technology with the assistance of navigational applications such as waze and google maps, in form of live direction process through the smartphone

Web-Based Tools for Text-Based Patient-Provider Communication in Chronic Conditions: Scoping Review.

Science.gov (United States)

Voruganti, Teja; Grunfeld, Eva; Makuwaza, Tutsirai; Bender, Jacqueline L

2017-10-27

Patients with chronic conditions require ongoing care which not only necessitates support from health care providers outside appointments but also self-management. Web-based tools for text-based patient-provider communication, such as secure messaging, allow for sharing of contextual information and personal narrative in a simple accessible medium, empowering patients and enabling their providers to address emerging care needs. The objectives of this study were to (1) conduct a systematic search of the published literature and the Internet for Web-based tools for text-based communication between patients and providers; (2) map tool characteristics, their intended use, contexts in which they were used, and by whom; (3) describe the nature of their evaluation; and (4) understand the terminology used to describe the tools. We conducted a scoping review using the MEDLINE (Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System Online) and EMBASE (Excerpta Medica Database) databases. We summarized information on the characteristics of the tools (structure, functions, and communication paradigm), intended use, context and users, evaluation (study design and outcomes), and terminology. We performed a parallel search of the Internet to compare with tools identified in the published literature. We identified 54 papers describing 47 unique tools from 13 countries studied in the context of 68 chronic health conditions. The majority of tools (77%, 36/47) had functions in addition to communication (eg, viewable care plan, symptom diary, or tracker). Eight tools (17%, 8/47) were described as allowing patients to communicate with the team or multiple health care providers. Most of the tools were intended to support communication regarding symptom reporting (49%, 23/47), and lifestyle or behavior modification (36%, 17/47). The type of health care providers who used tools to communicate with patients were predominantly allied health professionals of various disciplines (30%, 14

Development and evaluation of SOA-based AAL services in real-life environments: a case study and lessons learned.

Science.gov (United States)

Stav, Erlend; Walderhaug, Ståle; Mikalsen, Marius; Hanke, Sten; Benc, Ivan

2013-11-01

The proper use of ICT services can support seniors in living independently longer. While such services are starting to emerge, current proprietary solutions are often expensive, covering only isolated parts of seniors' needs, and lack support for sharing information between services and between users. For developers, the challenge is that it is complex and time consuming to develop high quality, interoperable services, and new techniques are needed to simplify the development and reduce the development costs. This paper provides the complete view of the experiences gained in the MPOWER project with respect to using model-driven development (MDD) techniques for Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) system development in the Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) domain. To address this challenge, the approach of the European research project MPOWER (2006-2009) was to investigate and record the user needs, define a set of reusable software services based on these needs, and then implement pilot systems using these services. Further, a model-driven toolchain covering key development phases was developed to support software developers through this process. Evaluations were conducted both on the technical artefacts (methodology and tools), and on end user experience from using the pilot systems in trial sites. The outcome of the work on the user needs is a knowledge base recorded as a Unified Modeling Language (UML) model. This comprehensive model describes actors, use cases, and features derived from these. The model further includes the design of a set of software services, including full trace information back to the features and use cases motivating their design. Based on the model, the services were implemented for use in Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) systems, and are publicly available as open source software. The services were successfully used in the realization of two pilot applications. There is therefore a direct and traceable link from the user needs of the

Coordinating a Service Supply Chain under Arms Offset Program’s Intervention by Performance-Based Contracting

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yi-Kuei Lin

2016-01-01

Full Text Available This paper investigates a support service supply chain for coordinating with a local third-party logistics provider by arms offset program’s intervention and develops a performance-based contracting framework for the coordinating problem, which remains scarce in the literatures. The performance-based contracting framework evaluates payments and profits for the support service by a game-theoretical approach with principal-agent model. We prove that the proposed framework is an effective tool in acquiring the balance between maximum profit and minimum payment for both parties in the coordinating problem without moral hazard issue. A numerical study consolidates the formulated schemes as contracting preference for both parties’ decision with a higher profit margin at a lower customer’s payment.

Service creation: a model-based approach

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Quartel, Dick; van Sinderen, Marten J.; Ferreira Pires, Luis

1999-01-01

This paper presents a model-based approach to support service creation. In this approach, services are assumed to be created from (available) software components. The creation process may involve multiple design steps in which the requested service is repeatedly decomposed into more detailed

An approach to value-based simulator selection: The creation and evaluation of the simulator value index tool.

Science.gov (United States)

Rooney, Deborah M; Hananel, David M; Covington, Benjamin J; Dionise, Patrick L; Nykamp, Michael T; Pederson, Melvin; Sahloul, Jamal M; Vasquez, Rachael; Seagull, F Jacob; Pinsky, Harold M; Sweier, Domenica G; Cooke, James M

2018-04-01

Currently there is no reliable, standardized mechanism to support health care professionals during the evaluation of and procurement processes for simulators. A tool founded on best practices could facilitate simulator purchase processes. In a 3-phase process, we identified top factors considered during the simulator purchase process through expert consensus (n = 127), created the Simulator Value Index (SVI) tool, evaluated targeted validity evidence, and evaluated the practical value of this SVI. A web-based survey was sent to simulation professionals. Participants (n = 79) used the SVI and provided feedback. We evaluated the practical value of 4 tool variations by calculating their sensitivity to predict a preferred simulator. Seventeen top factors were identified and ranked. The top 2 were technical stability/reliability of the simulator and customer service, with no practical differences in rank across institution or stakeholder role. Full SVI variations predicted successfully the preferred simulator with good (87%) sensitivity, whereas the sensitivity of variations in cost and customer service and cost and technical stability decreased (≤54%). The majority (73%) of participants agreed that the SVI was helpful at guiding simulator purchase decisions, and 88% agreed the SVI tool would help facilitate discussion with peers and leadership. Our findings indicate the SVI supports the process of simulator purchase using a standardized framework. Sensitivity of the tool improved when factors extend beyond traditionally targeted factors. We propose the tool will facilitate discussion amongst simulation professionals dealing with simulation, provide essential information for finance and procurement professionals, and improve the long-term value of simulation solutions. Limitations and application of the tool are discussed. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

A Web Services based system for the distribution of live information at the FTU fusion experiment

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Boncagni, L.; Centioli, C.; Lattanzio, L.; Panella, M.; Torelli, C.; Zaccarian, L.

2009-01-01

In this paper we describe LiveMonitor, an integrated system realized for the distribution of information in fusion environments. The software tool is based on a client-server approach, where the server side consists of a set of Web Services that collect data from a variety of data sources. LiveMonitor has been successfully used at FTU, replacing and enhancing part of the core of the current message broadcasting system. The tool integrates all the information needed by the control room personnel during the experiments, namely the shot sequence status coming from the FTU Control System, videos of the plasma discharge from the FTU ports cameras, and fresh data from the databases. From the hardware point of view, the new system is made of a Linux node running the Web Services, while clients running on other machines can display information on large (46 '' ) LCD monitors. The tool has been tested during FTU experiments and can be further expanded to match the needs of the control room personnel and experimental physicists.

Flexibility-based damage detection for in-service highway bridge

Science.gov (United States)

Dahal, Sushil; Jang, Shinae; Mensah-Bonsu, Priscilla

2012-04-01

Highway bridges are the backbones of a country's road network infrastructure. In order to efficiently maintain these important structures, structural health monitoring (SHM) can be implemented to impart a more deterministic management procedure. To date, many damage detection strategies have been developed and implemented on lab-scale or simple bridge structures however, damage detection research has rarely been conducted taking full scale in-service structures into account with ambient vibration. Among the different approaches modal flexibility method is one of the sensitive tools for damage detection which has been widely used over the last two decades. This paper presents a damage detection based on the stochastic damage locating vector (SDLV) method for an in-service highway bridge using ambient vibration data from long-term SHM. The target bridge was equipped with a long-term SHM system as a part of a research project of the University of Connecticut. The ambient vibration data during 2001 and 2005 are used to identify the damage on the highway bridge. Finally, the potential damage locations are determined using the SDLV method with the limited number of sensors.

Pro iOS Geo building apps with location based services

CERN Document Server

Andreucci, Giacomo

2013-01-01

Deepen your app development skills with Pro iOS Geo. This book shows you how to use geolocation-based tools to enhance the iOS apps you develop. Author Giacomo Andreucci describes different ways to integrate geo services, depending on the kind of app you're looking to develop: a web app, a hybrid app, or a native app. You'll discover how to use the Google Maps API features to integrate powerful geo capabilities in your apps with a little effort. You'll learn how to: Design geographic features for your apps while respecting usability criteria Design touristic geo apps Use HTML5 and the Google M

CUAHSI Data Services: Tools and Cyberinfrastructure for Water Data Discovery, Research and Collaboration

Science.gov (United States)

Seul, M.; Brazil, L.; Castronova, A. M.

2017-12-01

CUAHSI Data Services: Tools and Cyberinfrastructure for Water Data Discovery, Research and CollaborationEnabling research surrounding interdisciplinary topics often requires a combination of finding, managing, and analyzing large data sets and models from multiple sources. This challenge has led the National Science Foundation to make strategic investments in developing community data tools and cyberinfrastructure that focus on water data, as it is central need for many of these research topics. CUAHSI (The Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science, Inc.) is a non-profit organization funded by the National Science Foundation to aid students, researchers, and educators in using and managing data and models to support research and education in the water sciences. This presentation will focus on open-source CUAHSI-supported tools that enable enhanced data discovery online using advanced searching capabilities and computational analysis run in virtual environments pre-designed for educators and scientists so they can focus their efforts on data analysis rather than IT set-up.

The implementation of a data acquisition and service system based on HDF5

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Chen, Y., E-mail: cheny@ipp.ac.cn [Institute of Plasma Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hefei, Anhui (China); Wang, F.; Li, S. [Institute of Plasma Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hefei, Anhui (China); Xiao, B.J. [Institute of Plasma Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hefei, Anhui (China); School of nuclear science and technology, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui (China); Yang, F. [Institute of Plasma Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hefei, Anhui (China); Department of Computer Science, Anhui Medical University, Hefei, Anhui (China)

2016-11-15

Highlights: • A new data acquisition and service system has been designed and implemented for a new reversed field pinch (RFP) magnetic confinement device. • The new data acquisition and service system is based on HDF5. • It is an entire system including acquisition, storage and data retrieval. • The system is easy to extend and maintain for its modularization design. - Abstract: A data acquisition and service system based on HDF5 has been designed. It includes four components: data acquisition console, data acquisition subsystem, data archive system and data service. The data acquisition console manages all DAQ information and controls the acquisition process. The data acquisition subsystem supports continuous data acquisition with different sampling rates which can be divided into low, medium and high level. All experimental data will be remotely transferred to the data archive system. It adopts HDF5 as its low-level data storage format. The hierarchical data structure of HDF5 is useful for efficiently managing the experimental data and allows users to define special data types and compression filter which can be useful to deal with special signals. Several data service tools have also been developed so that users can get data service via Client/Server or Brower/Server. The system will be demonstrated on Keda Torus eXperiment (KTX) device, which is a new Reversed Field Pinch (RFP) magnetic confinement device. The details are presented in the paper.

The implementation of a data acquisition and service system based on HDF5

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chen, Y.; Wang, F.; Li, S.; Xiao, B.J.; Yang, F.

2016-01-01

Highlights: • A new data acquisition and service system has been designed and implemented for a new reversed field pinch (RFP) magnetic confinement device. • The new data acquisition and service system is based on HDF5. • It is an entire system including acquisition, storage and data retrieval. • The system is easy to extend and maintain for its modularization design. - Abstract: A data acquisition and service system based on HDF5 has been designed. It includes four components: data acquisition console, data acquisition subsystem, data archive system and data service. The data acquisition console manages all DAQ information and controls the acquisition process. The data acquisition subsystem supports continuous data acquisition with different sampling rates which can be divided into low, medium and high level. All experimental data will be remotely transferred to the data archive system. It adopts HDF5 as its low-level data storage format. The hierarchical data structure of HDF5 is useful for efficiently managing the experimental data and allows users to define special data types and compression filter which can be useful to deal with special signals. Several data service tools have also been developed so that users can get data service via Client/Server or Brower/Server. The system will be demonstrated on Keda Torus eXperiment (KTX) device, which is a new Reversed Field Pinch (RFP) magnetic confinement device. The details are presented in the paper.

Caring Is the Key: Building a School-based Intergenerational Service Program.

Science.gov (United States)

Melcher, Joseph

This manual is designed for high school teachers and students who plan to participate in intergenerational community service programs. Intergenerational community service is a powerful teaching tool that introduces problem solving and active learning while enhancing self-esteem. Four case studies describe what schools in Pennsylvania are doing to…

An Automatic Web Service Composition Framework Using QoS-Based Web Service Ranking Algorithm.

Science.gov (United States)

Mallayya, Deivamani; Ramachandran, Baskaran; Viswanathan, Suganya

2015-01-01

Web service has become the technology of choice for service oriented computing to meet the interoperability demands in web applications. In the Internet era, the exponential addition of web services nominates the "quality of service" as essential parameter in discriminating the web services. In this paper, a user preference based web service ranking (UPWSR) algorithm is proposed to rank web services based on user preferences and QoS aspect of the web service. When the user's request cannot be fulfilled by a single atomic service, several existing services should be composed and delivered as a composition. The proposed framework allows the user to specify the local and global constraints for composite web services which improves flexibility. UPWSR algorithm identifies best fit services for each task in the user request and, by choosing the number of candidate services for each task, reduces the time to generate the composition plans. To tackle the problem of web service composition, QoS aware automatic web service composition (QAWSC) algorithm proposed in this paper is based on the QoS aspects of the web services and user preferences. The proposed framework allows user to provide feedback about the composite service which improves the reputation of the services.

Health care agreements as a tool for coordinating health and social services

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Andreas Rudkjøbing

2014-12-01

Full Text Available Introduction: In 2007, a substantial reform changed the administrative boundaries of the Danish health care system and introduced health care agreements to be signed between municipal and regional authorities. To assess the health care agreements as a tool for coordinating health and social services, a survey was conducted before (2005–2006 and after the reform (2011.Theory and methods: The study was designed on the basis of a modified version of Alter and Hage's framework for conceptualising coordination. Both surveys addressed all municipal level units (n = 271/98 and a random sample of general practitioners (n = 700/853.Results: The health care agreements were considered more useful for coordinating care than the previous health plans. The power relationship between the regional and municipal authorities in drawing up the agreements was described as more equal. Familiarity with the agreements among general practitioners was higher, as was the perceived influence of the health care agreements on their work.Discussion: Health care agreements with specific content and with regular follow-up and systematic mechanisms for organising feedback between collaborative partners exemplify a useful tool for the coordination of health and social services.Conclusion: There are substantial improvements with the new health agreements in terms of formalising a better coordination of the health care system.

The Case of the Pilfered Paper: Implications of Online Writing Assistance and Web-Based Plagiarism Detection Services

Science.gov (United States)

Morgan, Phoebe; Vaughn, Jacqueline

2010-01-01

While there is nothing new about academic dishonesty, how it is committed, prevented, and detected has been dramatically transformed by the advent of online technologies. This article briefly describes the concurrent emergence of online writing assistance services and Web-based plagiarism detection tools and examines the implications of both for…

An Evaluation of the Performance Diagnostic Checklist-Human Services to Assess an Employee Performance Problem in a Center-Based Autism Treatment Facility

Science.gov (United States)

Ditzian, Kyle; Wilder, David A.; King, Allison; Tanz, Jeanine

2015-01-01

The Performance Diagnostic Checklist-Human Services (PDC-HS) is an informant-based tool designed to assess the environmental variables that contribute to poor employee performance in human services settings. We administered the PDC-HS to 3 supervisors to assess the variables that contributed to poor performance by 4 staff members when securing…

Validating the usability of an interactive Earth Observation based web service for landslide investigation

Science.gov (United States)

Albrecht, Florian; Weinke, Elisabeth; Eisank, Clemens; Vecchiotti, Filippo; Hölbling, Daniel; Friedl, Barbara; Kociu, Arben

2017-04-01

Regional authorities and infrastructure maintainers in almost all mountainous regions of the Earth need detailed and up-to-date landslide inventories for hazard and risk management. Landslide inventories usually are compiled through ground surveys and manual image interpretation following landslide triggering events. We developed a web service that uses Earth Observation (EO) data to support the mapping and monitoring tasks for improving the collection of landslide information. The planned validation of the EO-based web service does not only cover the analysis of the achievable landslide information quality but also the usability and user friendliness of the user interface. The underlying validation criteria are based on the user requirements and the defined tasks and aims in the work description of the FFG project Land@Slide (EO-based landslide mapping: from methodological developments to automated web-based information delivery). The service will be validated in collaboration with stakeholders, decision makers and experts. Users are requested to test the web service functionality and give feedback with a web-based questionnaire by following the subsequently described workflow. The users will operate the web-service via the responsive user interface and can extract landslide information from EO data. They compare it to reference data for quality assessment, for monitoring changes and for assessing landslide-affected infrastructure. An overview page lets the user explore a list of example projects with resulting landslide maps and mapping workflow descriptions. The example projects include mapped landslides in several test areas in Austria and Northern Italy. Landslides were extracted from high resolution (HR) and very high resolution (VHR) satellite imagery, such as Landsat, Sentinel-2, SPOT-5, WorldView-2/3 or Pléiades. The user can create his/her own project by selecting available satellite imagery or by uploading new data. Subsequently, a new landslide

Genomic-based-breeding tools for tropical maize improvement.

Science.gov (United States)

Chakradhar, Thammineni; Hindu, Vemuri; Reddy, Palakolanu Sudhakar

2017-12-01

Maize has traditionally been the main staple diet in the Southern Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa and widely grown by millions of resource poor small scale farmers. Approximately, 35.4 million hectares are sown to tropical maize, constituting around 59% of the developing worlds. Tropical maize encounters tremendous challenges besides poor agro-climatic situations with average yields recorded <3 tones/hectare that is far less than the average of developed countries. On the contrary to poor yields, the demand for maize as food, feed, and fuel is continuously increasing in these regions. Heterosis breeding introduced in early 90 s improved maize yields significantly, but genetic gains is still a mirage, particularly for crop growing under marginal environments. Application of molecular markers has accelerated the pace of maize breeding to some extent. The availability of array of sequencing and genotyping technologies offers unrivalled service to improve precision in maize-breeding programs through modern approaches such as genomic selection, genome-wide association studies, bulk segregant analysis-based sequencing approaches, etc. Superior alleles underlying complex traits can easily be identified and introgressed efficiently using these sequence-based approaches. Integration of genomic tools and techniques with advanced genetic resources such as nested association mapping and backcross nested association mapping could certainly address the genetic issues in maize improvement programs in developing countries. Huge diversity in tropical maize and its inherent capacity for doubled haploid technology offers advantage to apply the next generation genomic tools for accelerating production in marginal environments of tropical and subtropical world. Precision in phenotyping is the key for success of any molecular-breeding approach. This article reviews genomic technologies and their application to improve agronomic traits in tropical maize breeding has been reviewed in

Process-Based Quality (PBQ) Tools Development; TOPICAL

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Cummins, J.L.

2001-01-01

The objective of this effort is to benchmark the development of process-based quality tools for application in CAD (computer-aided design) model-based applications. The processes of interest are design, manufacturing, and quality process applications. A study was commissioned addressing the impact, current technologies, and known problem areas in application of 3D MCAD (3-dimensional mechanical computer-aided design) models and model integrity on downstream manufacturing and quality processes. The downstream manufacturing and product quality processes are profoundly influenced and dependent on model quality and modeling process integrity. The goal is to illustrate and expedite the modeling and downstream model-based technologies for available or conceptual methods and tools to achieve maximum economic advantage and advance process-based quality concepts

Web-Based Geospatial Tools to Address Hazard Mitigation, Natural Resource Management, and Other Societal Issues

Science.gov (United States)

Hearn,, Paul P.

2009-01-01

Federal, State, and local government agencies in the United States face a broad range of issues on a daily basis. Among these are natural hazard mitigation, homeland security, emergency response, economic and community development, water supply, and health and safety services. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) helps decision makers address these issues by providing natural hazard assessments, information on energy, mineral, water and biological resources, maps, and other geospatial information. Increasingly, decision makers at all levels are challenged not by the lack of information, but by the absence of effective tools to synthesize the large volume of data available, and to utilize the data to frame policy options in a straightforward and understandable manner. While geographic information system (GIS) technology has been widely applied to this end, systems with the necessary analytical power have been usable only by trained operators. The USGS is addressing the need for more accessible, manageable data tools by developing a suite of Web-based geospatial applications that will incorporate USGS and cooperating partner data into the decision making process for a variety of critical issues. Examples of Web-based geospatial tools being used to address societal issues follow.

Evidence-based medicine - an appropriate tool for evidence-based health policy? A case study from Norway.

Science.gov (United States)

Malterud, Kirsti; Bjelland, Anne Karen; Elvbakken, Kari Tove

2016-03-05

Evidence-based policy (EBP), a concept modelled on the principles of evidence-based medicine (EBM), is widely used in different areas of policymaking. Systematic reviews (SRs) with meta-analyses gradually became the methods of choice for synthesizing research evidence about interventions and judgements about quality of evidence and strength of recommendations. Critics have argued that the relation between research evidence and service policies is weak, and that the notion of EBP rests on a misunderstanding of policy processes. Having explored EBM standards and knowledge requirements for health policy decision-making, we present an empirical point of departure for discussing the relationship between EBM and EBP. In a case study exploring the Norwegian Knowledge Centre for the Health Services (NOKC), an independent government unit, we first searched for information about the background and development of the NOKC to establish a research context. We then identified, selected and organized official NOKC publications as an empirical sample of typical top-of-the-line knowledge delivery adhering to EBM standards. Finally, we explored conclusions in this type of publication, specifically addressing their potential as policy decision tools. From a total sample of 151 SRs published by the NOKC in the period 2004-2013, a purposive subsample from 2012 (14 publications) advised major caution about their conclusions because of the quality or relevance of the underlying documentation. Although the case study did not include a systematic investigation of uptake and policy consequences, SRs were found to be inappropriate as universal tools for health policy decision-making. The case study demonstrates that EBM is not necessarily suited to knowledge provision for every kind of policy decision-making. Our analysis raises the question of whether the evidence-based movement, represented here by an independent government organization, undertakes too broad a range of commissions using

Probability-Based Determination Methods for Service Waiting in Service-Oriented Computing Environments

Science.gov (United States)

Zeng, Sen; Huang, Shuangxi; Liu, Yang

Cooperative business processes (CBP)-based service-oriented enterprise networks (SOEN) are emerging with the significant advances of enterprise integration and service-oriented architecture. The performance prediction and optimization for CBP-based SOEN is very complex. To meet these challenges, one of the key points is to try to reduce an abstract service’s waiting number of its physical services. This paper introduces a probability-based determination method (PBDM) of an abstract service’ waiting number, M l , and time span, τ i , for its physical services. The determination of M i and τ i is according to the physical services’ arriving rule and their overall performance’s distribution functions. In PBDM, the arriving probability of the physical services with the best overall performance value is a pre-defined reliability. PBDM has made use of the information of the physical services’ arriving rule and performance distribution functions thoroughly, which will improve the computational efficiency for the scheme design and performance optimization of the collaborative business processes in service-oriented computing environments.

Impact of the World Health Organization's Decision-Making Tool for Family Planning Clients and Providers on the quality of family planning services in Iran.

Science.gov (United States)

Farrokh-Eslamlou, Hamidreza; Aghlmand, Siamak; Eslami, Mohammad; Homer, Caroline S E

2014-04-01

We investigated whether use of the World Health Organization's (WHO's) Decision-Making Tool (DMT) for Family Planning Clients and Providers would improve the process and outcome quality indicators of family planning (FP) services in Iran. The DMT was adapted for the Iranian setting. The study evaluated 24 FP quality key indicators grouped into two main areas, namely process and outcome. The tool was implemented in 52 urban and rural public health facilities in four selected and representative provinces of Iran. A pre-post methodology was undertaken to examine whether use of the tool improved the quality of FP services and client satisfaction with the services. Quantitative data were collected through observations of counselling and exit interviews with clients using structured questionnaires. Different numbers of FP clients were recruited during the baseline and the post-intervention rounds (n=448 vs 547, respectively). The DMT improved many client-provider interaction indicators, including verbal and non-verbal communication (p<0.05). The tool also impacted positively on the client's choice of contraceptive method, providers' technical competence, and quality of information provided to clients (p<0.05). Use of the tool improved the clients' satisfaction with FP services (from 72% to 99%; p<0.05). The adapted WHO's DMT has the potential to improve the quality of FP services.

Distributed Enforcement of Service Choreographies

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Marco Autili

2015-02-01

Full Text Available Modern service-oriented systems are often built by reusing, and composing together, existing services distributed over the Internet. Service choreography is a possible form of service composition whose goal is to specify the interactions among participant services from a global perspective. In this paper, we formalize a method for the distributed and automated enforcement of service choreographies, and prove its correctness with respect to the realization of the specified choreography. The formalized method is implemented as part of a model-based tool chain released to support the development of choreography-based systems within the EU CHOReOS project. We illustrate our method at work on a distributed social proximity network scenario.

Engaging stakeholders: lessons from the use of participatory tools for improving maternal and child care health services.

Science.gov (United States)

Ekirapa-Kiracho, Elizabeth; Ghosh, Upasona; Brahmachari, Rittika; Paina, Ligia

2017-12-28

Effective stakeholder engagement in research and implementation is important for improving the development and implementation of policies and programmes. A varied number of tools have been employed for stakeholder engagement. In this paper, we discuss two participatory methods for engaging with stakeholders - participatory social network analysis (PSNA) and participatory impact pathways analysis (PIPA). Based on our experience, we derive lessons about when and how to apply these tools. This paper was informed by a review of project reports and documents in addition to reflection meetings with the researchers who applied the tools. These reports were synthesised and used to make thick descriptions of the applications of the methods while highlighting key lessons. PSNA and PIPA both allowed a deep understanding of how the system actors are interconnected and how they influence maternal health and maternal healthcare services. The findings from the PSNA provided guidance on how stakeholders of a health system are interconnected and how they can stimulate more positive interaction between the stakeholders by exposing existing gaps. The PIPA meeting enabled the participants to envision how they could expand their networks and resources by mentally thinking about the contributions that they could make to the project. The processes that were considered critical for successful application of the tools and achievement of outcomes included training of facilitators, language used during the facilitation, the number of times the tool is applied, length of the tools, pretesting of the tools, and use of quantitative and qualitative methods. Whereas both tools allowed the identification of stakeholders and provided a deeper understanding of the type of networks and dynamics within the network, PIPA had a higher potential for promoting collaboration between stakeholders, likely due to allowing interaction between them. Additionally, it was implemented within a participatory action

Psychiatric service staff perceptions of implementing a shared decision-making tool: a process evaluation study.

Science.gov (United States)

Schön, Ulla-Karin; Grim, Katarina; Wallin, Lars; Rosenberg, David; Svedberg, Petra

2018-12-01

Shared decision making, SDM, in psychiatric services, supports users to experience a greater sense of involvement in treatment, self-efficacy, autonomy and reduced coercion. Decision tools adapted to the needs of users have the potential to support SDM and restructure how users and staff work together to arrive at shared decisions. The aim of this study was to describe and analyse the implementation process of an SDM intervention for users of psychiatric services in Sweden. The implementation was studied through a process evaluation utilizing both quantitative and qualitative methods. In designing the process evaluation for the intervention, three evaluation components were emphasized: contextual factors, implementation issues and mechanisms of impact. The study addresses critical implementation issues related to decision-making authority, the perceived decision-making ability of users and the readiness of the service to increase influence and participation. It also emphasizes the importance of facilitation, as well as suggesting contextual adaptations that may be relevant for the local organizations. The results indicate that staff perceived the decision support tool as user-friendly and useful in supporting participation in decision-making, and suggest that such concrete supports to participation can be a factor in implementation if adequate attention is paid to organizational contexts and structures.

Pengaruh Faktor Individual Wisatawan dan Kinerja Bauran Pemasaran terhadap Nilai Jasa Pariwisata Alam (The Effect of Individual Tourist and the Mixed Marketing to Services Value on Nature-Based Tourism Services

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Henry Purnomo

2011-07-01

Full Text Available Perum Perhutani, an Indonesian State Owned Forest Company has been developed nature-based tourism services(a tourism services based on nature or environment services since 1978. Ecotourism is considered as potentialalternative answering the change of paradigm of forest products which had been ignoring forest resourcesproduct as part of the forest products. However, these ecotourism objects have not been optimally managed yet.This research was conducted by the use of descriptive and verificative methods. Structural Equation Modelingwas employed as tool analyses in order to determine proper modeling approach and its solution.  The researchresults showed that internal, external individual factors, and mixed marketing performance gave a significantinfluence to the tourism service value.  A deeper analysis revealed that among the aspects, mixed marketingperformance which was consisted of product, price, place, promotion, people, physical evidence, and processshowed the most significant effect to the tourism service value.  In the other side, the results also showed that themost dominant factor that causing tourist hedonism was services value incrementy. The analyses finally showed thatthe increasing tourist hedonism through the offering a superior service value will  form a superior customer value.Keywords: nature-based tourism, individual factors, services marketing value, mixed marketing, hedonism

Internet-based tools for behaviour change

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Bottrill, Catherine [Environmental Change Inst., Oxford Unversity Centre for the Environment (United Kingdom)

2007-07-01

Internet-based carbon calculators have the potential to be powerful tools for helping people to understand their personal energy use derived from fossil fuels and to take action to reduce the related carbon emissions. This paper reviews twenty-three calculators concluding that in most cases this environmental learning tool is falling short of giving people the ability to accurately monitor their energy use; to receive meaningful feedback and guidance for altering their energy use; or to connect with others also going through the same learning process of saving energy and conserving carbon. This paper presents the findings of research into the accuracy and effectiveness of carbon calculators. Based on the assessment of the calculators the paper discusses the opportunities Internet technology could be offering for engagement, communication, encouragement and guidance on low-carbon lifestyle choices. Finally, recommendations are made for the development of accurate, informative and social Internet-based carbon calculators.

Indoor location-based services prerequisites and foundations

CERN Document Server

Werner, Martin

2014-01-01

This book delivers concise coverage of classical methods and new developments related to indoor location-based services. It collects results from isolated domains including geometry, artificial intelligence, statistics, cooperative algorithms, and distributed systems and thus provides an accessible overview of fundamental methods and technologies. This makes it an ideal starting point for researchers, students, and professionals in pervasive computing. Location-based services are services using the location of a mobile computing device as their primary input. While such services are fairly e

Exploring JavaScript and ROOT technologies to create Web-based ATLAS analysis and monitoring tools

CERN Document Server

Sanchez, Arturo; The ATLAS collaboration

2015-01-01

We explore the potentialities of current web applications to create online interfaces that allow the visualization, interaction and real physics cut-based analysis and monitoring of processes trough a web browser. The project consists in the initial development of web-based and cloud computing services to allow students and researches to perform fast and very useful cut-based analysis on a browser, reading and using real data and official Monte-Carlo simulations stored in ATLAS computing facilities. Several tools are considered: ROOT, JavaScript and HTML. Our study case is the current cut-based H->ZZ->llqq analysis of the ATLAS experiment. Preliminary but satisfactory results have been obtained online; this presentation describes the tests and plans and future upgrades.

The Asset Drivers, Well-being Interaction Matrix (ADWIM: A participatory tool for estimating future impacts on ecosystem services and livelihoods

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

T.D. Skewes

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Building an effective response for communities to climate change requires decision-support tools that deliver information which stakeholders find relevant for exploring potential short and long-term impacts on livelihoods. Established principles suggest that to successfully communicate scientific information, such tools must be transparent, replicable, relevant, credible, flexible, affordable and unbiased. In data-poor contexts typical of developing countries, they should also be able to integrate stakeholders’ knowledge and values, empowering them in the process. We present a participatory tool, the Asset Drivers Well-being Interaction Matrix (ADWIM, which estimates future impacts on ecosystem goods and services (EGS and communities’ well-being through the cumulative effects of system stressors. ADWIM consists of two modelling steps: an expert-informed, cumulative impact assessment for EGS; which is then integrated with a stakeholder-informed EGS valuation process carried out during adaptation planning workshops. We demonstrate the ADWIM process using examples from Nusa Tenggara Barat Province (NTB in eastern Indonesia. The semi-quantitative results provide an assessment of the relative impacts on EGS and human well-being under the ‘Business as Usual’ scenario of climate change and human population growth at different scales in NTB, information that is subsequently used for designing adaptation strategies. Based on these experiences, we discuss the relative strengths and weaknesses of ADWIM relative to principles of effective science communication and ecosystem services modelling. ADWIM’s apparent attributes as an analysis, decision support and communication tool promote its utility for participatory adaptation planning. We also highlight its relevance as a ‘boundary object’ to provide learning and reflection about the current and likely future importance of EGS to livelihoods in NTB.

The land management tool: Developing a climate service in Southwest UK

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Pete Falloon

2018-01-01

Full Text Available Seasonal climate forecasts (SCFs have significant potential to support shorter-term agricultural decisions and longer-term climate adaptation plans, but uptake in Europe has to date been low. Under the European Union funded project, European Provision Of Regional Impacts Assessments on Seasonal and Decadal Timescales (EUPORIAS we have developed the Land Management Tool (LMTool, a prototype seasonal climate service for land managers, working closely in collaboration with two stakeholder organizations, Clinton Devon Estates (CDE and the National Farmers Union (NFU. LMTool was one of several prototype climate services selected for development within EUPORIAS, including those for the UK transport network, food security in Ethiopia, renewable energy production, hydroelectric energy production in Sweden, and river management in two French basins. The LMTool provides SCFs (1–3 months ahead to farmers in the Southwest UK, alongside 14-day site specific weather forecasts during the winter months when the skill of seasonal forecasts is greatest.We describe the processes through which the LMTool was co-designed and developed with the farmers, its technical development and key features; critically examine the lessons learned and their implications for providing future climate services for land managers; and finally assess the feasibility of delivering an operational winter seasonal climate service for UK land managers.A number of key learning points from developing the prototype may benefit future work in climate services for the land management and agriculture sector; many of these points are also valid for climate services in other sectors. Prototype development strongly benefitted from; working with intermediaries to identify representative, engaged land managers; an iterative and flexible process of co-design with the farmer group; and from an interdisciplinary project team. Further work is needed to develop a better understanding of the role of

Evaluating international development investments based on ecosystem services impact

Science.gov (United States)

Fremier, A. K.; Brauman, K. A.; Mulligan, M.; Chaplin-Kramer, R.; Gordon, L.; Luedeling, E.; Jones, S. K.; DeClerck, F.

2016-12-01

Engineered water-control structures to supply water for agriculture are frequently funded by international development to an effort to improve human wellbeing. Dams, reservoirs, and other forms of water control frequently have negative impacts on other water users; however, their sustainability in the face of climate change and evolving watershed processes have been called into question. Increasingly, planning for and evaluation of investments in water control require integration of these larger scale impacts and dependencies. Ecosystem service approaches can use local to regional scale knowledge to integrate a broader scope of project impacts by quantifying trade-offs in multiple services across proposed development interventions and future scenarios (economic, climate, demographic). Here, we illustrate the role an ecosystem service approach can play in investment decision making to evaluate the impact of small reservoirs on human wellbeing in the Upper Volta Basin of West Africa. Our project has four components: (1) design of a spatially explicit regional-level social-ecological characterization; (2) construction of future scenario analyses for rainfed and irrigated production system interventions; (3) co-design and co-development of benefit sharing mechanisms at the reservoir catchment level and enhancing institutional capacity to implement these mechanisms through training, professional development and targeting tools; and (4) intervention decision analysis to identify benefits, costs and risks associated with decision options. We illustrate how this approach highlights different outcomes than standard cost-benefit analysis focused narrowly on the single project. Anticipated outcomes are development of ecosystem services-based methods for more equitably and sustainably evaluating development interventions and identifying management approaches to water-impoundment structures that promote a range of ecosystem services to provide food security to a broader

Application of ESE Data and Tools to Air Quality Management: Services for Helping the Air Quality Community use ESE Data (SHAirED)

Science.gov (United States)

Falke, Stefan; Husar, Rudolf

2011-01-01

The goal of this REASoN applications and technology project is to deliver and use Earth Science Enterprise (ESE) data and tools in support of air quality management. Its scope falls within the domain of air quality management and aims to develop a federated air quality information sharing network that includes data from NASA, EPA, US States and others. Project goals were achieved through a access of satellite and ground observation data, web services information technology, interoperability standards, and air quality community collaboration. In contributing to a network of NASA ESE data in support of particulate air quality management, the project will develop access to distributed data, build Web infrastructure, and create tools for data processing and analysis. The key technologies used in the project include emerging web services for developing self describing and modular data access and processing tools, and service oriented architecture for chaining web services together to assemble customized air quality management applications. The technology and tools required for this project were developed within DataFed.net, a shared infrastructure that supports collaborative atmospheric data sharing and processing web services. Much of the collaboration was facilitated through community interactions through the Federation of Earth Science Information Partners (ESIP) Air Quality Workgroup. The main activities during the project that successfully advanced DataFed, enabled air quality applications and established community-oriented infrastructures were: develop access to distributed data (surface and satellite), build Web infrastructure to support data access, processing and analysis create tools for data processing and analysis foster air quality community collaboration and interoperability.

Organizational capacity for service integration in community-based addiction health services.

Science.gov (United States)

Guerrero, Erick G; Aarons, Gregory A; Palinkas, Lawrence A

2014-04-01

We examined factors associated with readiness to coordinate mental health, public health, and HIV testing among community-based addiction health services programs. We analyzed client and program data collected in 2011 from publicly funded addiction health services treatment programs in Los Angeles County, California. We analyzed a sample of 14 379 clients nested in 104 programs by using logistic regressions examining odds of service coordination with mental health and public health providers. We conducted a separate analysis to examine the percentage of clients receiving HIV testing in each program. Motivational readiness and organizational climate for change were associated with higher odds of coordination with mental health and public health services. Programs with professional accreditation had higher odds of coordinating with mental health services, whereas programs receiving public funding and methadone and residential programs (compared with outpatient) had a higher percentage of clients receiving coordinated HIV testing. These findings provide an evidentiary base for the role of motivational readiness, organizational climate, and external regulation and funding in improving the capacity of addiction health services programs to develop integrated care.

Selecting a Free Web-Hosted Survey Tool for Student Use

Science.gov (United States)

Elbeck, Matt

2014-01-01

This study provides marketing educators a review of free web-based survey services and guidance for student use. A mixed methods approach started with online searches and metrics identifying 13 free web-hosted survey services, described as demonstration or project tools, and ranked using popularity and importance web-based metrics. For each…

Impact of performance-based financing on primary health care services in Haiti.

Science.gov (United States)

Zeng, Wu; Cros, Marion; Wright, Katherine D; Shepard, Donald S

2013-09-01

To strengthen Haiti's primary health care (PHC) system, the country first piloted performance-based financing (PBF) in 1999 and subsequently expanded the approach to most internationally funded non-government organizations. PBF complements support (training and technical assistance). This study evaluates (a) the separate impact of PBF and international support on PHC's service delivery; (b) the combined impact of PBF and technical assistance on PHC's service delivery; and (c) the costs of PBF implementation in Haiti. To minimize the risk of facilities neglecting potential non-incentivized services, the incentivized indicators were randomly chosen at the end of each year. We obtained quantities of key services from four departments for 217 health centres (15 with PBF and 202 without) from 2008 through 2010, computed quarterly growth rates and analysed the results using a difference-in-differences approach by comparing the growth of incentivized and non-incentivized services between PBF and non-PBF facilities. To interpret the statistical analyses, we also interviewed staff in four facilities. Whereas international support added 39% to base costs of PHC, incentive payments added only 6%. Support alone increased the quantities of PHC services over 3 years by 35% (2.7%/quarter). However, support plus incentives increased these amounts by 87% over 3 years (5.7%/quarter) compared with facilities with neither input. Incentives alone was associated with a net 39% increase over this period, and more than doubled the growth of services (P < 0.05). Interview findings found no adverse impacts and, in fact, indicated beneficial impacts on quality. Incentives proved to be a relatively inexpensive, well accepted and very effective complement to support, suggesting that a small amount of money, strategically used, can substantially improve PHC. Haiti's experience, after more than a decade of use, indicates that incentives are an effective tool to strengthen PHC.

Development of a method of continuous improvement of services using the Business Intelligence tools

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Svetlana V. Kulikova

2018-01-01

Full Text Available The purpose of the study was to develop a method of continuous improvement of services using the Business Intelligence tools.Materials and methods: the materials are used on the concept of the Deming Cycle, methods and Business Intelligence technologies, Agile methodology and SCRUM.Results: the article considers the problem of continuous improvement of services and offers solutions using methods and technologies of Business Intelligence. In this case, the purpose of this technology is to solve and make the final decision regarding what needs to be improved in the current organization of services. In other words, Business Intelligence helps the product manager to see what is hidden from the “human eye” on the basis of received and processed data. Development of a method based on the concept of the Deming Cycle and Agile methodologies, and SCRUM.The article describes the main stages of development of method based on activity of the enterprise. It is necessary to fully build the Business Intelligence system in the enterprise to identify bottlenecks and justify the need for their elimination and, in general, for continuous improvement of the services. This process is represented in the notation of DFD. The article presents a scheme for the selection of suitable agile methodologies.The proposed concept of the solution of the stated objectives, including methods of identification of problems through Business Intelligence technology, development of the system for troubleshooting and analysis of results of the introduced changes. The technical description of the project is given.Conclusion: following the work of the authors there was formed the concept of the method for the continuous improvement of the services, using the Business Intelligence technology with the specifics of the enterprises, offering SaaS solutions. It was also found that when using this method, the recommended development methodology is SCRUM. The result of this scientific

ART-Ada: An Ada-based expert system tool

Science.gov (United States)

Lee, S. Daniel; Allen, Bradley P.

1991-01-01

The Department of Defense mandate to standardize on Ada as the language for software systems development has resulted in increased interest in making expert systems technology readily available in Ada environments. NASA's Space Station Freedom is an example of the large Ada software development projects that will require expert systems in the 1990's. Another large scale application that can benefit from Ada based expert system tool technology is the Pilot's Associate (PA) expert system project for military combat aircraft. Automated Reasoning Tool (ART) Ada, an Ada Expert system tool is described. ART-Ada allow applications of a C-based expert system tool called ART-IM to be deployed in various Ada environments. ART-Ada is being used to implement several prototype expert systems for NASA's Space Station Freedom Program and the U.S. Air Force.

SenSyF Experience on Integration of EO Services in a Generic, Cloud-Based EO Exploitation Platform

Science.gov (United States)

Almeida, Nuno; Catarino, Nuno; Gutierrez, Antonio; Grosso, Nuno; Andrade, Joao; Caumont, Herve; Goncalves, Pedro; Villa, Guillermo; Mangin, Antoine; Serra, Romain; Johnsen, Harald; Grydeland, Tom; Emsley, Stephen; Jauch, Eduardo; Moreno, Jose; Ruiz, Antonio

2016-08-01

SenSyF is a cloud-based data processing framework for EO- based services. It has been pioneer in addressing Big Data issues from the Earth Observation point of view, and is a precursor of several of the technologies and methodologies that will be deployed in ESA's Thematic Exploitation Platforms and other related systems.The SenSyF system focuses on developing fully automated data management, together with access to a processing and exploitation framework, including Earth Observation specific tools. SenSyF is both a development and validation platform for data intensive applications using Earth Observation data. With SenSyF, scientific, institutional or commercial institutions developing EO- based applications and services can take advantage of distributed computational and storage resources, tailored for applications dependent on big Earth Observation data, and without resorting to deep infrastructure and technological investments.This paper describes the integration process and the experience gathered from different EO Service providers during the project.

Development of a tool for knowledge base verification of expert system based on Design/CPN

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kim, Jong Hyun

1998-02-01

Verification is a necessary work in developing a reliable expert system. Verification is a process aimed at demonstrating whether a system meets it's specified requirements. As expert systems are used in various applications, the knowledge base verification of systems takes an important position. The conventional Petri net approach that has been studied recently in order to verify the knowledge base is found that it is inadequate to verify the knowledge base of large and complex system, such as alarm processing system of nuclear power plant. Thus, we propose an improved method that models the knowledge base as enhanced colored Petri net. In this study, we analyze the reachability and the error characteristics of the knowledge base. Generally, verification process requires computational support by automated tools. For this reason, this study developed a tool for knowledge base verification based on Design/CPN, which is a tool for editing, modeling, and simulating Colored Petri net. This tool uses Enhanced Colored Petri net as a modeling method. By applying this tool to the knowledge base of nuclear power plant, it is noticed that it can successfully check most of the anomalies that can occur in a knowledge base

Geographical information System - Tool for the administration of the services of basic sanitation and drinkable water

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Villegas A, Claudia; Figueroa V, Claudia; Betancur V, Teresita

2000-01-01

The utility a Geographic Information System (GIS), is to develop urbane zone in this case, in the Jardin Municipality many elements and tools are supporting the management of service of potable water and basic sanitation, which constitute components of Territorial Ordering Plane (TOP)

Analyzing e-service quality in service-based website by E-SERVQUAL

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Babak Nemati

2012-04-01

Full Text Available Over the past two decades, two-way communication via web-based exchanges has been a popular method for different activities such as electronic transaction, publication, broadcasting, and other service applications. However, it is always necessary to measure the performance quality of web services using different technique such as e-SERVQUAL model. The proposed study of this paper uses this technique for measuring the quality of Iranian university e-services. The proposed study distributes a standard questionnaire among students who use this service through internet. The results indicate that only efficiency and online service quality in the e-service system are desirable. Managerial implications are represented.

Separate tools or tool kits: an exploratory study of engineers' preferences

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Vliegen, Ingrid; Kleingeld, P.A.M.; van Houtum, Geert-Jan

2010-01-01

This paper describes an exploratory study of aspects that should be taken into consideration when optimizing tool kits, i.e. cases containing sets of tools that are used by service engineers for corrective maintenance. The study was carried out among service engineers of an Original Equipment

The Dockstore: enabling modular, community-focused sharing of Docker-based genomics tools and workflows.

Science.gov (United States)

O'Connor, Brian D; Yuen, Denis; Chung, Vincent; Duncan, Andrew G; Liu, Xiang Kun; Patricia, Janice; Paten, Benedict; Stein, Lincoln; Ferretti, Vincent

2017-01-01

As genomic datasets continue to grow, the feasibility of downloading data to a local organization and running analysis on a traditional compute environment is becoming increasingly problematic. Current large-scale projects, such as the ICGC PanCancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG), the Data Platform for the U.S. Precision Medicine Initiative, and the NIH Big Data to Knowledge Center for Translational Genomics, are using cloud-based infrastructure to both host and perform analysis across large data sets. In PCAWG, over 5,800 whole human genomes were aligned and variant called across 14 cloud and HPC environments; the processed data was then made available on the cloud for further analysis and sharing. If run locally, an operation at this scale would have monopolized a typical academic data centre for many months, and would have presented major challenges for data storage and distribution. However, this scale is increasingly typical for genomics projects and necessitates a rethink of how analytical tools are packaged and moved to the data. For PCAWG, we embraced the use of highly portable Docker images for encapsulating and sharing complex alignment and variant calling workflows across highly variable environments. While successful, this endeavor revealed a limitation in Docker containers, namely the lack of a standardized way to describe and execute the tools encapsulated inside the container. As a result, we created the Dockstore ( https://dockstore.org), a project that brings together Docker images with standardized, machine-readable ways of describing and running the tools contained within. This service greatly improves the sharing and reuse of genomics tools and promotes interoperability with similar projects through emerging web service standards developed by the Global Alliance for Genomics and Health (GA4GH).

Analyzing asteroid reflectance spectra with numerical tools based on scattering simulations

Science.gov (United States)

Penttilä, Antti; Väisänen, Timo; Markkanen, Johannes; Martikainen, Julia; Gritsevich, Maria; Muinonen, Karri

2017-04-01

We are developing a set of numerical tools that can be used in analyzing the reflectance spectra of granular materials such as the regolith surface of atmosphereless Solar system objects. Our goal is to be able to explain, with realistic numerical scattering models, the spectral features arising when materials are intimately mixed together. We include the space-weathering -type effects in our simulations, i.e., mixing host mineral locally with small inclusions of another material in small proportions. Our motivation for this study comes from the present lack of such tools. The current common practice is to apply a semi-physical approximate model such as some variation of Hapke models [e.g., 1] or the Shkuratov model [2]. These models are expressed in a closed form so that they are relatively fast to apply. They are based on simplifications on the radiative transfer theory. The problem is that the validity of the model is not always guaranteed, and the derived physical properties related to particle scattering properties can be unrealistic [3]. We base our numerical tool into a chain of scattering simulations. Scattering properties of small inclusions inside an absorbing host matrix can be derived using exact methods solving the Maxwell equations of the system. The next step, scattering by a single regolith grain, is solved using a geometrical optics method accounting for surface reflections, internal absorption, and possibly the internal diffuse scattering. The third step involves the radiative transfer simulations of these regolith grains in a macroscopic planar element. The chain can be continued next with shadowing simulation over the target surface elements, and finally by integrating the bidirectional reflectance distribution function over the object's shape. Most of the tools in the proposed chain already exist, and one practical task for us is to tie these together into an easy-to-use toolchain that can be publicly distributed. We plan to open the

Programming Models and Tools for Intelligent Embedded Systems

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Sørensen, Peter Verner Bojsen

Design automation and analysis tools targeting embedded platforms, developed using a component-based design approach, must be able to reason about the capabilities of the platforms. In the general case where nothing is assumed about the components comprising a platform or the platform topology...... is used for checking the consistency of a design with respect to the availablity of services and resources. In the second application, a tool for automatically implementing the communication infrastructure of a process network application, the Service Relation Model is used for analyzing the capabilities...

EPA Region 1 - Map Layers for Valley ID Tool (Hosted Feature Service)

Science.gov (United States)

The Valley Service Feature Layer hosts spatial data for EPA Region 1's Valley Identification Tool. These layers contain attribute information added by EPA R1 GIS Center to help identify populated valleys:- Fac_2011NEI: Pollution sources selected from the National Emissions Inventory (EPA, 2011).- NE_Towns_PopValleys: New England Town polygons (courtesy USGS), with Population in Valleys and Population Density in Valleys calculated by EPA R1 GIS, from 2010 US Census blocks. - VT_E911: Vermont residences (courtesy VT Center for Geographic Information E-911).

Reduction of inequalities in health: assessing evidence-based tools

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Shea Beverley

2006-09-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background The reduction of health inequalities is a focus of many national and international health organisations. The need for pragmatic evidence-based approaches has led to the development of a number of evidence-based equity initiatives. This paper describes a new program that focuses upon evidence- based tools, which are useful for policy initiatives that reduce inequities. Methods This paper is based on a presentation that was given at the "Regional Consultation on Policy Tools: Equity in Population Health Reports," held in Toronto, Canada in June 2002. Results Five assessment tools were presented. 1. A database of systematic reviews on the effects of educational, legal, social, and health interventions to reduce unfair inequalities is being established through the Cochrane and Campbell Collaborations. 2 Decision aids and shared decision making can be facilitated in disadvantaged groups by 'health coaches' to help people become better decision makers, negotiators, and navigators of the health system; a pilot study in Chile has provided proof of this concept. 3. The CIET Cycle: Combining adapted cluster survey techniques with qualitative methods, CIET's population based applications support evidence-based decision making at local and national levels. The CIET map generates maps directly from survey or routine institutional data, to be used as evidence-based decisions aids. Complex data can be displayed attractively, providing an important tool for studying and comparing health indicators among and between different populations. 4. The Ottawa Equity Gauge is applying the Global Equity Gauge Alliance framework to an industrialised country setting. 5 The Needs-Based Health Assessment Toolkit, established to assemble information on which clinical and health policy decisions can be based, is being expanded to ensure a focus on distribution and average health indicators. Conclusion Evidence-based planning tools have much to offer the

A spatial analysis of cultural ecosystem service valuation by regional stakeholders in Florida: a coastal application of the social values for ecosystem services (SolVES) tool

Science.gov (United States)

Coffin, Alisa W.; Swett, Robert A.; Cole, Zachary D.

2012-01-01

Livelihoods and lifestyles of people throughout the world depend on essential goods and services provided by marine and coastal ecosystems. However, as societal demand increases and available ocean and coastal space diminish, better methods are needed to spatially and temporally allocate ocean and coastal activities such as shipping, energy production, tourism, and fishing. While economic valuation is an important mechanism for doing so, cultural ecosystem services often do not lend themselves to this method. Researchers from the U.S. Geological Survey are working collaboratively with the Florida Sea Grant College Program to map nonmonetary values of cultural ecosystem services for a pilot area (Sarasota Bay) in the Gulf of Mexico. The research seeks to close knowledge gaps about the attitudes and perceptions, or nonmonetary values, held by coastal residents toward cultural ecosystem services, and to adapt related, terrestrial-based research methods to a coastal setting. A critical goal is to integrate research results with coastal and marine spatial planning applications, thus making them relevant to coastal planners and managers in their daily efforts to sustainably manage coastal resources. Using information about the attitudes and preferences of people toward places and uses in the landscape, collected from value and preference surveys, the USGS SolVES 2.0 tool will provide quantitative models to relate social values, or perceived nonmonetary values, assigned to locations by survey respondents with the underlying environmental characteristics of those same locations. Project results will increase scientific and geographic knowledge of how Sarasota Bay residents value their area’s cultural ecosystem services.

The National 3-D Geospatial Information Web-Based Service of Korea

Science.gov (United States)

Lee, D. T.; Kim, C. W.; Kang, I. G.

2013-09-01

3D geospatial information systems should provide efficient spatial analysis tools and able to use all capabilities of the third dimension, and a visualization. Currently, many human activities make steps toward the third dimension like land use, urban and landscape planning, cadastre, environmental monitoring, transportation monitoring, real estate market, military applications, etc. To reflect this trend, the Korean government has been started to construct the 3D geospatial data and service platform. Since the geospatial information was introduced in Korea, the construction of geospatial information (3D geospatial information, digital maps, aerial photographs, ortho photographs, etc.) has been led by the central government. The purpose of this study is to introduce the Korean government-lead 3D geospatial information web-based service for the people who interested in this industry and we would like to introduce not only the present conditions of constructed 3D geospatial data but methodologies and applications of 3D geospatial information. About 15% (about 3,278.74 km2) of the total urban area's 3D geospatial data have been constructed by the national geographic information institute (NGII) of Korea from 2005 to 2012. Especially in six metropolitan cities and Dokdo (island belongs to Korea) on level of detail (LOD) 4 which is photo-realistic textured 3D models including corresponding ortho photographs were constructed in 2012. In this paper, we represented web-based 3D map service system composition and infrastructure and comparison of V-world with Google Earth service will be presented. We also represented Open API based service cases and discussed about the protection of location privacy when we construct 3D indoor building models. In order to prevent an invasion of privacy, we processed image blurring, elimination and camouflage. The importance of public-private cooperation and advanced geospatial information policy is emphasized in Korea. Thus, the progress of

Web-based tools from AHRQ's National Resource Center.

Science.gov (United States)

Cusack, Caitlin M; Shah, Sapna

2008-11-06

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) has made an investment of over $216 million in research around health information technology (health IT). As part of their investment, AHRQ has developed the National Resource Center for Health IT (NRC) which includes a public domain Web site. New content for the web site, such as white papers, toolkits, lessons from the health IT portfolio and web-based tools, is developed as needs are identified. Among the tools developed by the NRC are the Compendium of Surveys and the Clinical Decision Support (CDS) Resources. The Compendium of Surveys is a searchable repository of health IT evaluation surveys made available for public use. The CDS Resources contains content which may be used to develop clinical decision support tools, such as rules, reminders and templates. This live demonstration will show the access, use, and content of both these freely available web-based tools.

Using the simplified case mix tool (sCMT) to identify cost in special care dental services to support commissioning.

Science.gov (United States)

Duane, B G; Freeman, R; Richards, D; Crosbie, S; Patel, P; White, S; Humphris, G

2017-03-01

To commission dental services for vulnerable (special care) patient groups effectively, consistently and fairly an evidence base is needed of the costs involved. The simplified Case Mixed Tool (sCMT) can assess treatment mode complexity for these patient groups. To determine if the sCMT can be used to identify costs of service provision. Patients (n=495) attending the Sussex Community NHS Trust Special Care Dental Service for care were assessed using the sCMT. sCMT score and costs (staffing, laboratory fees, etc.) besides patient age, whether a new patient and use of general anaesthetic/intravenous sedation. Statistical analysis (adjusted linear regression modelling) compared sCMT score and costs then sensitivity analyses of the costings to age, being a new patient and sedation use were undertaken. Regression tables were produced to present estimates of service costs. Costs increased with sCMT total scale and single item values in a predictable manner in all analyses except for 'cooperation'. Costs increased with the use of IV sedation; with each rising level of the sCMT, and with complexity in every sCMT category, except cooperation. Costs increased with increase in complexity of treatment mode as measured by sCMT scores. Measures such as the sCMT can provide predictions of the resource allocations required when commissioning special care dental services. Copyright© 2017 Dennis Barber Ltd.

Paying for watershed services: an effective tool in the developing world?

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Grieg-Gran, Maryanne; Porras, Ina

2012-05-15

Payments for watershed services (PWS) are an increasingly popular conservation and water management tool in developing countries. Some schemes are thriving, and are pro-poor. Others are stalling or have only mixed success. Most rely on public or donor finance; and other sources of funding are unlikely to play a significant role any time soon. In part, financing PWS schemes remains a challenge because the actual evidence for their effectiveness is still scanty — it is hard to prove that they actually work to benefit both livelihoods and environments. Getting more direct and concrete data on costs and benefits will be crucial to securing the long-term future of PWS schemes.

ServicePro. A comprehensive customer care tool for highly penetrated markets

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Weiner, B.

1997-01-01

Contemporary marketing measures focus on recruiting new customers as a means of boosting sales. As the share of the market occupied by natural gas increases, the more probable it is that there will be dissatisfied customers who are prepared to switch to other energy sources. Systematic customer care measures are therefore a necessity ServicePro is a customer care concept that has been developed in response to this need. Its three modules are technical, contractual and general customer care. Practical local implementation is assisted by database software and a manual containing tools and examples. Customer care activities also strengthen customer relations and improve the gas utility's image. (au)

The State of Cloud-Based Biospecimen and Biobank Data Management Tools.

Science.gov (United States)

Paul, Shonali; Gade, Aditi; Mallipeddi, Sumani

2017-04-01

Biobanks are critical for collecting and managing high-quality biospecimens from donors with appropriate clinical annotation. The high-quality human biospecimens and associated data are required to better understand disease processes. Therefore, biobanks have become an important and essential resource for healthcare research and drug discovery. However, collecting and managing huge volumes of data (biospecimens and associated clinical data) necessitate that biobanks use appropriate data management solutions that can keep pace with the ever-changing requirements of research. To automate biobank data management, biobanks have been investing in traditional Laboratory Information Management Systems (LIMS). However, there are a myriad of challenges faced by biobanks in acquiring traditional LIMS. Traditional LIMS are cost-intensive and often lack the flexibility to accommodate changes in data sources and workflows. Cloud technology is emerging as an alternative that provides the opportunity to small and medium-sized biobanks to automate their operations in a cost-effective manner, even without IT personnel. Cloud-based solutions offer the advantage of heightened security, rapid scalability, dynamic allocation of services, and can facilitate collaboration between different research groups by using a shared environment on a "pay-as-you-go" basis. The benefits offered by cloud technology have resulted in the development of cloud-based data management solutions as an alternative to traditional on-premise software. After evaluating the advantages offered by cloud technology, several biobanks have started adopting cloud-based tools. Cloud-based tools provide biobanks with easy access to biospecimen data for real-time sharing with clinicians. Another major benefit realized by biobanks by implementing cloud-based applications is unlimited data storage on the cloud and automatic backups for protecting any data loss in the face of natural calamities.

Addressing and Presenting Quality of Satellite Data via Web-Based Services

Science.gov (United States)

Leptoukh, Gregory; Lynnes, C.; Ahmad, S.; Fox, P.; Zednik, S.; West, P.

2011-01-01

With the recent attention to climate change and proliferation of remote-sensing data utilization, climate model and various environmental monitoring and protection applications have begun to increasingly rely on satellite measurements. Research application users seek good quality satellite data, with uncertainties and biases provided for each data point. However, different communities address remote sensing quality issues rather inconsistently and differently. We describe our attempt to systematically characterize, capture, and provision quality and uncertainty information as it applies to the NASA MODIS Aerosol Optical Depth data product. In particular, we note the semantic differences in quality/bias/uncertainty at the pixel, granule, product, and record levels. We outline various factors contributing to uncertainty or error budget; errors. Web-based science analysis and processing tools allow users to access, analyze, and generate visualizations of data while alleviating users from having directly managing complex data processing operations. These tools provide value by streamlining the data analysis process, but usually shield users from details of the data processing steps, algorithm assumptions, caveats, etc. Correct interpretation of the final analysis requires user understanding of how data has been generated and processed and what potential biases, anomalies, or errors may have been introduced. By providing services that leverage data lineage provenance and domain-expertise, expert systems can be built to aid the user in understanding data sources, processing, and the suitability for use of products generated by the tools. We describe our experiences developing a semantic, provenance-aware, expert-knowledge advisory system applied to NASA Giovanni web-based Earth science data analysis tool as part of the ESTO AIST-funded Multi-sensor Data Synergy Advisor project.

Model based methods and tools for process systems engineering

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Gani, Rafiqul

need to be integrated with work-flows and data-flows for specific product-process synthesis-design problems within a computer-aided framework. The framework therefore should be able to manage knowledge-data, models and the associated methods and tools needed by specific synthesis-design work...... of model based methods and tools within a computer aided framework for product-process synthesis-design will be highlighted.......Process systems engineering (PSE) provides means to solve a wide range of problems in a systematic and efficient manner. This presentation will give a perspective on model based methods and tools needed to solve a wide range of problems in product-process synthesis-design. These methods and tools...

Designing pharmacy services based on grocery store patron preferences.

Science.gov (United States)

Lindstrom, Nicolette S Raya; Casper, Kristin A; Green, Tara R; Pedersen, Craig A

2007-01-01

To assess preferences of grocery store patrons concerning pharmacy services and identify study participant characteristics that may predict the success of pharmacy services in the community setting. Self-administered survey. Central Ohio from December 16, 2005, to January 12, 2006. 163 grocery store patrons. Eight grocery store survey events. Responses to survey items about (1) perceived importance of 28 pharmacy services, (2) identification of the 3 most important services, (3) frequency of grocery store and pharmacy use, (4) preferred methods of advertising pharmacy services, and (5) socioeconomic demographics. Preferred services delineated by various demographics also were analyzed. A total of 163 surveys were returned from study participants. Nine services appeared in both the top 12 overall preferred services and the 12 highest-ranked services. Statistically significant differences were observed among services ranked as important or very important by age, race, employment, income, caregiver status, and prescription drug coverage status. The three advertising tools selected most frequently included: weekly grocery store ads (68.6%), in-store signs (51.0%), and flyers attached to prescription bags (36.0%). Grocery store patrons would like a wide range of nontraditional pharmacy services that could be implemented into community pharmacies. Pharmacies in grocery stores need to provide both traditional and expanded pharmacy services to meet the desires and expectations of current and potential patients, and expanded marketing methods should be considered.

Leveraging quality improvement through use of the Systems Assessment Tool in Indigenous primary health care services: a mixed methods study.

Science.gov (United States)

Cunningham, Frances C; Ferguson-Hill, Sue; Matthews, Veronica; Bailie, Ross

2016-10-18

Assessment of the quality of primary health care health delivery systems is a vital part of continuous quality improvement (CQI) processes. The Systems Assessment Tool (SAT) was designed to support Indigenous PHC services in assessing and improving their health care systems. It was based on the Assessment of Chronic Illness Care scale, and on practical experience with applying systems assessments in quality improvement in Indigenous primary health care. We describe the development and application of the SAT, report on a survey to assess the utility of the SAT and review the use of the SAT in other CQI research programs. The mixed methods approach involved a review of documents and internal reports relating to experience with use of the SAT since its development in 2002 and a survey of key informants on their experience with using the SAT. The paper drew from documents and internal reports to describe the SAT development and application in primary health care services from 2002 to 2014. Survey feedback highlighted the benefit to the whole primary health care team from participating in the SAT, bringing to light issues that might not emerge with separate individual tool completion. A majority of respondents reported changes in their health centres as a result of using the SAT. Good organisational and management support assisted with ensuring allocation of time and resources for SAT conduct. Respondents identified the importance of having a skilled, external facilitator. Originally designed as a measurement tool, the SAT rapidly evolved to become an important development tool, assisting teams in learning about primary health care system functioning, applying best practice and contributing to team strengthening. It is valued by primary health care centres as a lever in implementing improvements to strengthen centre delivery systems, and has potential for further adaptation and wider application in Australia and internationally.

Supporting Beginning Teacher Planning and Enactment of Investigation-based Science Discussions: The Design and Use of Tools within Practice-based Teacher Education

Science.gov (United States)

Kademian, Sylvie M.

Current reform efforts prioritize science instruction that provides opportunities for students to engage in productive talk about scientific phenomena. Given the challenges teachers face enacting instruction that integrates science practices and science content, beginning teachers need support to develop the knowledge and teaching practices required to teach reform-oriented science lessons. Practice-based teacher education shows potential for supporting beginning teachers while they are learning to teach in this way. However, little is known about how beginning elementary teachers draw upon the types of support and tools associated with practice-based teacher education to learn to successfully enact this type of instruction. This dissertation addresses this gap by investigating how a practice-based science methods course using a suite of teacher educator-provided tools can support beginning teachers' planning and enactment of investigation-based science lessons. Using qualitative case study methodologies, this study drew on video-records, lesson plans, class assignments, and surveys from one cohort of 22 pre-service teachers (called interns in this study) enrolled in a year-long elementary education master of the arts and teaching certification program. Six focal interns were also interviewed at multiple time-points during the methods course. Similarities existed across the types of tools and teaching practices interns used most frequently to plan and enact investigation-based discussions. For the focal interns, use of four synergistic teaching practices throughout the lesson enactments (including consideration of students' initial ideas; use of open-ended questions to elicit, extend, and challenge ideas; connecting across students' ideas and the disciplinary core ideas; and use of a representation to organize and highlight students' ideas) appeared to lead to increased opportunities for students to share their ideas and engage in data analysis, argumentation and

Functional principles of registry-based service discovery

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Sundramoorthy, V.; Tan, C.; Hartel, P.H.; Hartog, den J.I.; Scholten, J.

2005-01-01

As Service Discovery Protocols (SDP) are becoming increasingly important for ubiquitous computing, they must behave according to predefined principles. We present the functional Principles of Service Discovery for robust, registry-based service discovery. A methodology to guarantee adherence to

Tools and data services registry: a community effort to document bioinformatics resources

Science.gov (United States)

Ison, Jon; Rapacki, Kristoffer; Ménager, Hervé; Kalaš, Matúš; Rydza, Emil; Chmura, Piotr; Anthon, Christian; Beard, Niall; Berka, Karel; Bolser, Dan; Booth, Tim; Bretaudeau, Anthony; Brezovsky, Jan; Casadio, Rita; Cesareni, Gianni; Coppens, Frederik; Cornell, Michael; Cuccuru, Gianmauro; Davidsen, Kristian; Vedova, Gianluca Della; Dogan, Tunca; Doppelt-Azeroual, Olivia; Emery, Laura; Gasteiger, Elisabeth; Gatter, Thomas; Goldberg, Tatyana; Grosjean, Marie; Grüning, Björn; Helmer-Citterich, Manuela; Ienasescu, Hans; Ioannidis, Vassilios; Jespersen, Martin Closter; Jimenez, Rafael; Juty, Nick; Juvan, Peter; Koch, Maximilian; Laibe, Camille; Li, Jing-Woei; Licata, Luana; Mareuil, Fabien; Mičetić, Ivan; Friborg, Rune Møllegaard; Moretti, Sebastien; Morris, Chris; Möller, Steffen; Nenadic, Aleksandra; Peterson, Hedi; Profiti, Giuseppe; Rice, Peter; Romano, Paolo; Roncaglia, Paola; Saidi, Rabie; Schafferhans, Andrea; Schwämmle, Veit; Smith, Callum; Sperotto, Maria Maddalena; Stockinger, Heinz; Vařeková, Radka Svobodová; Tosatto, Silvio C.E.; de la Torre, Victor; Uva, Paolo; Via, Allegra; Yachdav, Guy; Zambelli, Federico; Vriend, Gert; Rost, Burkhard; Parkinson, Helen; Løngreen, Peter; Brunak, Søren

2016-01-01

Life sciences are yielding huge data sets that underpin scientific discoveries fundamental to improvement in human health, agriculture and the environment. In support of these discoveries, a plethora of databases and tools are deployed, in technically complex and diverse implementations, across a spectrum of scientific disciplines. The corpus of documentation of these resources is fragmented across the Web, with much redundancy, and has lacked a common standard of information. The outcome is that scientists must often struggle to find, understand, compare and use the best resources for the task at hand. Here we present a community-driven curation effort, supported by ELIXIR—the European infrastructure for biological information—that aspires to a comprehensive and consistent registry of information about bioinformatics resources. The sustainable upkeep of this Tools and Data Services Registry is assured by a curation effort driven by and tailored to local needs, and shared amongst a network of engaged partners. As of November 2015, the registry includes 1785 resources, with depositions from 126 individual registrations including 52 institutional providers and 74 individuals. With community support, the registry can become a standard for dissemination of information about bioinformatics resources: we welcome everyone to join us in this common endeavour. The registry is freely available at https://bio.tools. PMID:26538599

Cloud based emergency health care information service in India.

Science.gov (United States)

Karthikeyan, N; Sukanesh, R

2012-12-01

past years. We have developed two services for health care. 1. Cloud based Palm vein recognition system 2. Distributed Medical image processing tools for medical practitioners.

The Application of Strategic Planning Tools for Enhanced Palliative Care Services at the Minneapolis Veterans Affairs Medical Center

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Mylan, Marci M

2005-01-01

.... Using selected strategic planning tools, the study examined the gaps in services by gathering staff opinions, examining local statistics regarding end-of-life care, and looking at community and national trends...

Innovative Interdisciplinary Training in and Delivery of Evidence-Based Geriatric Services: Creating a Bridge with Social Work and Physical Therapy

Science.gov (United States)

Rowan, Noell L.; Gillette, Patricia D.; Faul, Anna C.; Yankeelov, Pamela A.; Borders, Kevin W.; Deck, Stacy; Nicholas, Lori D.; Wiegand, Mark

2009-01-01

With focus on interdisciplinary education models, social work and physical therapy faculty from two proximate universities partnered to create an evidence-based geriatric assessment and brief intervention research, training, and service project for community-dwelling older adults. Assessment tools and interventions were selected from the…

Architecture Design of Healthcare Software-as-a-Service Platform for Cloud-Based Clinical Decision Support Service.

Science.gov (United States)

Oh, Sungyoung; Cha, Jieun; Ji, Myungkyu; Kang, Hyekyung; Kim, Seok; Heo, Eunyoung; Han, Jong Soo; Kang, Hyunggoo; Chae, Hoseok; Hwang, Hee; Yoo, Sooyoung

2015-04-01

To design a cloud computing-based Healthcare Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) Platform (HSP) for delivering healthcare information services with low cost, high clinical value, and high usability. We analyzed the architecture requirements of an HSP, including the interface, business services, cloud SaaS, quality attributes, privacy and security, and multi-lingual capacity. For cloud-based SaaS services, we focused on Clinical Decision Service (CDS) content services, basic functional services, and mobile services. Microsoft's Azure cloud computing for Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) was used. The functional and software views of an HSP were designed in a layered architecture. External systems can be interfaced with the HSP using SOAP and REST/JSON. The multi-tenancy model of the HSP was designed as a shared database, with a separate schema for each tenant through a single application, although healthcare data can be physically located on a cloud or in a hospital, depending on regulations. The CDS services were categorized into rule-based services for medications, alert registration services, and knowledge services. We expect that cloud-based HSPs will allow small and mid-sized hospitals, in addition to large-sized hospitals, to adopt information infrastructures and health information technology with low system operation and maintenance costs.

Graphical matching rules for cardinality based service feature diagrams

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Faiza Kanwal

2017-03-01

Full Text Available To provide efficient services to end-users, variability and commonality among the features of the product line is a challenge for industrialist and researchers. Feature modeling provides great services to deal with variability and commonality among the features of product line. Cardinality based service feature diagrams changed the basic framework of service feature diagrams by putting constraints to them, which make service specifications more flexible, but apart from their variation in selection third party services may have to be customizable. Although to control variability, cardinality based service feature diagrams provide high level visual notations. For specifying variability, the use of cardinality based service feature diagrams raises the problem of matching a required feature diagram against the set of provided diagrams.

Dynamic selection mechanism for quality of service aware web services

Science.gov (United States)

D'Mello, Demian Antony; Ananthanarayana, V. S.

2010-02-01

A web service is an interface of the software component that can be accessed by standard Internet protocols. The web service technology enables an application to application communication and interoperability. The increasing number of web service providers throughout the globe have produced numerous web services providing the same or similar functionality. This necessitates the use of tools and techniques to search the suitable services available over the Web. UDDI (universal description, discovery and integration) is the first initiative to find the suitable web services based on the requester's functional demands. However, the requester's requirements may also include non-functional aspects like quality of service (QoS). In this paper, the authors define a QoS model for QoS aware and business driven web service publishing and selection. The authors propose a QoS requirement format for the requesters, to specify their complex demands on QoS for the web service selection. The authors define a tree structure called quality constraint tree (QCT) to represent the requester's variety of requirements on QoS properties having varied preferences. The paper proposes a QoS broker based architecture for web service selection, which facilitates the requesters to specify their QoS requirements to select qualitatively optimal web service. A web service selection algorithm is presented, which ranks the functionally similar web services based on the degree of satisfaction of the requester's QoS requirements and preferences. The paper defines web service provider qualities to distinguish qualitatively competitive web services. The paper also presents the modelling and selection mechanism for the requester's alternative constraints defined on the QoS. The authors implement the QoS broker based system to prove the correctness of the proposed web service selection mechanism.

Evaluating the police service quality for handling traffic crash reporting

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Janstrup, Kira Hyldekær; Kaplan, Sigal; Barfod, Michael Bruhn

2017-01-01

at the police service quality for handling the reporting of traffic crashes. Design/methodology/approach This study introduces a novel approach to evaluate service quality that combines multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) with latent class analysis (LCA). Moreover, this study presents the design of a web....../value This study advances the knowledge about police service quality with a novel expert-based decision support tool based on SERVQUAL, MCDA and LCA, demonstrates its applicability in countries with a high-police service, and opportunities and barriers for increasing the crash reporting rate....... participated in the survey that yielded 86 complete responses. Findings The novel approach was successfully applied and its implementation demonstrated the usefulness of the tool even in countries with a high police service. Results showed that the participating stakeholders perceived human factors as more...

Architecture Design of Healthcare Software-as-a-Service Platform for Cloud-Based Clinical Decision Support Service

Science.gov (United States)

Oh, Sungyoung; Cha, Jieun; Ji, Myungkyu; Kang, Hyekyung; Kim, Seok; Heo, Eunyoung; Han, Jong Soo; Kang, Hyunggoo; Chae, Hoseok; Hwang, Hee

2015-01-01

Objectives To design a cloud computing-based Healthcare Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) Platform (HSP) for delivering healthcare information services with low cost, high clinical value, and high usability. Methods We analyzed the architecture requirements of an HSP, including the interface, business services, cloud SaaS, quality attributes, privacy and security, and multi-lingual capacity. For cloud-based SaaS services, we focused on Clinical Decision Service (CDS) content services, basic functional services, and mobile services. Microsoft's Azure cloud computing for Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) was used. Results The functional and software views of an HSP were designed in a layered architecture. External systems can be interfaced with the HSP using SOAP and REST/JSON. The multi-tenancy model of the HSP was designed as a shared database, with a separate schema for each tenant through a single application, although healthcare data can be physically located on a cloud or in a hospital, depending on regulations. The CDS services were categorized into rule-based services for medications, alert registration services, and knowledge services. Conclusions We expect that cloud-based HSPs will allow small and mid-sized hospitals, in addition to large-sized hospitals, to adopt information infrastructures and health information technology with low system operation and maintenance costs. PMID:25995962

Akzeptanz von Location Based Services

OpenAIRE

Bauer, Hans H.; Haber, Tobias E.; Reichardt, Tina; Bökamp, Marten

2006-01-01

Die enormen Investitionen in UMTS-Lizenzen und den Aufbau einer neuen Netzinfrastruktur zwingen die Mobilfunkanbieter zur Erschließung neuer Umsatzpotenziale. Durch Entwicklung neuer mobiler Mehrwertdienste hoffen sie, die „Killerapplikation“ der 3. Mobilfunkgeneration zu finden, die ähnlich wie der Short Message Service (SMS) für GSM, zum Treiber des UMTS-Markterfolges werden kann. Nach Meinung vieler Marktbeobachter könnten Location Based Services, d.h. mobile Dienste, die ...

A Tool for Conceptualising in PSS development

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Matzen, Detlef; McAloone, Timothy Charles

2006-01-01

This paper introduces a tool for conceptualising in the development of product/servicesystems (PSS), based upon the modelling of service activities. Our argumentation is built on two previous articles by the same author, previously presented at the 16. Symposium “Design for X” [1] and the 9th Int...... the integrated consideration of the customers’ activities, possible PSS offerings and beneficial partnering options (i.e. between different supplier companies) within the delivery value chain.......This paper introduces a tool for conceptualising in the development of product/servicesystems (PSS), based upon the modelling of service activities. Our argumentation is built on two previous articles by the same author, previously presented at the 16. Symposium “Design for X” [1] and the 9th...... International Design Conference [2]. In this contribution, we take the step from a fundamental understanding of the phenomenon to creating a normative exploitation of this understanding for PSS concept development. The developed modelling technique is based on the Customer Activity Cycle (CAC) model...

Supporting the scientific lifecycle through cloud services

Science.gov (United States)

Gensch, S.; Klump, J. F.; Bertelmann, R.; Braune, C.

2014-12-01

Cloud computing has made resources and applications available for numerous use cases ranging from business processes in the private sector to scientific applications. Developers have created tools for data management, collaborative writing, social networking, data access and visualization, project management and many more; either for free or as paid premium services with additional or extended features. Scientists have begun to incorporate tools that fit their needs into their daily work. To satisfy specialized needs, some cloud applications specifically address the needs of scientists for sharing research data, literature search, laboratory documentation, or data visualization. Cloud services may vary in extent, user coverage, and inter-service integration and are also at risk of being abandonend or changed by the service providers making changes to their business model, or leaving the field entirely.Within the project Academic Enterprise Cloud we examine cloud based services that support the research lifecycle, using feature models to describe key properties in the areas of infrastructure and service provision, compliance to legal regulations, and data curation. Emphasis is put on the term Enterprise as to establish an academic cloud service provider infrastructure that satisfies demands of the research community through continious provision across the whole cloud stack. This could enable the research community to be independent from service providers regarding changes to terms of service and ensuring full control of its extent and usage. This shift towards a self-empowered scientific cloud provider infrastructure and its community raises implications about feasability of provision and overall costs. Legal aspects and licensing issues have to be considered, when moving data into cloud services, especially when personal data is involved.Educating researchers about cloud based tools is important to help in the transition towards effective and safe use. Scientists

A quality assessment tool for markup-based clinical guidelines.

Science.gov (United States)

Shalom, Erez; Shahar, Yuval; Taieb-Maimon, Meirav; Lunenfeld, Eitan

2008-11-06

We introduce a tool for quality assessment of procedural and declarative knowledge. We developed this tool for evaluating the specification of mark-up-based clinical GLs. Using this graphical tool, the expert physician and knowledge engineer collaborate to perform scoring, using pre-defined scoring scale, each of the knowledge roles of the mark-ups, comparing it to a gold standard. The tool enables scoring the mark-ups simultaneously at different sites by different users at different locations.

Case-mix tool, costs and effectiveness in improving primary care mental health and substance abuse services.

Science.gov (United States)

Riihimäki, Kirsi; Heiska-Johansson, Ainomaija; Ketola, Eeva

2018-02-01

Despite its importance in improving care and developing services, high-quality data evaluating cost-effectiveness and services in different case-mix populations is scarce in primary care. The objective was to investigate the service use of those mental health and substance abuse patients, who use lots of services. Primary health care diagnosis-related groups (pDRG) is a tool to evaluate service provider system and improve efficiency, productivity and quality. We viewed all pDRG results available from the year 2015 concerning municipal mental health and substance abuse services. In primary care mental health and substance abuse services, the most common ICD-10-codes were depression and substance abuse. One-fifth of patients produced 57% of costs. Their medium of appointments was 16 per year versus 6 per year of all patients. Only 54% of their diagnoses were recorded in the electronic health records versus 75% of all patients. They made 5.7 different pDRG episodes, including 1.8 episodes of depression, per patient. The average episode cost for this patient group was 301€. pDRG makes health care production transparent also in mental health and substance abuse services. It is easy to identify patients, who use a lot of services and thus induce the majority of costs, and focus on their needs in managing and developing services.

The Multimedia Case as a Tool for Professional Development: An Analysis of Online and Face-to-Face Interaction among Mathematics Pre-Service Teachers, In-Service Teachers, Mathematicians, and Mathematics Teacher Educators

Science.gov (United States)

McGraw, Rebecca; Lynch, Kathleen; Koc, Yusuf; Budak, Ayfer; Brown, Catherine A.

2007-01-01

In this study, we consider the potential of multimedia cases as tools for teacher professional development. Specifically, we examined online and face-to-face discussions that occurred within groups composed of pre-service mathematics teachers, in-service mathematics teachers, mathematicians, and mathematics teacher educators. Discussions within…

Model-based setup assistant for progressive tools

Science.gov (United States)

Springer, Robert; Gräler, Manuel; Homberg, Werner; Henke, Christian; Trächtler, Ansgar

2018-05-01

In the field of production systems, globalization and technological progress lead to increasing requirements regarding part quality, delivery time and costs. Hence, today's production is challenged much more than a few years ago: it has to be very flexible and produce economically small batch sizes to satisfy consumer's demands and avoid unnecessary stock. Furthermore, a trend towards increasing functional integration continues to lead to an ongoing miniaturization of sheet metal components. In the industry of electric connectivity for example, the miniaturized connectors are manufactured by progressive tools, which are usually used for very large batches. These tools are installed in mechanical presses and then set up by a technician, who has to manually adjust a wide range of punch-bending operations. Disturbances like material thickness, temperatures, lubrication or tool wear complicate the setup procedure. In prospect of the increasing demand of production flexibility, this time-consuming process has to be handled more and more often. In this paper, a new approach for a model-based setup assistant is proposed as a solution, which is exemplarily applied in combination with a progressive tool. First, progressive tools, more specifically, their setup process is described and based on that, the challenges are pointed out. As a result, a systematic process to set up the machines is introduced. Following, the process is investigated with an FE-Analysis regarding the effects of the disturbances. In the next step, design of experiments is used to systematically develop a regression model of the system's behaviour. This model is integrated within an optimization in order to calculate optimal machine parameters and the following necessary adjustment of the progressive tool due to the disturbances. Finally, the assistant is tested in a production environment and the results are discussed.

Architecture Design of Healthcare Software-as-a-Service Platform for Cloud-Based Clinical Decision Support Service

OpenAIRE

Oh, Sungyoung; Cha, Jieun; Ji, Myungkyu; Kang, Hyekyung; Kim, Seok; Heo, Eunyoung; Han, Jong Soo; Kang, Hyunggoo; Chae, Hoseok; Hwang, Hee; Yoo, Sooyoung

2015-01-01

Objectives To design a cloud computing-based Healthcare Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) Platform (HSP) for delivering healthcare information services with low cost, high clinical value, and high usability. Methods We analyzed the architecture requirements of an HSP, including the interface, business services, cloud SaaS, quality attributes, privacy and security, and multi-lingual capacity. For cloud-based SaaS services, we focused on Clinical Decision Service (CDS) content services, basic functi...

Lynx web services for annotations and systems analysis of multi-gene disorders.

Science.gov (United States)

Sulakhe, Dinanath; Taylor, Andrew; Balasubramanian, Sandhya; Feng, Bo; Xie, Bingqing; Börnigen, Daniela; Dave, Utpal J; Foster, Ian T; Gilliam, T Conrad; Maltsev, Natalia

2014-07-01

Lynx is a web-based integrated systems biology platform that supports annotation and analysis of experimental data and generation of weighted hypotheses on molecular mechanisms contributing to human phenotypes and disorders of interest. Lynx has integrated multiple classes of biomedical data (genomic, proteomic, pathways, phenotypic, toxicogenomic, contextual and others) from various public databases as well as manually curated data from our group and collaborators (LynxKB). Lynx provides tools for gene list enrichment analysis using multiple functional annotations and network-based gene prioritization. Lynx provides access to the integrated database and the analytical tools via REST based Web Services (http://lynx.ci.uchicago.edu/webservices.html). This comprises data retrieval services for specific functional annotations, services to search across the complete LynxKB (powered by Lucene), and services to access the analytical tools built within the Lynx platform. © The Author(s) 2014. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Nucleic Acids Research.

Appraisement and benchmarking of third-party logistic service provider by exploration of risk-based approach

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Nitin Kumar Sahu

2015-12-01

Full Text Available In the present era, Reverse Logistics Support has monitored as a momentous realm, where stuffs are transferred from point of consumption to origin. The companies who provide the logistic equipments, i.e. Truck, Joseph Cyril Bomford, and Shipment, etc. to its partner’s firms called Third-Party Logistics (3PL service provider. Today, the feasible 3PL service provider evaluation-opt problem is yet an amorous dilemma. The appraisement and benchmarking of logistics service providers in extent of index; allied risk-based indices and their interrelated metrics; outlooked as a great tool for each international firm, in order that firm could obtain their core goals. The novelty of manuscript is that here, a hairy-based approach has been integrated and then implemented upon a novel developed multi hierarchical third-party logistics (3PL service providers appraisement index in purpose to umpire the 3PL provider for their strong and ill’s core indices. Moreover, the overall score (Si system has also been carried out for benchmarking the 3PL provider companies, where s1 has been found as the best 3PL service provider. The developed approach enabled the manager of firms to make the verdict towards the best inclusive evaluation process of 3PL performance appraisement and benchmarking. A numerical illustration has also been provided to validate the verdict support system.

REST based service composition

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Grönvall, Erik; Ingstrup, Mads; Pløger, Morten

2011-01-01

This paper presents an ongoing work developing and testing a Service Composition framework based upon the REST architecture named SECREST. A minimalistic approach have been favored instead of a creating a complete infrastructure. One focus has been on the system's interaction model. Indeed, an aim...

The East London glaucoma prediction score: web-based validation of glaucoma risk screening tool

Science.gov (United States)

Stephen, Cook; Benjamin, Longo-Mbenza

2013-01-01

AIM It is difficult for Optometrists and General Practitioners to know which patients are at risk. The East London glaucoma prediction score (ELGPS) is a web based risk calculator that has been developed to determine Glaucoma risk at the time of screening. Multiple risk factors that are available in a low tech environment are assessed to provide a risk assessment. This is extremely useful in settings where access to specialist care is difficult. Use of the calculator is educational. It is a free web based service. Data capture is user specific. METHOD The scoring system is a web based questionnaire that captures and subsequently calculates the relative risk for the presence of Glaucoma at the time of screening. Three categories of patient are described: Unlikely to have Glaucoma; Glaucoma Suspect and Glaucoma. A case review methodology of patients with known diagnosis is employed to validate the calculator risk assessment. RESULTS Data from the patient records of 400 patients with an established diagnosis has been captured and used to validate the screening tool. The website reports that the calculated diagnosis correlates with the actual diagnosis 82% of the time. Biostatistics analysis showed: Sensitivity = 88%; Positive predictive value = 97%; Specificity = 75%. CONCLUSION Analysis of the first 400 patients validates the web based screening tool as being a good method of screening for the at risk population. The validation is ongoing. The web based format will allow a more widespread recruitment for different geographic, population and personnel variables. PMID:23550097

Web-based GIS: the vector-borne disease airline importation risk (VBD-AIR) tool.

Science.gov (United States)

Huang, Zhuojie; Das, Anirrudha; Qiu, Youliang; Tatem, Andrew J

2012-08-14

Over the past century, the size and complexity of the air travel network has increased dramatically. Nowadays, there are 29.6 million scheduled flights per year and around 2.7 billion passengers are transported annually. The rapid expansion of the network increasingly connects regions of endemic vector-borne disease with the rest of the world, resulting in challenges to health systems worldwide in terms of vector-borne pathogen importation and disease vector invasion events. Here we describe the development of a user-friendly Web-based GIS tool: the Vector-Borne Disease Airline Importation Risk Tool (VBD-AIR), to help better define the roles of airports and airlines in the transmission and spread of vector-borne diseases. Spatial datasets on modeled global disease and vector distributions, as well as climatic and air network traffic data were assembled. These were combined to derive relative risk metrics via air travel for imported infections, imported vectors and onward transmission, and incorporated into a three-tier server architecture in a Model-View-Controller framework with distributed GIS components. A user-friendly web-portal was built that enables dynamic querying of the spatial databases to provide relevant information. The VBD-AIR tool constructed enables the user to explore the interrelationships among modeled global distributions of vector-borne infectious diseases (malaria. dengue, yellow fever and chikungunya) and international air service routes to quantify seasonally changing risks of vector and vector-borne disease importation and spread by air travel, forming an evidence base to help plan mitigation strategies. The VBD-AIR tool is available at http://www.vbd-air.com. VBD-AIR supports a data flow that generates analytical results from disparate but complementary datasets into an organized cartographical presentation on a web map for the assessment of vector-borne disease movements on the air travel network. The framework built provides a flexible

Automated UAV-based video exploitation using service oriented architecture framework

Science.gov (United States)

Se, Stephen; Nadeau, Christian; Wood, Scott

2011-05-01

Airborne surveillance and reconnaissance are essential for successful military missions. Such capabilities are critical for troop protection, situational awareness, mission planning, damage assessment, and others. Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) gather huge amounts of video data but it is extremely labour-intensive for operators to analyze hours and hours of received data. At MDA, we have developed a suite of tools that can process the UAV video data automatically, including mosaicking, change detection and 3D reconstruction, which have been integrated within a standard GIS framework. In addition, the mosaicking and 3D reconstruction tools have also been integrated in a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) framework. The Visualization and Exploitation Workstation (VIEW) integrates 2D and 3D visualization, processing, and analysis capabilities developed for UAV video exploitation. Visualization capabilities are supported through a thick-client Graphical User Interface (GUI), which allows visualization of 2D imagery, video, and 3D models. The GUI interacts with the VIEW server, which provides video mosaicking and 3D reconstruction exploitation services through the SOA framework. The SOA framework allows multiple users to perform video exploitation by running a GUI client on the operator's computer and invoking the video exploitation functionalities residing on the server. This allows the exploitation services to be upgraded easily and allows the intensive video processing to run on powerful workstations. MDA provides UAV services to the Canadian and Australian forces in Afghanistan with the Heron, a Medium Altitude Long Endurance (MALE) UAV system. On-going flight operations service provides important intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance information to commanders and front-line soldiers.

OLBS: Offline location based services

OpenAIRE

Coelho, P; Ana Aguiar; João Correia Lopes

2011-01-01

Most existing location-based services rely on ubiquitous connectivity to deliver location-based contents to the users. However, connectivity is not available anywhere at anytime even in urban centres. Underground, indoors, remote areas, and foreign countries are examples situations where users commonly do not have guaranteed connectivity but could profit from location-based contents. In this work, we propose an open platform for publishing, distributing and maintaining location-based contents...

Behavioral health service utilization and preferences of older adults receiving home-based aging services.

Science.gov (United States)

Gum, Amber M; Iser, Lindsay; Petkus, Andrew

2010-06-01

To examine use of behavioral health services, treatment preferences, and facilitators and barriers to service use in older adults receiving home-based services within the aging network. Cross-sectional survey. Interviews were conducted in participants' homes. One hundred forty-two clients receiving home-based aging services. Structured Clinical Interview for Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition; Brief Symptom Inventory-18; Discrimination-Devaluation Scale; utilization of behavioral health services; and preferences, facilitators, and barriers for behavioral health services. Use of psychotropic medication was high (54.2%), primarily received in primary care settings (58.8%), with a few visits a year (54.0%). Participants were more likely to be taking psychotropic medication if they were younger and white. Approximately one-third of participants on antidepressant or antianxiety medication still met criteria for an Axis I disorder. Twenty-one participants (14.8%) reported receiving counseling within the past year, with a few visits or less a year for most (57.1%). Almost all were willing to see at least one professional (97.2%) and try prescribed medications or counseling (90.1%). The most common barriers to service use were practical: affordability (71.8%), difficulty traveling (62.7%), and lack of transportation (45.8%). Aging network clients receiving home-based services have ready access to psychotropic medications but receive very few specialty behavioral health services and medication monitoring visits. They are willing to use a variety of behavioral health services and perceive mainly practical barriers to using services. The aging network has significant potential to enhance access to service utilization; strategies for integrating behavioral health services in the aging network are discussed.

EarthServer2 : The Marine Data Service - Web based and Programmatic Access to Ocean Colour Open Data

Science.gov (United States)

Clements, Oliver; Walker, Peter

2017-04-01

The ESA Ocean Colour - Climate Change Initiative (ESA OC-CCI) has produced a long-term high quality global dataset with associated per-pixel uncertainty data. This dataset has now grown to several hundred terabytes (uncompressed) and is freely available to download. However, the sheer size of the dataset can act as a barrier to many users; large network bandwidth, local storage and processing requirements can prevent researchers without the backing of a large organisation from taking advantage of this raw data. The EC H2020 project, EarthServer2, aims to create a federated data service providing access to more than 1 petabyte of earth science data. Within this federation the Marine Data Service already provides an innovative on-line tool-kit for filtering, analysing and visualising OC-CCI data. Data are made available, filtered and processed at source through a standards-based interface, the Open Geospatial Consortium Web Coverage Service and Web Coverage Processing Service. This work was initiated in the EC FP7 EarthServer project where it was found that the unfamiliarity and complexity of these interfaces itself created a barrier to wider uptake. The continuation project, EarthServer2, addresses these issues by providing higher level tools for working with these data. We will present some examples of these tools. Many researchers wish to extract time series data from discrete points of interest. We will present a web based interface, based on NASA/ESA WebWorldWind, for selecting points of interest and plotting time series from a chosen dataset. In addition, a CSV file of locations and times, such as a ship's track, can be uploaded and these points extracted and returned in a CSV file allowing researchers to work with the extract locally, such as a spreadsheet. We will also present a set of Python and JavaScript APIs that have been created to complement and extend the web based GUI. These APIs allow the selection of single points and areas for extraction. The

Employee Self Service-based Human Resources Information System Development and Implementation. Case Study: BCP Indonesia

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Lestari Margatama

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Human Resources Information System is a Decision Support System that provides necessary information regarding human resources in an organization. Web-based e-HR is one of the best practical solution in human resources management that allows employees to focus more on their job instead of HR administration procedures. By implementing Employee Self Service (ESS it is expected that worker satisfaction can be improved and in turn will also improve employees’ performance. The web-based ESS is characterized by personalized information approach which offers personal and management services on information access and structured workflow process. The object covered in this research is HR administration of PT. BCP to create and implement ESS with system prototype development and UML modeling tool. The resulting system is designed to quickly access the information and company procedures to shorten the time for BCP’s employee administration and documentation

Regional Use of Social Networking Tools

Science.gov (United States)

2014-12-01

4 2.1.7 Tumblr 4 2.1.8 Instagram 4 2.2 Local Social Networking Services 5 3 Regional Preferences for Social Networking Tools 6 4 African Region...YouTube 280 million Twitter 255 million LinkedIn n/a Pinterest n/a Tumblr 300 million Instagram 200 million The active-user base numbers...so this percentage may decline in the future. 2.1.8 Instagram Instagram , acquired by Facebook in 2012, is a mobile social networking service that

Mental Health Service Use in Schools and Non-School-Based Outpatient Settings: Comparing Predictors of Service Use.

Science.gov (United States)

Langer, David A; Wood, Jeffrey J; Wood, Patricia A; Garland, Ann F; Landsverk, John; Hough, Richard L

2015-09-01

Researchers have consistently documented a gap between the large number of US youth meeting criteria for a mental health disorder with significant associated impairment, and the comparatively few youth receiving services. School-based mental health care may address the need-services gap by offering services more equitably to youth in need, irrespective of family economic resources, availability of transportation, and other factors that can impede access to community clinics. However, diagnoses alone do not fully capture the severity of an individual's mental health status and need for services. Studying service use only in relation to diagnoses may restrict our understanding of the degree to which service use is reflective of service need, and inhibit our ability to compare school and non-school-based outpatient settings on their responsiveness to service need. The present study evaluated predictors of mental health service use in school- and community-based settings for youth who had had an active case in one of two public sectors of care, comparing empirically-derived dimensional measurements of youth mental health service need and impairment ratings against non-need variables (e.g., ethnicity, income). Three dimensions of youth mental health service need were identified. Mental health service need and non-need variables each played a significant predictive role. Parent-rated impairment was the strongest need-based predictor of service use across settings. The impact of non-need variables varied by service setting, with parental income having a particularly noticeable effect on school-based services. Across time, preceding service use and impairment each significantly predicted future service use.

Review of quality assessment tools for family planning programmes in low- and middle-income countries.

Science.gov (United States)

Sprockett, Andrea

2017-03-01

Measuring and tracking the quality of healthcare is a critical part of improving service delivery, clinic efficiency and health outcomes. However, no standardized or widely accepted tool exists to assess the quality of clinic-based family planning services in low- and middle-income countries. The objective of this literature review was to identify widely used public domain quality assessment tools with existing or potential application in clinic-based family planning programmes. Using PubMed, PopLine, Google Scholar and Google, key terms such as ‘quality assessment tool’, ‘quality assessment method’, ‘quality measurement’, ‘LMIC’, ‘developing country’, ‘family planning’ and ‘reproductive health’ were searched for articles, identifying 20 relevant tools. Tools were assessed to determine the type of quality components assessed, divided into structure and process components, level of application (national or facility), health service domain that can be assessed by the tool, cost and current use of the tool. Tools were also assessed for shortcomings based on application in a low- and middle-income clinic-based family planning programme, including personnel required, re-assessment frequency, assessment of structure, process and outcome quality, comparability of data over time and across facilities and ability to benchmark clinic results to a national benchmark. No tools met all criteria, indicating a critical gap in quality assessment for low- and middle-income family planning programmes. To achieve Universal Health Coverage, agreed on in the Sustainable Development Goals and to improve system-wide healthcare quality, we must develop and widely adopt a standardized quality assessment tool.

RESEARCHING AND EVALUATING DIGITAL STORYTELLING AS A DISTANCE EDUCATION TOOL IN PHYSICS INSTRUCTION: AN APPLICATION WITH PRE-SERVICE PHYSICS TEACHERS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Nihat KOTLUK

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Advances in information and communication technology in 21st century have led to changes in education trends and today new concepts such as computer, multimedia, audio, video, animation and internet have become an indispensable part of life. The storytelling is the one of approach which is allowed to using technology in educational field. The aim of this study is to define the use of digital storytelling in physics instruction as a distance education tool. In this respect, the literature related to digital storytelling was analyzed and for applying it in practice, 13 pre-service teachers from department of physic education were trained on digital storytelling for 6 weeks in spring term of 2013- 2014 academic year. Following the process of instruction, pre-service teachers created and shared digital stories in YouTube and evaluated all of them. Furthermore, opinions of the pre-service teachers were asked on digital story telling As a result of the analysing the DST videos and opinions of pre-service teacher, it is expected that using digital storytelling as distance education tool will be efficacious.

IRET: requirements for service platforms

OpenAIRE

Baresi, Luciano; Ripa, Gianluca; Pasquale, Liliana

2013-01-01

peer-reviewed This paper describes IRENE (Indenica Requirements ElicitatioN mEthod), a methodology to elicit and model the requirements of service platforms, and IRET (IREne Tool), the Eclipse-based modeling framework we developed for IRENE

A Community-Based, Technology-Supported Health Service for Detecting and Preventing Frailty among Older Adults: A Participatory Design Development Process.

Science.gov (United States)

van Velsen, Lex; Illario, Maddalena; Jansen-Kosterink, Stephanie; Crola, Catherine; Di Somma, Carolina; Colao, Annamaria; Vollenbroek-Hutten, Miriam

2015-01-01

Frailty is a multifaceted condition that affects many older adults and marks decline on areas such as cognition, physical condition, and nutritional status. Frail individuals are at increased risk for the development of disability, dementia, and falls. There are hardly any health services that enable the identification of prefrail individuals and that focus on prevention of further functional decline. In this paper, we discuss the development of a community-based, technology-supported health service for detecting prefrailty and preventing frailty and further functional decline via participatory design with a wide range of stakeholders. The result is an innovative service model in which an online platform supports the integration of traditional services with novel, Information Communication Technology supported tools. This service is capable of supporting the different phases of screening and offers training services, by also integrating them with community-based services. The service model can be used as a basis for developing similar services within a wide range of healthcare systems. We present the service model, the general functioning of the technology platform, and the different ways in which screening for and prevention of frailty has been localized. Finally, we reflect on the added value of participatory design for creating such health services.

Tool-Body Assimilation Model Based on Body Babbling and Neurodynamical System

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kuniyuki Takahashi

2015-01-01

Full Text Available We propose the new method of tool use with a tool-body assimilation model based on body babbling and a neurodynamical system for robots to use tools. Almost all existing studies for robots to use tools require predetermined motions and tool features; the motion patterns are limited and the robots cannot use novel tools. Other studies fully search for all available parameters for novel tools, but this leads to massive amounts of calculations. To solve these problems, we took the following approach: we used a humanoid robot model to generate random motions based on human body babbling. These rich motion experiences were used to train recurrent and deep neural networks for modeling a body image. Tool features were self-organized in parametric bias, modulating the body image according to the tool in use. Finally, we designed a neural network for the robot to generate motion only from the target image. Experiments were conducted with multiple tools for manipulating a cylindrical target object. The results show that the tool-body assimilation model is capable of motion generation.

Tools and data services registry

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Ison, Jon; Rapacki, Kristoffer; Ménager, Hervé

2016-01-01

Life sciences are yielding huge data sets that underpin scientific discoveries fundamental to improvement in human health, agriculture and the environment. In support of these discoveries, a plethora of databases and tools are deployed, in technically complex and diverse implementations, across a...

Service transformation plans in the Eastern Cape informed by a needs-based gap analysis

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kiran Sukeri

2015-05-01

Full Text Available Objectives. Part I of this research paper presented a needs and gap analysis for the management of schizophrenia, bipolar mood disorder and major depression for the Eastern Cape Province, South Africa. It identified deficits and inequitable distribution of human resources and beds in the province. In this article, Part II, the authors propose a plan for public sector mental health services to address the human resource needs in the poorer eastern regions of the province. The plan focuses on human resource training and development.  Methods. Evidence-based data on staff development in mental health from low-middle income countries were utilised to develop strategies to increase staff capacity to address unmet need. A financing model with a poverty index was developed to sustain a needs-based plan. Databases searched included Pubmed, Medline, Google and Google Scholar. The key words used included: mental health, mental health training, mental health resources, mental health in low-middle-income countries, mental health policy and plans, mental health needs- based planning, primary healthcare, primary mental healthcare, mental health financing. In addition the websites of the World Health Organization and the World Psychiatric Association were searched for similar resources. Conclusions. It is feasible, with careful attention to planning and implementation of evidence-based tools, to improve public mental health service delivery in this province. Sustained political will and professional commitment will ensure successful delivery of mental health services in a resource-limited province.

The Marketing Strategy of Pötting’s Pharmacy Using the Marketing Tool Service Blueprint

OpenAIRE

Šilberská, Tereza

2015-01-01

The diploma thesis is focused on marketing strategy plan of a private pharmacy using service blueprint as a marketing tool. At the beginning the thesis deals with characteristics of specifics and state regulations of pharmacy marketing. Then the thesis analyses Czech pharmacy market in particular with regard to the expansion of pharmacy chains and also puts emphasis on current pharmacy trends that influence management and marketing of private pharmacies. The main goal is firstly to describe t...

Foundations of Blueprint for Cloud-based Service Engineering

OpenAIRE

Nguyen, D.K.

2011-01-01

Current cloud-based service offerings are often provided as one-size-fits-all solution and give little or no room for customization. This limits the ability for application developers to pick and choose offerings from multiple software, platform and infrastructure service providers and configure them dynamically and in an optimal fashion to address their application requirements. Furthermore, combining different independent cloud-based services necessitates a uniform description format that f...

Advanced location-based technologies and services

CERN Document Server

Karimi, Hassan A

2013-01-01

Due to the rapid increase in the number of mobile device users worldwide, location-based services (LBSs) have become pervasive, and the demand for them will continue to grow. Exploring recent changes in the technology and its uses, Advanced Location-Based Technologies and Services takes an in-depth look at new and existing technologies, techniques, applications, and opportunities. Under the editorial guidance of Hassan Karimi, with contributions from experts in the field, the book examines the breadth and depth of advanced LBS technologies and techniques. The book provides up-to-date informati

Personalized cloud-based bioinformatics services for research and education: use cases and the elasticHPC package.

Science.gov (United States)

El-Kalioby, Mohamed; Abouelhoda, Mohamed; Krüger, Jan; Giegerich, Robert; Sczyrba, Alexander; Wall, Dennis P; Tonellato, Peter

2012-01-01

Bioinformatics services have been traditionally provided in the form of a web-server that is hosted at institutional infrastructure and serves multiple users. This model, however, is not flexible enough to cope with the increasing number of users, increasing data size, and new requirements in terms of speed and availability of service. The advent of cloud computing suggests a new service model that provides an efficient solution to these problems, based on the concepts of "resources-on-demand" and "pay-as-you-go". However, cloud computing has not yet been introduced within bioinformatics servers due to the lack of usage scenarios and software layers that address the requirements of the bioinformatics domain. In this paper, we provide different use case scenarios for providing cloud computing based services, considering both the technical and financial aspects of the cloud computing service model. These scenarios are for individual users seeking computational power as well as bioinformatics service providers aiming at provision of personalized bioinformatics services to their users. We also present elasticHPC, a software package and a library that facilitates the use of high performance cloud computing resources in general and the implementation of the suggested bioinformatics scenarios in particular. Concrete examples that demonstrate the suggested use case scenarios with whole bioinformatics servers and major sequence analysis tools like BLAST are presented. Experimental results with large datasets are also included to show the advantages of the cloud model. Our use case scenarios and the elasticHPC package are steps towards the provision of cloud based bioinformatics services, which would help in overcoming the data challenge of recent biological research. All resources related to elasticHPC and its web-interface are available at http://www.elasticHPC.org.

A Service-oriented FPGA-based 3D Model Acquisition System

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

MACHIDON, O. M.

2015-11-01

Full Text Available This paper proposes a non-contact, low cost 3D scanning solution using laser striping. The solution is composed of two main parts: the hardware setup - used for acquiring the object's 3D surface information, and the software part - that processes the information and obtains the 3D model representation of the object. We propose two major improvements over the traditional scanning solutions: the 3D information acquisition is based on a reconfigurable hardware platform - a Xilinx Spartan 6 FPGA - which adds flexibility and scalability to the scanning process, while the 3D model reconstruction is remotely available "as a Service", by the means of a web interface that abstracts away the complexity of the underlying processes and improves the performance, while granting easy sharing between users. By separating data capture process from the 3D model reconstruction tasks the system gains in portability - a feature that is absent for most existing solutions. The service-oriented approach brings on a performance gain, since the computational intensive tasks are handled by dedicated servers and ease of use of the system, because the user does not have to bother managing and using the software tools locally.

Design and field test of collaborative tools in the service of an innovative organization

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

De Beler, N.; Parfouru, S.

2012-01-01

This paper presents the design process of collaborative tools, based on ICT, aiming at supporting the tasks of the team that manages an outage of an energy production plant for maintenance activities. The design process follows an iterative and multidisciplinary approach, based on a collective tasks modeling of the outage management team in the light of Socio Organizational and Human (SOH) field studies, and on the state of the art of ICT. Field test of the collaborative tools designed plays a great place in this approach, allowing taking into account the operational world but involves also some risks which must be managed. To implement tools on all the production plants, we build an 'operational concept' with a level of description which authorizes the evolution of tools and allows some local adaptations. The field tests provide lessons on the ICT topics. For examples: the status of the remote access tools, the potential of use of a given information input by an actor for several individual and collective purposes, the actors perception of the tools meaning, and the requirements for supporting the implementation of change. (authors)

Using ESO Reflex with Web Services

Science.gov (United States)

Järveläinen, P.; Savolainen, V.; Oittinen, T.; Maisala, S.; Ullgrén, M. Hook, R.

2008-08-01

ESO Reflex is a prototype graphical workflow system, based on Taverna, and primarily intended to be a flexible way of running ESO data reduction recipes along with other legacy applications and user-written tools. ESO Reflex can also readily use the Taverna Web Services features that are based on the Apache Axis SOAP implementation. Taverna is a general purpose Web Service client, and requires no programming to use such services. However, Taverna also has some restrictions: for example, no numerical types such integers. In addition the preferred binding style is document/literal wrapped, but most astronomical services publish the Axis default WSDL using RPC/encoded style. Despite these minor limitations we have created simple but very promising test VO workflow using the Sesame name resolver service at CDS Strasbourg, the Hubble SIAP server at the Multi-Mission Archive at Space Telescope (MAST) and the WESIX image cataloging and catalogue cross-referencing service at the University of Pittsburgh. ESO Reflex can also pass files and URIs via the PLASTIC protocol to visualisation tools and has its own viewer for VOTables. We picked these three Web Services to try to set up a realistic and useful ESO Reflex workflow. They also demonstrate ESO Reflex abilities to use many kind of Web Services because each of them requires a different interface. We describe each of these services in turn and comment on how it was used

Parallel Agent-as-a-Service (P-AaaS Based Geospatial Service in the Cloud

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Xicheng Tan

2017-04-01

Full Text Available To optimize the efficiency of the geospatial service in the flood response decision making system, a Parallel Agent-as-a-Service (P-AaaS method is proposed and implemented in the cloud. The prototype system and comparisons demonstrate the advantages of our approach over existing methods. The P-AaaS method includes both parallel architecture and a mechanism for adjusting the computational resources—the parallel geocomputing mechanism of the P-AaaS method used to execute a geospatial service and the execution algorithm of the P-AaaS based geospatial service chain, respectively. The P-AaaS based method has the following merits: (1 it inherits the advantages of the AaaS-based method (i.e., avoiding transfer of large volumes of remote sensing data or raster terrain data, agent migration, and intelligent conversion into services to improve domain expert collaboration; (2 it optimizes the low performance and the concurrent geoprocessing capability of the AaaS-based method, which is critical for special applications (e.g., highly concurrent applications and emergency response applications; and (3 it adjusts the computing resources dynamically according to the number and the performance requirements of concurrent requests, which allows the geospatial service chain to support a large number of concurrent requests by scaling up the cloud-based clusters in use and optimizes computing resources and costs by reducing the number of virtual machines (VMs when the number of requests decreases.

Ontology-based composition and matching for dynamic service coordination

OpenAIRE

Pahl, Claus; Gacitua-Decar, Veronica; Wang, MingXue; Yapa Bandara, Kosala

2011-01-01

Service engineering needs to address integration problems allowing services to collaborate and coordinate. The need to address dynamic automated changes - caused by on-demand environments and changing requirements - can be addressed through service coordination based on ontology-based composition and matching techniques. Our solution to composition and matching utilises a service coordination space that acts as a passive infrastructure for collaboration. We discuss the information models an...

Web services-based text-mining demonstrates broad impacts for interoperability and process simplification.

Science.gov (United States)

Wiegers, Thomas C; Davis, Allan Peter; Mattingly, Carolyn J

2014-01-01

The Critical Assessment of Information Extraction systems in Biology (BioCreAtIvE) challenge evaluation tasks collectively represent a community-wide effort to evaluate a variety of text-mining and information extraction systems applied to the biological domain. The BioCreative IV Workshop included five independent subject areas, including Track 3, which focused on named-entity recognition (NER) for the Comparative Toxicogenomics Database (CTD; http://ctdbase.org). Previously, CTD had organized document ranking and NER-related tasks for the BioCreative Workshop 2012; a key finding of that effort was that interoperability and integration complexity were major impediments to the direct application of the systems to CTD's text-mining pipeline. This underscored a prevailing problem with software integration efforts. Major interoperability-related issues included lack of process modularity, operating system incompatibility, tool configuration complexity and lack of standardization of high-level inter-process communications. One approach to potentially mitigate interoperability and general integration issues is the use of Web services to abstract implementation details; rather than integrating NER tools directly, HTTP-based calls from CTD's asynchronous, batch-oriented text-mining pipeline could be made to remote NER Web services for recognition of specific biological terms using BioC (an emerging family of XML formats) for inter-process communications. To test this concept, participating groups developed Representational State Transfer /BioC-compliant Web services tailored to CTD's NER requirements. Participants were provided with a comprehensive set of training materials. CTD evaluated results obtained from the remote Web service-based URLs against a test data set of 510 manually curated scientific articles. Twelve groups participated in the challenge. Recall, precision, balanced F-scores and response times were calculated. Top balanced F-scores for gene, chemical and

Managing and monitoring tuberculosis using web-based tools in combination with traditional approaches

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Chapman AL

2013-11-01

Full Text Available Ann LN Chapman,1 Thomas C Darton,2 Rachel A Foster11Department of Infection and Tropical Medicine, Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Sheffield, 2Oxford Vaccine Group, Centre for Clinical Vaccinology and Tropical Medicine, University of Oxford, Oxford, UKAbstract: Tuberculosis (TB remains a global health emergency. Ongoing challenges include the coordination of national and international control programs, high levels of drug resistance in many parts of the world, and availability of accurate and rapid diagnostic tests. The increasing availability and reliability of Internet access throughout both affluent and resource-limited countries brings new opportunities to improve TB management and control through the integration of web-based technologies with traditional approaches. In this review, we explore current and potential future use of web-based tools in the areas of TB diagnosis, treatment, epidemiology, service monitoring, and teaching and training.Keywords: tuberculosis, information communication technology, Internet

Multi Sector Planning Tools for Trajectory-Based Operations

Science.gov (United States)

Prevot, Thomas; Mainini, Matthew; Brasil, Connie

2010-01-01

This paper discusses a suite of multi sector planning tools for trajectory-based operations that were developed and evaluated in the Airspace Operations Laboratory (AOL) at the NASA Ames Research Center. The toolset included tools for traffic load and complexity assessment as well as trajectory planning and coordination. The situation assessment tools included an integrated suite of interactive traffic displays, load tables, load graphs, and dynamic aircraft filters. The planning toolset allowed for single and multi aircraft trajectory planning and data communication-based coordination of trajectories between operators. Also newly introduced was a real-time computation of sector complexity into the toolset that operators could use in lieu of aircraft count to better estimate and manage sector workload, especially in situations with convective weather. The tools were used during a joint NASA/FAA multi sector planner simulation in the AOL in 2009 that had multiple objectives with the assessment of the effectiveness of the tools being one of them. Current air traffic control operators who were experienced as area supervisors and traffic management coordinators used the tools throughout the simulation and provided their usefulness and usability ratings in post simulation questionnaires. This paper presents these subjective assessments as well as the actual usage data that was collected during the simulation. The toolset was rated very useful and usable overall. Many elements received high scores by the operators and were used frequently and successfully. Other functions were not used at all, but various requests for new functions and capabilities were received that could be added to the toolset.

BioShaDock: a community driven bioinformatics shared Docker-based tools registry.

Science.gov (United States)

Moreews, François; Sallou, Olivier; Ménager, Hervé; Le Bras, Yvan; Monjeaud, Cyril; Blanchet, Christophe; Collin, Olivier

2015-01-01

Linux container technologies, as represented by Docker, provide an alternative to complex and time-consuming installation processes needed for scientific software. The ease of deployment and the process isolation they enable, as well as the reproducibility they permit across environments and versions, are among the qualities that make them interesting candidates for the construction of bioinformatic infrastructures, at any scale from single workstations to high throughput computing architectures. The Docker Hub is a public registry which can be used to distribute bioinformatic software as Docker images. However, its lack of curation and its genericity make it difficult for a bioinformatics user to find the most appropriate images needed. BioShaDock is a bioinformatics-focused Docker registry, which provides a local and fully controlled environment to build and publish bioinformatic software as portable Docker images. It provides a number of improvements over the base Docker registry on authentication and permissions management, that enable its integration in existing bioinformatic infrastructures such as computing platforms. The metadata associated with the registered images are domain-centric, including for instance concepts defined in the EDAM ontology, a shared and structured vocabulary of commonly used terms in bioinformatics. The registry also includes user defined tags to facilitate its discovery, as well as a link to the tool description in the ELIXIR registry if it already exists. If it does not, the BioShaDock registry will synchronize with the registry to create a new description in the Elixir registry, based on the BioShaDock entry metadata. This link will help users get more information on the tool such as its EDAM operations, input and output types. This allows integration with the ELIXIR Tools and Data Services Registry, thus providing the appropriate visibility of such images to the bioinformatics community.

Predictors for assessing electronic messaging between nurses and general practitioners as a useful tool for communication in home health care services: a cross-sectional study.

Science.gov (United States)

Lyngstad, Merete; Hofoss, Dag; Grimsmo, Anders; Hellesø, Ragnhild

2015-02-17

Nurses providing home health care services are dependent on access to patient information and communicating with general practitioners (GPs) to deliver safe and effective health care to patients. Information and communication technology (ICT) systems are viewed as powerful tools for this purpose. In Norway, a standardized electronic messaging (e-messaging) system is currently being established in health care. The aim of this study was to explore home health care nurses' assessments of the utility of the e-messaging system for communicating with GPs and identify elements that influence the assessment of e-messaging as a useful communication tool. The data were collected using a self-developed questionnaire based on variables identified by focus group interviews with home health care nurses (n=425) who used e-messaging and existing research. Data were analyzed using logistic regression analyses. Over two-thirds (425/632, 67.2%) of the home health care nurses returned the questionnaire. A high proportion (388/399, 97.2%) of the home health care nurses who returned the questionnaire found the e-messaging system to be a useful tool for communication with GPs. The odds of reporting that e-messaging was a useful tool were over five times higher (OR 5.1, CI 2.489-10.631, Pcommunicate with GPs. By identifying these elements, it is easier to determine which interventions are the most important for the development and implementation of ICT systems in home health care services.

Development and usability testing of a web-based decision support for users and health professionals in psychiatric services.

Science.gov (United States)

Grim, Katarina; Rosenberg, David; Svedberg, Petra; Schön, Ulla-Karin

2017-09-01

Shared decision making (SMD) related to treatment and rehabilitation is considered a central component in recovery-oriented practice. Although decision aids are regarded as an essential component for successfully implementing SDM, these aids are often lacking within psychiatric services. The aim of this study was to use a participatory design to facilitate the development of a user-generated, web-based decision aid for individuals receiving psychiatric services. The results of this effort as well as the lessons learned during the development and usability processes are reported. The participatory design included 4 iterative cycles of development. Various qualitative methods for data collection were used with potential end users participating as informants in focus group and individual interviews and as usability and pilot testers. Interviewing and testing identified usability problems that then led to refinements and making the subsequent prototypes increasingly user-friendly and relevant. In each phase of the process, feedback from potential end-users provided guidance in developing the formation of the web-based decision aid that strengthens the position of users by integrating access to information regarding alternative supports, interactivity between staff and users, and user preferences as a continual focus in the tool. This web-based decision aid has the potential to strengthen service users' experience of self-efficacy and control as well as provide staff access to user knowledge and preferences. Studies employing participatory models focusing on usability have potential to significantly contribute to the development and implementation of tools that reflect user perspectives. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

Landscapes‘ Capacities to Provide Ecosystem Services – a Concept for Land-Cover Based Assessments

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Benjamin Burkhard

2009-12-01

Full Text Available Landscapes differ in their capacities to provide ecosystem goods and services, which are the benefits humans obtain from nature. Structures and functions of ecosystems needed to sustain the provision of ecosystem services are altered by various human activities. In this paper, a concept for the assessment of multiple ecosystem services is proposed as a basis for discussion and further development of a respective evaluation instrument. Using quantitative and qualitative assessment data in combination with land cover and land use information originated from remote sensing and GIS, impacts of human activities can be evaluated. The results reveal typical patterns of different ecosystems‘ capacities to provide ecosystem services. The proposed approach thus delivers useful integrative information for environmental management and landscape planning, aiming at a sustainable use of services provided by nature. The research concept and methodological framework presented here for discussion have initially been applied in different case studies and shall be developed further to provide a useful tool for the quantification and spatial modelling of multiple ecosystem services in different landscapes. An exemplary application of the approach dealing with food provision in the Halle-Leipzig region in Germany is presented. It shows typical patterns of ecosystem service distribution around urban areas. As the approach is new and still rather general, there is great potential for improvement, especially with regard to a data-based quantification of the numerous hypotheses, which were formulated as base for the assessment. Moreover, the integration of more detailed landscape information on different scales will be needed in future in order to take the heterogeneous distribution of landscape properties and values into account. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to foster critical discussions on the methodological development presented here.

Platformation: Cloud Computing Tools at the Service of Social Change

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Anil Patel

2012-07-01

Full Text Available The following article establishes some context and definitions for what is termed the “sharing imperative” – a movement or tendency towards sharing information online and in real time that has rapidly transformed several industries. As internet-enabled devices proliferate to all corners of the globe, ways of working and accessing information have changed. Users now expect to be able to access the products, services, and information that they want from anywhere, at any time, on any device. This article addresses how the nonprofit sector might respond to those demands by embracing the sharing imperative. It suggests that how well an organization shares has become one of the most pressing governance questions a nonprofit organization must tackle. Finally, the article introduces Platformation, a project whereby tools that enable better inter and intra-organizational sharing are tested for scalability, affordability, interoperability, and security, all with a non-profit lens.

Delivering a lifelong integrated electronic health record based on a service oriented architecture.

Science.gov (United States)

Katehakis, Dimitrios G; Sfakianakis, Stelios G; Kavlentakis, Georgios; Anthoulakis, Dimitrios N; Tsiknakis, Manolis

2007-11-01

Efficient access to a citizen's Integrated Electronic Health Record (I-EHR) is considered to be the cornerstone for the support of continuity of care, the reduction of avoidable mistakes, and the provision of tools and methods to support evidence-based medicine. For the past several years, a number of applications and services (including a lifelong I-EHR) have been installed, and enterprise and regional infrastructure has been developed, in HYGEIAnet, the Regional Health Information Network (RHIN) of the island of Crete, Greece. Through this paper, the technological effort toward the delivery of a lifelong I-EHR by means of World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) technologies, on top of a service-oriented architecture that reuses already existing middleware components is presented and critical issues are discussed. Certain design and development decisions are exposed and explained, laying this way the ground for coordinated, dynamic navigation to personalized healthcare delivery.

Possibilities of Applying Video Surveillance and other ICT Tools and Services in the Production Process

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Adis Rahmanović

2018-02-01

Full Text Available The paper presents the possibilities of applying Video surveillance and other ICT tools and services in the production process. The first part of the paper presented the system for controlling video surveillance for and the given opportunity of application of video surveillance for the security of the employees and the assets. In the second part of the paper an analysis of the system for controlling production is given and then a video surveillance of a work excavator. The next part of the paper presents integration of video surveillance and the accompanying tools. At the end of the paper, suggestions were also given for further works in the field of data protection and cryptography in video surveillance use.

Supervised learning of tools for content-based search of image databases

Science.gov (United States)

Delanoy, Richard L.

1996-03-01

A computer environment, called the Toolkit for Image Mining (TIM), is being developed with the goal of enabling users with diverse interests and varied computer skills to create search tools for content-based image retrieval and other pattern matching tasks. Search tools are generated using a simple paradigm of supervised learning that is based on the user pointing at mistakes of classification made by the current search tool. As mistakes are identified, a learning algorithm uses the identified mistakes to build up a model of the user's intentions, construct a new search tool, apply the search tool to a test image, display the match results as feedback to the user, and accept new inputs from the user. Search tools are constructed in the form of functional templates, which are generalized matched filters capable of knowledge- based image processing. The ability of this system to learn the user's intentions from experience contrasts with other existing approaches to content-based image retrieval that base searches on the characteristics of a single input example or on a predefined and semantically- constrained textual query. Currently, TIM is capable of learning spectral and textural patterns, but should be adaptable to the learning of shapes, as well. Possible applications of TIM include not only content-based image retrieval, but also quantitative image analysis, the generation of metadata for annotating images, data prioritization or data reduction in bandwidth-limited situations, and the construction of components for larger, more complex computer vision algorithms.

Influenza vaccination coverage estimates in the fee-for service Medicare beneficiary population 2006 - 2016: Using population-based administrative data to support a geographic based near real-time tool.

Science.gov (United States)

Shen, Angela K; Warnock, Rob; Brereton, Stephaeno; McKean, Stephen; Wernecke, Michael; Chu, Steve; Kelman, Jeffrey A

2018-04-11

Older adults are at great risk of developing serious complications from seasonal influenza. We explore vaccination coverage estimates in the Medicare population through the use of administrative claims data and describe a tool designed to help shape outreach efforts and inform strategies to help raise influenza vaccination rates. This interactive mapping tool uses claims data to compare vaccination levels between geographic (i.e., state, county, zip code) and demographic (i.e., race, age) groups at different points in a season. Trends can also be compared across seasons. Utilization of this tool can assist key actors interested in prevention - medical groups, health plans, hospitals, and state and local public health authorities - in supporting strategies for reaching pools of unvaccinated beneficiaries where general national population estimates of coverage are less informative. Implementing evidence-based tools can be used to address persistent racial and ethnic disparities and prevent a substantial number of influenza cases and hospitalizations.

Image edge detection based tool condition monitoring with morphological component analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

Yu, Xiaolong; Lin, Xin; Dai, Yiquan; Zhu, Kunpeng

2017-07-01

The measurement and monitoring of tool condition are keys to the product precision in the automated manufacturing. To meet the need, this study proposes a novel tool wear monitoring approach based on the monitored image edge detection. Image edge detection has been a fundamental tool to obtain features of images. This approach extracts the tool edge with morphological component analysis. Through the decomposition of original tool wear image, the approach reduces the influence of texture and noise for edge measurement. Based on the target image sparse representation and edge detection, the approach could accurately extract the tool wear edge with continuous and complete contour, and is convenient in charactering tool conditions. Compared to the celebrated algorithms developed in the literature, this approach improves the integrity and connectivity of edges, and the results have shown that it achieves better geometry accuracy and lower error rate in the estimation of tool conditions. Copyright © 2017 ISA. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Location-Based Services and Privacy Protection Under Mobile Cloud Computing

OpenAIRE

Yan, Yan; Xiaohong, Hao; Wanjun, Wang

2015-01-01

Location-based services can provide personalized services based on location information of moving objects and have already been widely used in public safety services, transportation, entertainment and many other areas. With the rapid development of mobile communication technology and popularization of intelligent terminals, there will be great commercial prospects to provide location-based services under mobile cloud computing environment. However, the high adhesion degree of mobile terminals...

Compression-based aggregation model for medical web services.

Science.gov (United States)

Al-Shammary, Dhiah; Khalil, Ibrahim

2010-01-01

Many organizations such as hospitals have adopted Cloud Web services in applying their network services to avoid investing heavily computing infrastructure. SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) is the basic communication protocol of Cloud Web services that is XML based protocol. Generally,Web services often suffer congestions and bottlenecks as a result of the high network traffic that is caused by the large XML overhead size. At the same time, the massive load on Cloud Web services in terms of the large demand of client requests has resulted in the same problem. In this paper, two XML-aware aggregation techniques that are based on exploiting the compression concepts are proposed in order to aggregate the medical Web messages and achieve higher message size reduction.

Building and evaluating an informatics tool to facilitate analysis of a biomedical literature search service in an academic medical center library.

Science.gov (United States)

Hinton, Elizabeth G; Oelschlegel, Sandra; Vaughn, Cynthia J; Lindsay, J Michael; Hurst, Sachiko M; Earl, Martha

2013-01-01

This study utilizes an informatics tool to analyze a robust literature search service in an academic medical center library. Structured interviews with librarians were conducted focusing on the benefits of such a tool, expectations for performance, and visual layout preferences. The resulting application utilizes Microsoft SQL Server and .Net Framework 3.5 technologies, allowing for the use of a web interface. Customer tables and MeSH terms are included. The National Library of Medicine MeSH database and entry terms for each heading are incorporated, resulting in functionality similar to searching the MeSH database through PubMed. Data reports will facilitate analysis of the search service.

Development of spatial density maps based on geoprocessing web services: application to tuberculosis incidence in Barcelona, Spain

Science.gov (United States)

2011-01-01

Background Health professionals and authorities strive to cope with heterogeneous data, services, and statistical models to support decision making on public health. Sophisticated analysis and distributed processing capabilities over geocoded epidemiological data are seen as driving factors to speed up control and decision making in these health risk situations. In this context, recent Web technologies and standards-based web services deployed on geospatial information infrastructures have rapidly become an efficient way to access, share, process, and visualize geocoded health-related information. Methods Data used on this study is based on Tuberculosis (TB) cases registered in Barcelona city during 2009. Residential addresses are geocoded and loaded into a spatial database that acts as a backend database. The web-based application architecture and geoprocessing web services are designed according to the Representational State Transfer (REST) principles. These web processing services produce spatial density maps against the backend database. Results The results are focused on the use of the proposed web-based application to the analysis of TB cases in Barcelona. The application produces spatial density maps to ease the monitoring and decision making process by health professionals. We also include a discussion of how spatial density maps may be useful for health practitioners in such contexts. Conclusions In this paper, we developed web-based client application and a set of geoprocessing web services to support specific health-spatial requirements. Spatial density maps of TB incidence were generated to help health professionals in analysis and decision-making tasks. The combined use of geographic information tools, map viewers, and geoprocessing services leads to interesting possibilities in handling health data in a spatial manner. In particular, the use of spatial density maps has been effective to identify the most affected areas and its spatial impact. This

Development of spatial density maps based on geoprocessing web services: application to tuberculosis incidence in Barcelona, Spain.

Science.gov (United States)

Dominkovics, Pau; Granell, Carlos; Pérez-Navarro, Antoni; Casals, Martí; Orcau, Angels; Caylà, Joan A

2011-11-29

Health professionals and authorities strive to cope with heterogeneous data, services, and statistical models to support decision making on public health. Sophisticated analysis and distributed processing capabilities over geocoded epidemiological data are seen as driving factors to speed up control and decision making in these health risk situations. In this context, recent Web technologies and standards-based web services deployed on geospatial information infrastructures have rapidly become an efficient way to access, share, process, and visualize geocoded health-related information. Data used on this study is based on Tuberculosis (TB) cases registered in Barcelona city during 2009. Residential addresses are geocoded and loaded into a spatial database that acts as a backend database. The web-based application architecture and geoprocessing web services are designed according to the Representational State Transfer (REST) principles. These web processing services produce spatial density maps against the backend database. The results are focused on the use of the proposed web-based application to the analysis of TB cases in Barcelona. The application produces spatial density maps to ease the monitoring and decision making process by health professionals. We also include a discussion of how spatial density maps may be useful for health practitioners in such contexts. In this paper, we developed web-based client application and a set of geoprocessing web services to support specific health-spatial requirements. Spatial density maps of TB incidence were generated to help health professionals in analysis and decision-making tasks. The combined use of geographic information tools, map viewers, and geoprocessing services leads to interesting possibilities in handling health data in a spatial manner. In particular, the use of spatial density maps has been effective to identify the most affected areas and its spatial impact. This study is an attempt to demonstrate how web

Evaluation of work routines in PET/CT service with and individual tool in real time

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Moreira, Maryana N.; Oliveira, Fernanda R. de; Fischer, Andreia C.F.S.; Bacelar, Alexandre

2016-01-01

This study used a direct monitoring system (RemoteDose) that presents the individual dose and dose rate measurements, plotted instantly, as a tool to evaluate work routines of Individuals Occupationally Exposed (IOE) of a PET/CT Service. With this evaluation was possible to identify the critical tasks performed by each work team (Pharmaceutical/Nursing/Radiology Technician team) for subsequent optimization of patient care processes. It was also possible to assess whether these tasks are properly distributed among this teams. The RemoteDose system proved to be able to assist the optimization of radiation protection of a PET/CT Service, proving to be an important ally of the Radiation Protection Supervisor in this process, since it allows the display of real-time monitoring. (author)

Service oriented architecture assessment based on software components

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mahnaz Amirpour

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Enterprise architecture, with detailed descriptions of the functions of information technology in the organization, tries to reduce the complexity of technology applications resulting in tools with greater efficiency in achieving the objectives of the organization. Enterprise architecture consists of a set of models describing this technology in different components performance as well as various aspects of the applications in any organization. Therefore, information technology development and maintenance management can perform well within organizations. This study aims to suggest a method to identify different types of services in service-oriented architecture analysis step that applies some previous approaches in an integrated form and, based on the principles of software engineering, to provide a simpler and more transparent approach through the expression of analysis details. Advantages and disadvantages of proposals should be evaluated before the implementation and costs allocation. Evaluation methods can better identify strengths and weaknesses of the current situation apart from selecting appropriate model out of several suggestions, and clarify this technology development solution for organizations in the future. We will be able to simulate data and processes flow within the organization by converting the output of the model to colored Petri nets and evaluate and test it by examining various inputs to enterprise architecture before implemented in terms of reliability and response time. A model of application has been studied for the proposed model and the results can describe and design architecture for data.

Tools to Make Online Students and Community Partners in a Service Learning Project More "AT-EASE"--Evidence from a Finance Class

Science.gov (United States)

Butchey, Deanne

2014-01-01

The impact of service learning as a pedagogy to ensure efficient and effective experiential learning is well recognized, but in business schools, there is a perception that a steep learning curve exists for the students, faculty, and community. We use a tool to motivate and build competence in participants of a service learning project undertaken…

Combining Domain-driven Design and Mashups for Service Development

Science.gov (United States)

Iglesias, Carlos A.; Fernández-Villamor, José Ignacio; Del Pozo, David; Garulli, Luca; García, Boni

This chapter presents the Romulus project approach to Service Development using Java-based web technologies. Romulus aims at improving productivity of service development by providing a tool-supported model to conceive Java-based web applications. This model follows a Domain Driven Design approach, which states that the primary focus of software projects should be the core domain and domain logic. Romulus proposes a tool-supported model, Roma Metaframework, that provides an abstraction layer on top of existing web frameworks and automates the application generation from the domain model. This metaframework follows an object centric approach, and complements Domain Driven Design by identifying the most common cross-cutting concerns (security, service, view, ...) of web applications. The metaframework uses annotations for enriching the domain model with these cross-cutting concerns, so-called aspects. In addition, the chapter presents the usage of mashup technology in the metaframework for service composition, using the web mashup editor MyCocktail. This approach is applied to a scenario of the Mobile Phone Service Portability case study for the development of a new service.

Using a Forest Health Index as an Outreach Tool for Improving Public Understanding of Ecosystem Dynamics and Research-Based Management

Science.gov (United States)

Osenga, E. C.; Cundiff, J.; Arnott, J. C.; Katzenberger, J.; Taylor, J. R.; Jack-Scott, E.

2015-12-01

An interactive tool called the Forest Health Index (FHI) has been developed for the Roaring Fork watershed of Colorado, with the purpose of improving public understanding of local forest management and ecosystem dynamics. The watershed contains large areas of White River National Forest, which plays a significant role in the local economy, particularly for recreation and tourism. Local interest in healthy forests is therefore strong, but public understanding of forest ecosystems is often simplified. This can pose challenges for land managers and researchers seeking a scientifically informed approach to forest restoration, management, and planning. Now in its second iteration, the FHI is a tool designed to help bridge that gap. The FHI uses a suite of indicators to create a numeric rating of forest functionality and change, based on the desired forest state in relation to four categories: Ecological Integrity, Public Health and Safety, Ecosystem Services, and Sustainable Use and Management. The rating is based on data derived from several sources including local weather stations, stream gauge data, SNOTEL sites, and National Forest Service archives. In addition to offering local outreach and education, this project offers broader insight into effective communication methods, as well as into the challenges of using quantitative analysis to rate ecosystem health. Goals of the FHI include its use in schools as a means of using local data and place-based learning to teach basic math and science concepts, improved public understanding of ecological complexity and need for ongoing forest management, and, in the future, its use as a model for outreach tools in other forested communities in the Intermountain West.

Management systems for service providers

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bolokonya, Herbert Chiwalo

2015-02-01

In the field of radiation safety and protection there are a number of institutions that are involved in achieving different goals and strategies. These strategies and objectives are achieved based on a number of tools and systems, one of these tools and systems is the use of a management system. This study aimed at reviewing the management system concept for Technical Service Providers in the field of radiation safety and protection. The main focus was on personal monitoring services provided by personal dosimetry laboratories. A number of key issues were found to be prominent to make the management system efficient. These are laboratory accreditation, approval; having a customer driven operating criteria; and controlling of records and good reporting. (au)

Web Based Rapid Mapping of Disaster Areas using Satellite Images, Web Processing Service, Web Mapping Service, Frequency Based Change Detection Algorithm and J-iView

Science.gov (United States)

Bandibas, J. C.; Takarada, S.

2013-12-01

Timely identification of areas affected by natural disasters is very important for a successful rescue and effective emergency relief efforts. This research focuses on the development of a cost effective and efficient system of identifying areas affected by natural disasters, and the efficient distribution of the information. The developed system is composed of 3 modules which are the Web Processing Service (WPS), Web Map Service (WMS) and the user interface provided by J-iView (fig. 1). WPS is an online system that provides computation, storage and data access services. In this study, the WPS module provides online access of the software implementing the developed frequency based change detection algorithm for the identification of areas affected by natural disasters. It also sends requests to WMS servers to get the remotely sensed data to be used in the computation. WMS is a standard protocol that provides a simple HTTP interface for requesting geo-registered map images from one or more geospatial databases. In this research, the WMS component provides remote access of the satellite images which are used as inputs for land cover change detection. The user interface in this system is provided by J-iView, which is an online mapping system developed at the Geological Survey of Japan (GSJ). The 3 modules are seamlessly integrated into a single package using J-iView, which could rapidly generate a map of disaster areas that is instantaneously viewable online. The developed system was tested using ASTER images covering the areas damaged by the March 11, 2011 tsunami in northeastern Japan. The developed system efficiently generated a map showing areas devastated by the tsunami. Based on the initial results of the study, the developed system proved to be a useful tool for emergency workers to quickly identify areas affected by natural disasters.

[Supplementary services used as marketing tools in the competition among private practice doctors].

Science.gov (United States)

Meurers, Horst

2009-01-01

What is the relation between additional healthcare services, marketing and competition among office-based physicians? The best and truly effective marketing strategy is a satisfied patient recommending his doctor's services to others. Hence, good marketing starts with a convincing service concept, not just with advertising. More and more frequently patients ask for supplementary health service offerings. Additional services tailored to individual practices--e.g., in the field of nutrition, sports, fitness, wellness, aesthetics--meet the patients' demands, but at the same time they provide a competitive advantage over the ordinary medical practice. And what is more, these additional healthcare services have a nice side effect: they earn an additional income which is not unwelcome in times of decreasing revenues from the public healthcare system. The much sought-after potential for additional services and income can be achieved by offering commercial medical services, e.g., the sale of healthcare products. The coexistence of the doctor's commercial and non-commercial medical services is admissible as long as certain rules of professional conduct and tax laws are followed.

KBWS: an EMBOSS associated package for accessing bioinformatics web services.

Science.gov (United States)

Oshita, Kazuki; Arakawa, Kazuharu; Tomita, Masaru

2011-04-29

The availability of bioinformatics web-based services is rapidly proliferating, for their interoperability and ease of use. The next challenge is in the integration of these services in the form of workflows, and several projects are already underway, standardizing the syntax, semantics, and user interfaces. In order to deploy the advantages of web services with locally installed tools, here we describe a collection of proxy client tools for 42 major bioinformatics web services in the form of European Molecular Biology Open Software Suite (EMBOSS) UNIX command-line tools. EMBOSS provides sophisticated means for discoverability and interoperability for hundreds of tools, and our package, named the Keio Bioinformatics Web Service (KBWS), adds functionalities of local and multiple alignment of sequences, phylogenetic analyses, and prediction of cellular localization of proteins and RNA secondary structures. This software implemented in C is available under GPL from http://www.g-language.org/kbws/ and GitHub repository http://github.com/cory-ko/KBWS. Users can utilize the SOAP services implemented in Perl directly via WSDL file at http://soap.g-language.org/kbws.wsdl (RPC Encoded) and http://soap.g-language.org/kbws_dl.wsdl (Document/literal).

KBWS: an EMBOSS associated package for accessing bioinformatics web services

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tomita Masaru

2011-04-01

Full Text Available Abstract The availability of bioinformatics web-based services is rapidly proliferating, for their interoperability and ease of use. The next challenge is in the integration of these services in the form of workflows, and several projects are already underway, standardizing the syntax, semantics, and user interfaces. In order to deploy the advantages of web services with locally installed tools, here we describe a collection of proxy client tools for 42 major bioinformatics web services in the form of European Molecular Biology Open Software Suite (EMBOSS UNIX command-line tools. EMBOSS provides sophisticated means for discoverability and interoperability for hundreds of tools, and our package, named the Keio Bioinformatics Web Service (KBWS, adds functionalities of local and multiple alignment of sequences, phylogenetic analyses, and prediction of cellular localization of proteins and RNA secondary structures. This software implemented in C is available under GPL from http://www.g-language.org/kbws/ and GitHub repository http://github.com/cory-ko/KBWS. Users can utilize the SOAP services implemented in Perl directly via WSDL file at http://soap.g-language.org/kbws.wsdl (RPC Encoded and http://soap.g-language.org/kbws_dl.wsdl (Document/literal.

The Environmental Virtual Observatory (EVO) local exemplar: A cloud based local landscape learning visualisation tool for communicating flood risk to catchment stakeholders

Science.gov (United States)

Wilkinson, Mark; Beven, Keith; Brewer, Paul; El-khatib, Yehia; Gemmell, Alastair; Haygarth, Phil; Mackay, Ellie; Macklin, Mark; Marshall, Keith; Quinn, Paul; Stutter, Marc; Thomas, Nicola; Vitolo, Claudia

2013-04-01

Today's world is dominated by a wide range of informatics tools that are readily available to a wide range of stakeholders. There is growing recognition that the appropriate involvement of local communities in land and water management decisions can result in multiple environmental, economic and social benefits. Therefore, local stakeholder groups are increasingly being asked to participate in decision making alongside policy makers, government agencies and scientists. As such, addressing flooding issues requires new ways of engaging with the catchment and its inhabitants at a local level. To support this, new tools and approaches are required. The growth of cloud based technologies offers new novel ways to facilitate this process of exchange of information in earth sciences. The Environmental Virtual Observatory Pilot project (EVOp) is a new initiative from the UK Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) designed to deliver proof of concept for new tools and approaches to support the challenges as outlined above (http://www.evo-uk.org/). The long term vision of the Environmental Virtual Observatory is to: • Make environmental data more visible and accessible to a wide range of potential users including public good applications; • Provide tools to facilitate the integrated analysis of data, greater access to added knowledge and expert analysis and visualisation of the results; • Develop new, added-value knowledge from public and private sector data assets to help tackle environmental challenges. As part of the EVO pilot, an interactive cloud based tool has been developed with local stakeholders. The Local Landscape Visualisation Tool attempts to communicate flood risk in local impacted communities. The tool has been developed iteratively to reflect the needs, interests and capabilities of a wide range of stakeholders. This tool (assessable via a web portal) combines numerous cloud based tools and services, local catchment datasets, hydrological models and

Performance Evaluation of Java Based Object Relational Mapping Tools

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Shoaib Mahmood Bhatti

2013-04-01

Full Text Available Object persistency is the hot issue in the form of ORM (Object Relational Mapping tools in industry as developers use these tools during software development. This paper presents the performance evaluation of Java based ORM tools. For this purpose, Hibernate, Ebean and TopLinkhave been selected as the ORM tools which are popular and open source. Their performance has been measured from execution point of view. The results show that ORM tools are the good option for the developers considering the system throughput in shorter setbacks and they can be used efficiently and effectively for performing mapping of the objects into the relational dominated world of database, thus creating a hope for a better and well dominated future of this technology.

Development of computer-based analytical tool for assessing physical protection system

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Mardhi, Alim, E-mail: alim-m@batan.go.id [National Nuclear Energy Agency Indonesia, (BATAN), PUSPIPTEK area, Building 80, Serpong, Tangerang Selatan, Banten (Indonesia); Chulalongkorn University, Faculty of Engineering, Nuclear Engineering Department, 254 Phayathai Road, Pathumwan, Bangkok Thailand. 10330 (Thailand); Pengvanich, Phongphaeth, E-mail: ppengvan@gmail.com [Chulalongkorn University, Faculty of Engineering, Nuclear Engineering Department, 254 Phayathai Road, Pathumwan, Bangkok Thailand. 10330 (Thailand)

2016-01-22

Assessment of physical protection system effectiveness is the priority for ensuring the optimum protection caused by unlawful acts against a nuclear facility, such as unauthorized removal of nuclear materials and sabotage of the facility itself. Since an assessment based on real exercise scenarios is costly and time-consuming, the computer-based analytical tool can offer the solution for approaching the likelihood threat scenario. There are several currently available tools that can be used instantly such as EASI and SAPE, however for our research purpose it is more suitable to have the tool that can be customized and enhanced further. In this work, we have developed a computer–based analytical tool by utilizing the network methodological approach for modelling the adversary paths. The inputs are multi-elements in security used for evaluate the effectiveness of the system’s detection, delay, and response. The tool has capability to analyze the most critical path and quantify the probability of effectiveness of the system as performance measure.

Development of computer-based analytical tool for assessing physical protection system

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Mardhi, Alim; Pengvanich, Phongphaeth

2016-01-01

Assessment of physical protection system effectiveness is the priority for ensuring the optimum protection caused by unlawful acts against a nuclear facility, such as unauthorized removal of nuclear materials and sabotage of the facility itself. Since an assessment based on real exercise scenarios is costly and time-consuming, the computer-based analytical tool can offer the solution for approaching the likelihood threat scenario. There are several currently available tools that can be used instantly such as EASI and SAPE, however for our research purpose it is more suitable to have the tool that can be customized and enhanced further. In this work, we have developed a computer–based analytical tool by utilizing the network methodological approach for modelling the adversary paths. The inputs are multi-elements in security used for evaluate the effectiveness of the system’s detection, delay, and response. The tool has capability to analyze the most critical path and quantify the probability of effectiveness of the system as performance measure

Development of computer-based analytical tool for assessing physical protection system

Science.gov (United States)

Mardhi, Alim; Pengvanich, Phongphaeth

2016-01-01

Assessment of physical protection system effectiveness is the priority for ensuring the optimum protection caused by unlawful acts against a nuclear facility, such as unauthorized removal of nuclear materials and sabotage of the facility itself. Since an assessment based on real exercise scenarios is costly and time-consuming, the computer-based analytical tool can offer the solution for approaching the likelihood threat scenario. There are several currently available tools that can be used instantly such as EASI and SAPE, however for our research purpose it is more suitable to have the tool that can be customized and enhanced further. In this work, we have developed a computer-based analytical tool by utilizing the network methodological approach for modelling the adversary paths. The inputs are multi-elements in security used for evaluate the effectiveness of the system's detection, delay, and response. The tool has capability to analyze the most critical path and quantify the probability of effectiveness of the system as performance measure.

Designing and Implementing Web-Based Scaffolding Tools for Technology-Enhanced Socioscientific Inquiry

Science.gov (United States)

Shin, Suhkyung; Brush, Thomas A.; Glazewski, Krista D.

2017-01-01

This study explores how web-based scaffolding tools provide instructional support while implementing a socio-scientific inquiry (SSI) unit in a science classroom. This case study focused on how students used web-based scaffolding tools during SSI activities, and how students perceived the SSI unit and the scaffolding tools embedded in the SSI…

Co-creation of Innovations in ICT based service encounters

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Sørensen, Jannick Kirk; Henten, Anders

2014-01-01

Innovations in services often emanate from service encounters (i.e. the touch points between the service producers and the customers). Two different types of service encounters are dealt with: face-to-face and ICT-based service encounters. The aim of the chapter is to examine the specific...

Value-Based Billing in a 3G IP Services Environment

OpenAIRE

Ryan, Conor; Donnelly, William; de Leastar, Eamonn; Cloney, James

2002-01-01

The proliferation of IP-based services has resulted in a paradigm shift away from traditional flat-rat, single service billing to content and usage based billing for composed service sets. The Information Societies Technology (IST) FORM project has prototyped an accounting and billing solution for IP-based telecommunications services. A key element of the solution is the IPDR Network Data Management - Usage specification. This paper presents the FORM development of a federated accounting and ...

Human Trafficking Identification and Service Provision in the Medical and Social Service Sectors.

Science.gov (United States)

Schwarz, Corinne; Unruh, Erik; Cronin, Katie; Evans-Simpson, Sarah; Britton, Hannah; Ramaswamy, Megha

2016-06-01

The medical sector presents a unique opportunity for identification and service to victims of human trafficking. In this article, we describe local and site-specific efforts to develop an intervention tool to be used in an urban hospital's emergency department in the midwestern United States. In the development of our tool, we focused on both identification and intervention to assist trafficked persons, through a largely collaborative process in which we engaged local stakeholders for developing site-specific points of intervention. In the process of developing our intervention, we highlight the importance of using existing resources and services in a specific community to address critical gaps in coverage for trafficked persons. For example, we focus on those who are victims of labor trafficking, in addition to those who are victims of sex trafficking. We offer a framework informed by rights-based approaches to anti-trafficking efforts that addresses the practical challenges of human trafficking victim identification while simultaneously working to provide resources and disseminate services to those victims.

ESTIMAP: A GIS-BASED MODEL TO MAP ECOSYSTEM SERVICES IN THE EUROPEAN UNION

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

G. Zulian

2014-04-01

Full Text Available Policies of the European Union which affect the use or protection of natural resources increasingly need spatial data on the supply, the flow and the demand of ecosystem services. The model ESTIMAP was developed to this purpose. ESTIMAP departs from land cover and land use maps to which it adds other spatial information with the objective to map various ecosystem services. This study introduces the ESTIMAP map as tool to support the mapping and modelling of ecosystem services at European scale. Examples are provided for three regulating ecosystem services, air quality regulation, coastal protection, and pollination and one cultural ecosystem services, recreation. 

The APIS service : a tool for accessing value-added HST planetary auroral observations over 1997-2015

Science.gov (United States)

Lamy, L.; Henry, F.; Prangé, R.; Le Sidaner, P.

2015-10-01

The Auroral Planetary Imaging and Spectroscopy (APIS) service http://obspm.fr/apis/ provides an open and interactive access to processed auroral observations of the outer planets and their satellites. Such observations are of interest for a wide community at the interface between planetology, magnetospheric and heliospheric physics. APIS consists of (i) a high level database, built from planetary auroral observations acquired by the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) since 1997 with its mostly used Far-Ultraviolet spectro- imagers, (ii) a dedicated search interface aimed at browsing efficiently this database through relevant conditional search criteria (Figure 1) and (iii) the ability to interactively work with the data online through plotting tools developed by the Virtual Observatory (VO) community, such as Aladin and Specview. This service is VO compliant and can therefore also been queried by external search tools of the VO community. The diversity of available data and the capability to sort them out by relevant physical criteria shall in particular facilitate statistical studies, on long-term scales and/or multi-instrumental multispectral combined analysis [1,2]. We will present the updated capabilities of APIS with several examples. Several tutorials are available online.

US EPA Office of Research and Development Community-Focused Exposure and Risk Screening Tool (C-FERST) Air web mapping service

Data.gov (United States)

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency — This map service displays all air-related layers used in the USEPA Community/Tribal-Focused Exposure and Risk Screening Tool (C/T-FERST) mapping application...

UTILIZATION OF QUALITY TOOLS: DOES SECTOR AND SIZE MATTER?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Luis Fonseca

2015-12-01

Full Text Available This research focuses on the influence of company sector and size on the level of utilization of Basic and Advanced Quality Tools. The paper starts with a literature review and then presents the methodology used for the survey. Based on the responses from 202 managers of Portuguese ISO 9001:2008 Quality Management System certified organizations, statistical tests were performed. Results show, with 95% confidence level, that industry and services have a similar proportion of use of Basic and Advanced Quality Tools. Concerning size, bigger companies show a higher trend to use Advanced Quality Tools than smaller ones. For Basic Quality Tools, there was no statistical significant difference at a 95% confidence level for different company sizes. The three basic Quality tools with higher utilization were Check sheets, Flow charts and Histograms (for Services or Control Charts/ (for Industry, however 22% of the surveyed organizations reported not using Basic Quality Tools, which highlights a major improvement opportunity for these companies. Additional studies addressing motivations, benefits and barriers for Quality Tools application should be undertaken for further validation and understanding of these results.

QoS testing of service-based applications

OpenAIRE

Driss , Maha; Jamoussi , Yassine; Ben Ghézala , Henda Hajjami

2008-01-01

International audience; Web services (WSs) are becoming increasingly popular because of their potential in several application domains including e-Enterprise, e-Business, e-Government, and e-Science. Based on open XML standards, WS technology allows the construction of massively distributed and loosely coupled applications. A service composition mechanism should satisfy not only functional properties but also non-functional Quality of Service (QoS) ones. In this paper, we introduce a discrete...

Employee Benefit Status from E-Employee Service

Science.gov (United States)

Gündüz, Semseddin; Çoklar, Ahmet Naci

2017-01-01

The internet is the one of the most important global network and information source in information age. The internet has changed employee's life enormously. The purpose of this study is to clarify the benefitting situations of employees from e-employee services. For this purpose, a 20-item data collection tool, based on the e-employee services put…

Key characteristics for tool choice in indicator-based sustainability assessment at farm level

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Fleur Marchand

2014-09-01

Full Text Available Although the literature on sustainability assessment tools to support decision making in agriculture is rapidly growing, little attention has been paid to the actual tool choice. We focused on the choice of more complex integrated indicator-based tools at the farm level. The objective was to determine key characteristics as criteria for tool choice. This was done with an in-depth comparison of 2 cases: the Monitoring Tool for Integrated Farm Sustainability and the Public Goods Tool. They differ in characteristics that may influence tool choice: data, time, and budgetary requirements. With an enhanced framework, we derived 11 key characteristics to describe differences between the case tools. Based on the key characteristics, we defined 2 types of indicator-based tools: full sustainability assessment (FSA and rapid sustainability assessment (RSA. RSA tools are more oriented toward communicating and learning. They are therefore more suitable for use by a larger group of farmers, can help to raise awareness, trigger farmers to become interested in sustainable farming, and highlight areas of good or bad performance. If and when farmers increase their commitment to on-farm sustainability, they can gain additional insight by using an FSA tool. Based on complementary and modular use of the tools, practical recommendations for the different end users, i.e., researchers, farmers, advisers, and so forth, have been suggested.

Semantic Agent-Based Service Middleware and Simulation for Smart Cities.

Science.gov (United States)

Liu, Ming; Xu, Yang; Hu, Haixiao; Mohammed, Abdul-Wahid

2016-12-21

With the development of Machine-to-Machine (M2M) technology, a variety of embedded and mobile devices is integrated to interact via the platform of the Internet of Things, especially in the domain of smart cities. One of the primary challenges is that selecting the appropriate services or service combination for upper layer applications is hard, which is due to the absence of a unified semantical service description pattern, as well as the service selection mechanism. In this paper, we define a semantic service representation model from four key properties: Capability (C), Deployment (D), Resource (R) and IOData (IO). Based on this model, an agent-based middleware is built to support semantic service enablement. In this middleware, we present an efficient semantic service discovery and matching approach for a service combination process, which calculates the semantic similarity between services, and a heuristic algorithm to search the service candidates for a specific service request. Based on this design, we propose a simulation of virtual urban fire fighting, and the experimental results manifest the feasibility and efficiency of our design.

Semantic Agent-Based Service Middleware and Simulation for Smart Cities

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ming Liu

2016-12-01

Full Text Available With the development of Machine-to-Machine (M2M technology, a variety of embedded and mobile devices is integrated to interact via the platform of the Internet of Things, especially in the domain of smart cities. One of the primary challenges is that selecting the appropriate services or service combination for upper layer applications is hard, which is due to the absence of a unified semantical service description pattern, as well as the service selection mechanism. In this paper, we define a semantic service representation model from four key properties: Capability (C, Deployment (D, Resource (R and IOData (IO. Based on this model, an agent-based middleware is built to support semantic service enablement. In this middleware, we present an efficient semantic service discovery and matching approach for a service combination process, which calculates the semantic similarity between services, and a heuristic algorithm to search the service candidates for a specific service request. Based on this design, we propose a simulation of virtual urban fire fighting, and the experimental results manifest the feasibility and efficiency of our design.

Semantic Agent-Based Service Middleware and Simulation for Smart Cities

Science.gov (United States)

Liu, Ming; Xu, Yang; Hu, Haixiao; Mohammed, Abdul-Wahid

2016-01-01

With the development of Machine-to-Machine (M2M) technology, a variety of embedded and mobile devices is integrated to interact via the platform of the Internet of Things, especially in the domain of smart cities. One of the primary challenges is that selecting the appropriate services or service combination for upper layer applications is hard, which is due to the absence of a unified semantical service description pattern, as well as the service selection mechanism. In this paper, we define a semantic service representation model from four key properties: Capability (C), Deployment (D), Resource (R) and IOData (IO). Based on this model, an agent-based middleware is built to support semantic service enablement. In this middleware, we present an efficient semantic service discovery and matching approach for a service combination process, which calculates the semantic similarity between services, and a heuristic algorithm to search the service candidates for a specific service request. Based on this design, we propose a simulation of virtual urban fire fighting, and the experimental results manifest the feasibility and efficiency of our design. PMID:28009818

Patient satisfaction with a hospital-based neuropsychology service.

Science.gov (United States)

Foran, Amie; Millar, Elisa; Dorstyn, Diana

2016-09-01

Objective The aim of the present study was to develop and pilot a measure of patient satisfaction that encompasses themes, activities, settings and interactions specific to the neuropsychological assessment process. Methods A focus group of out-patients (n=15) was surveyed to identify the factors commonly associated with a satisfactory neuropsychological experience. Responses informed a purposely designed 14-item patient satisfaction scale (α=0.88) that was completed by 66 hospital out-patients with mild to moderate cognitive impairment. Results Satisfaction with the neuropsychological assessment process was generally reported, with the testing phase (85%) rated significantly more favourably than the pre-assessment (79%) and feedback (70%) phases. Commentaries provided by 32 respondents identified interpersonal facilitators to a satisfactory neuropsychological assessment experience, but also dissatisfaction with physical aspects of the testing environment in addition to service availability. Conclusions The patient satisfaction scale can be used as a quality assurance tool to evaluate neuropsychological service delivery. Large-scale research is needed to confirm the scale's psychometric properties. Further research may also include a broader perspective on the consumers' experience of neuropsychological services.

Consultant-based otolaryngology emergency service: a five-year experience.

Science.gov (United States)

Barnes, M L; Hussain, S S M

2011-12-01

To present our experience of running a consultant-based otolaryngology emergency care service for more than five years. In 2003, we developed a system of consultant-based emergency service: consultants spent a week on-call providing a dedicated emergency service, with routine commitments cancelled. Our new system had advantages over traditional working practices in terms of consultant involvement, trainee education, continuity and efficiency. It also reduced disruption to elective commitments for both consultants and registrars. This system was fundamental to the successful review of all urgent (and in future elective) cases within target periods. Only 31 per cent of new referrals to the consultant emergency clinics required a further appointment. Good teamwork and flexibility in working arrangements have been essential to the success of this service. Given that health service changes have reduced junior trainee working hours and numbers, and that patients increasingly expect to be treated by trained doctors, our new consultant-based emergency service has merit. Although implementation in other units may differ, we recommend this new service, for the above reasons.

An Earthquake Information Service with Free and Open Source Tools

Science.gov (United States)

Schroeder, M.; Stender, V.; Jüngling, S.

2015-12-01

At the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences in Potsdam, the working group Earthquakes and Volcano Physics examines the spatiotemporal behavior of earthquakes. In this context also the hazards of volcanic eruptions and tsunamis are explored. The aim is to collect related information after the occurrence of such extreme event and make them available for science and partly to the public as quickly as possible. However, the overall objective of this research is to reduce the geological risks that emanate from such natural hazards. In order to meet the stated objectives and to get a quick overview about the seismicity of a particular region and to compare the situation to historical events, a comprehensive visualization was desired. Based on the web-accessible data from the famous GFZ GEOFON network a user-friendly web mapping application was realized. Further, this web service integrates historical and current earthquake information from the USGS earthquake database, and more historical events from various other catalogues like Pacheco, International Seismological Centre (ISC) and more. This compilation of sources is unique in Earth sciences. Additionally, information about historical and current occurrences of volcanic eruptions and tsunamis are also retrievable. Another special feature in the application is the containment of times via a time shifting tool. Users can interactively vary the visualization by moving the time slider. Furthermore, the application was realized by using the newest JavaScript libraries which enables the application to run in all sizes of displays and devices. Our contribution will present the making of, the architecture behind, and few examples of the look and feel of this application.

Integrated knowledge base tool for acquisition and verification of NPP alarm systems

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Park, Joo Hyun; Seong, Poong Hyun

1998-01-01

Knowledge acquisition and knowledge base verification are important activities in developing knowledge-based systems such as alarm processing systems. In this work, we developed the integrated tool, for knowledge acquisition and verification of NPP alarm processing systems, by using G2 tool. The tool integrates document analysis method and ECPN matrix analysis method, for knowledge acquisition and knowledge verification, respectively. This tool enables knowledge engineers to perform their tasks from knowledge acquisition to knowledge verification consistently

Distributing Knight. Using Type-Based Publish/Subscribe for Building Distributed Collaboration Tools

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Damm, Christian Heide; Hansen, Klaus Marius

2002-01-01

more important. We present Distributed Knight, an extension to the Knight tool, for distributed, collaborative, and gesture-based object-oriented modelling. Distributed Knight was built using the type-based publish/subscribe paradigm. Based on this case, we argue that type-based publish......Distributed applications are hard to understand, build, and evolve. The need for decoupling, flexibility, and heterogeneity in distributed collaboration tools present particular problems; for such applications, having the right abstractions and primitives for distributed communication becomes even....../subscribe provides a natural and effective abstraction for developing distributed collaboration tools....

Pattern-based translation of BPMN process models to BPEL web services

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Ouyang, C.; Dumas, M.; Hofstede, ter A.H.M.; Aalst, van der W.M.P.

2008-01-01

The business process modeling notation (BPMN) is a graph-oriented language primarily targeted at domain analysts and supported by many modeling tools. The business process execution language for Web services (BPEL) on the other hand is a mainly block-structured language targeted at software

A proposed HTTP service based IDS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mohamed M. Abd-Eldayem

2014-03-01

Full Text Available The tremendous growth of the web-based applications has increased information security vulnerabilities over the Internet. Security administrators use Intrusion-Detection System (IDS to monitor network traffic and host activities to detect attacks against hosts and network resources. In this paper IDS based on Naïve Bayes classifier is analyzed. The main objective is to enhance IDS performance through preparing the training data set allowing to detect malicious connections that exploit the http service. Results of application are demonstrated and discussed. In the training phase of the proposed IDS, at first a feature selection technique based on Naïve Bayes classifier is used, this technique identifies the most important HTTP traffic features that can be used to detect HTTP attacks. In the testing and running phases proposed IDS classifies the network traffic based on the requested service, then based on the selected features Naïve Bayes classifier is used to analyze the HTTP service based traffic and identifies the HTTP normal connections and attacks. The performance of the IDS is measured through experiments using NSL-KDD data set. The results show that the detection rate of the IDS is about 99%, the false-positive rate is about 1%, and the false-negative rate is about 0.25%; therefore, proposed IDS holds the highest detection rate and the lowest false alarm compared with other leading IDS. In addition, the proposed IDS based on Naïve Bayes is used to classify network connections as a normal or attack. And it holds a high detection rate and a low false alarm.

Development of Mobile Educational Services Application to Improve Educational Outcomes using Android Technology

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hosam Farouk El-Sofany

2014-04-01

Full Text Available Mobile devices have become instruments that allow new ways of interacting with institutional services. This paper describes the development of the Mobile Educational Services Application (MES app for the Android platform. This app allows access to mediated and self-access services, as well as databases, announcements, registration, events, book consultations, schedules, etc. The project provides Mobile and Web-based application tools (apps that allow online access for different users - students, instructors, and administrators. The app provides students with a user friendly, generic, web-based GUI to request educational services, to send text message inquiries, to add, drop, or defer courses, etc.. The app allows instructors to send or receive text messages to and from students using the mobile or web-based interface of the app. In addition to system monitoring, the app provides administrators an online tool to manage, add, update, and delete system information. This tool seeks to be one of the more useful economic apps that use Android technology for applications, using Tablets and mobile devices, for the use of students, instructors and administrators in accessing services in an educational institution.

Usage of health-themed public service announcements as a social marketing communication tool: A content analysis related to public service announcements in the republic of Turkey, ministry of health’s web site

OpenAIRE

Burcu İnci; Oya Sancar; Seda H. Bostancı

2017-01-01

Public service announcements are informative short films that are made with the purpose of increasing the awareness of the society and/or creating behavioral changes. Also, they are communication tools used within the context of social marketing. One of the main themes of public service announcements which may have a substantial impact on masses is “health theme”. Tobacco, blood donation, breast milk, obesity, and diabetes themed public service announcements which aimed to protect and improve...

Simulation tools for guided wave based structural health monitoring

Science.gov (United States)

Mesnil, Olivier; Imperiale, Alexandre; Demaldent, Edouard; Baronian, Vahan; Chapuis, Bastien

2018-04-01

Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) is a thematic derived from Non Destructive Evaluation (NDE) based on the integration of sensors onto or into a structure in order to monitor its health without disturbing its regular operating cycle. Guided wave based SHM relies on the propagation of guided waves in plate-like or extruded structures. Using piezoelectric transducers to generate and receive guided waves is one of the most widely accepted paradigms due to the low cost and low weight of those sensors. A wide range of techniques for flaw detection based on the aforementioned setup is available in the literature but very few of these techniques have found industrial applications yet. A major difficulty comes from the sensitivity of guided waves to a substantial number of parameters such as the temperature or geometrical singularities, making guided wave measurement difficult to analyze. In order to apply guided wave based SHM techniques to a wider spectrum of applications and to transfer those techniques to the industry, the CEA LIST develops novel numerical methods. These methods facilitate the evaluation of the robustness of SHM techniques for multiple applicative cases and ease the analysis of the influence of various parameters, such as sensors positioning or environmental conditions. The first numerical tool is the guided wave module integrated to the commercial software CIVA, relying on a hybrid modal-finite element formulation to compute the guided wave response of perturbations (cavities, flaws…) in extruded structures of arbitrary cross section such as rails or pipes. The second numerical tool is based on the spectral element method [2] and simulates guided waves in both isotropic (metals) and orthotropic (composites) plate like-structures. This tool is designed to match the widely accepted sparse piezoelectric transducer array SHM configuration in which each embedded sensor acts as both emitter and receiver of guided waves. This tool is under development and

A new service support tool for COSMO-SkyMed: civil user coordination service and civil request management optimization

Science.gov (United States)

Daraio, M. G.; Battagliere, M. L.; Sacco, P.; Fasano, L.; Coletta, A.

2015-10-01

COSMO-SkyMed is a dual-use program for both civilian and defense provides user community (institutional and commercial) with SAR data in several environmental applications. In the context of COSMO-SkyMed data and User management, one of the aspects carefully monitored is the user satisfaction level, it is links to satisfaction of submitted user requests. The operational experience of the first years of operational phase, and the consequent lessons learnt by the COSMO-SkyMed data and user management, have demonstrated that a lot of acquisition rejections are due to conflicts (time conflicts or system conflicts) among two or more civilian user requests, and they can be managed and solved implementing an improved coordination of users and their requests on a daily basis. With this aim a new Service Support Tool (SST) has been designed and developed to support the operators in the User Request coordination. The Tool allow to analyze conflicts among Acquisition Requests (ARs) before the National Rankization phase and to elaborate proposals for conflict resolution. In this paper the most common causes of the occurred rejections will be showed, for example as the impossibility to aggregate different orders, and the SST functionalities will be described, in particular how it works to remove or minimize the conflicts among different orders.

Assessing ELT Pre-Service Teachers via Web 2.0 Tools: Perceptions toward Traditional, Online and Alternative Assessment

Science.gov (United States)

Cirit, Nazli Ceren

2015-01-01

The purpose of this study is to investigate the perceptions of the ELT pre-service teachers toward the traditional, alternative, and online assessment methods and examine whether the participants' attitudes change toward the types of assessment after the tasks via Web 2.0 tools are implemented. In the light of these aims, the study was conducted…

A Tokenization-Based Communication Architecture for HCE-Enabled NFC Services

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Busra Ozdenizci

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Following the announcement of Host Card Emulation (HCE technology, card emulation mode based Near Field Communication (NFC services have gained further appreciation as an enabler of the Cloud-based Secure Element (SE concept. A comprehensive and complete architecture with a centralized and feasible business model for diverse HCE-based NFC services will be highly appreciated, particularly by Service Providers and users. To satisfy the need in this new emerging research area, a Tokenization-based communication architecture for HCE-based NFC services is presented in this paper. Our architecture proposes Two-Phased Tokenization to enable the identity management of both user and Service Provider. NFC Smartphone users can store, manage, and make use of their sensitive data on the Cloud for NFC services; Service Providers can also provide diverse card emulation NFC services easily through the proposed architecture. In this paper, we initially present the Two-Phased Tokenization model and then validate the proposed architecture by providing a case study on access control. We further evaluate the usability aspect in terms of an authentication scheme. We then discuss the ecosystem and business model comprised of the proposed architecture and emphasize the contributions to ecosystem actors. Finally, suggestions are provided for data protection in transit and at rest.

National atmospheric release advisory center (NARAC) tools and services for emergency management

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Nasstrom, J.

2003-01-01

Full text: This paper describes recent scientific and technological advances in the National Atmospheric Release Advisory Center (NARAC) that aid emergency management. The U.S. Department of Energy's NARAC system provides tools and services that help map the probable spread of hazardous material accidentally or intentionally released into the atmosphere. Located at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, NARAC is a national support and resource center for planning, real-time assessment and detailed studies of incidents involving a wide variety of hazards, including nuclear, radiological, chemical, or biological emissions. In recent years, the DOE National Nuclear Security Agency (NNSA) Office of Emergency Response and Chemical and Biological National Security Program (CBNP) have supported major upgrades and modernization of NARAC that have advanced the accuracy and utility of NARAC products for emergency planning and management. A new NARAC central modeling system, which became operational in the year 2000, has provided a higher-resolution suite of diagnostic and prognostic meteorological models, and a Lagrangian particle dispersion model, for producing predictions of air concentration, ground deposition, and dose. The 3-D meteorological data assimilation model, ADAPT, and Lagrangian particle dispersion model, LODI, allow the simulation of mean wind advection, turbulent diffusion, radioactive decay and production, bio-agent degradation, first-order chemical reactions, wet deposition, gravitational settling, dry deposition, and buoyant/momentum plume rise. The functions performed by this system have been fully automated to minimized response time for emergencies. An in-house version of the Naval Research Laboratory's COAMPS numerical weather prediction model is used to provide mesoscale forecasts. The final plume predictions are plotted with key geographical information (including estimates of the counts of affected population), and with applicable U

Education services quality of Kashan Medical Science University, based on SERVQUAL model in viewpoints of students

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ebrahim Kouchaki

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Introduction: Sustainable development of higher educational systems, as a dynamic system, requires a coherent moderate growth both in qualitative and quantitative dimensions. Since students are the major clients of higher education systems and their perspectives can play a key role in the quality promotion of the services; this study has been conducted based on SERVQUAL model aiming at the assessment of educational services quality in Kashan Medical Science University in 2016. Study Methodology: A total of 212 students of Kashan Medical Science University were selected with a population of 616 subjects through random sampling, using Morgan tables for this descriptive-analytical research. Data collection tools were the standard SERVQUAL questionnaire composing of three sections of basic information and 28 items, according to Likert six-option scale for the measurement of services quality current and desired expected conditions. The difference between the average of current and desirable statuses was measured as the services gap. Descriptive deductive statistics were used to analyze the obtained data. Results: The students aged averagely 23 ± 1.8, 65% (138 subjects were female, and 35% (74 subjects were male. About 72% (153 subjects were single, and 28% (59 subjects were married. The obtained results revealed that there was a negative gap in all dimensions of quality. The results also showed that the minimum gap obtained for learning assist tools (physical and tangibility dimensions with an amount of −0.38 and the maximum gap for guide instructor availability once needed by the students (accountability dimension with an amount of −2.42. Total mean of perceptions and expectations measurement for the students obtained 2.28 and 3.85, respectively. Conclusion: Respecting the negative gap obtained for all dimensions of educational services quality and insufficiencies to meet the students' expectations, it is recommended to assign further resources

Service composition: concepts, techniques, tools and trends

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Benatallah, B.; Dijkman, R.M.; Dumas, M.; Maamar, Z.; Stojanovic, Z.; Dahanayake, A.

2005-01-01

This chapter provides an overview of the area of service composition. It does so byintroducing a generic architecture for service composition and using this architecture todiscuss some salient concepts and techniques. The architecture is also used as aframework for providing a critical view into a

Nutritional Risk Screening 2002, Short Nutritional Assessment Questionnaire, Malnutrition Screening Tool, and Malnutrition Universal Screening Tool Are Good Predictors of Nutrition Risk in an Emergency Service.

Science.gov (United States)

Rabito, Estela Iraci; Marcadenti, Aline; da Silva Fink, Jaqueline; Figueira, Luciane; Silva, Flávia Moraes

2017-08-01

There is an international consensus that nutrition screening be performed at the hospital; however, there is no "best tool" for screening of malnutrition risk in hospitalized patients. To evaluate (1) the accuracy of the MUST (Malnutrition Universal Screening Tool), MST (Malnutrition Screening Tool), and SNAQ (Short Nutritional Assessment Questionnaire) in comparison with the NRS-2002 (Nutritional Risk Screening 2002) to identify patients at risk of malnutrition and (2) the ability of these nutrition screening tools to predict morbidity and mortality. A specific questionnaire was administered to complete the 4 screening tools. Outcomes measures included length of hospital stay, transfer to the intensive care unit, presence of infection, and incidence of death. A total of 752 patients were included. The nutrition risk was 29.3%, 37.1%, 33.6%, and 31.3% according to the NRS-2002, MUST, MST, and SNAQ, respectively. All screening tools showed satisfactory performance to identify patients at nutrition risk (area under the receiver operating characteristic curve between 0.765-0.808). Patients at nutrition risk showed higher risk of very long length of hospital stay as compared with those not at nutrition risk, independent of the tool applied (relative risk, 1.35-1.78). Increased risk of mortality (2.34 times) was detected by the MUST. The MUST, MST, and SNAQ share similar accuracy to the NRS-2002 in identifying risk of malnutrition, and all instruments were positively associated with very long hospital stay. In clinical practice, the 4 tools could be applied, and the choice for one of them should be made per the particularities of the service.

Agent-based Personal Network (PN) service architecture

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jiang, Bo; Olesen, Henning

2004-01-01

In this paper we proposte a new concept for a centralized agent system as the solution for the PN service architecture, which aims to efficiently control and manage the PN resources and enable the PN based services to run seamlessly over different networks and devices. The working principle...

Minimizing the Power Consumption of Location-Based Services on Mobile Phones

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Kjærgaard, Mikkel Baun

2012-01-01

Location-based services have to pay careful attention to their power consumption in order not to drain the batteries of mobile phones. It is not a simple task to build low power location-based services that can run for hours because such services make heavy use of many power consuming features...... of mobile phones. In this article we discuss the power consumption of location-based services and mobile phone features, survey methods for how to minimize power consumption and summarize a number of design considerations for location-based service developers....

Preparing pre-service teachers to integrate technology into inquiry-based science education: Three case studies in The Netherlands

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Tran, Trinh-Ba; Ed van den Berg, Ed; Beishuizen, Jos; Ellermeijer, Ton

2015-01-01

Integration of technology (e.g. measuring with sensors, video measurement, and modeling) into secondary-school science teaching is a need globally recognized. A central issue of incorporating these technologies in teaching is how to turn manipulations of equipment and software into manipulations of ideas. Therefore, preparation for pre-service teachers to apply ICT tools should be combined with the issues of minds-on inquiring and meaning-making. From this perspective, we developed a course within the post-graduate teacher-education program in the Netherlands. During the course, pre-service teachers learnt not only to master ICT skills but also to design, teach, and evaluate an inquiry-based lesson in which the ICT tool was integrated. Besides three life sessions, teachers’ learning scenario also consisted of individual tasks which teachers could carry out mostly in the school or at home with support materials and online assistance. We taught three iterations of the course within a design-research framework in 2013, 2014 and collected data on the teacher learning processes and outcomes. The analyses of these data from observation, interviews, questionnaires, and documents were to evaluate implementation of the course, then suggest for revisions of the course set-up, which was executed and then assessed again in a subsequent case study. Main outcomes of the three case studies can be summarized as follows: within a limited time (3 life sessions spread over 2–3 months), the heterogeneous groups of pre-service teachers achieved a reasonable level of competence regarding the use of ICT tools in inquiry-based lessons. The blended set-up with support materials, especially the Coach activities and the lesson-plan form for an ICT-integrated inquiry-based lesson, contributed to this result under the condition that the course participants really spent considerable time outside the life sessions. There was a need for more time for hands-on, in-group activities in life

Preparing pre-service teachers to integrate technology into inquiry-based science education: Three case studies in The Netherlands

Science.gov (United States)

Tran, Trinh-Ba; van den Berg, Ed; Ellermeijer, Ton; Beishuizen, Jos

2016-05-01

Integration of technology ( e.g. measuring with sensors, video measurement, and modeling) into secondary-school science teaching is a need globally recognized. A central issue of incorporating these technologies in teaching is how to turn manipulations of equipment and software into manipulations of ideas. Therefore, preparation for pre-service teachers to apply ICT tools should be combined with the issues of minds-on inquiring and meaning-making. From this perspective, we developed a course within the post-graduate teacher-education program in the Netherlands. During the course, pre-service teachers learnt not only to master ICT skills but also to design, teach, and evaluate an inquiry-based lesson in which the ICT tool was integrated. Besides three life sessions, teachers' learning scenario also consisted of individual tasks which teachers could carry out mostly in the school or at home with support materials and online assistance. We taught three iterations of the course within a design-research framework in 2013, 2014 and collected data on the teacher learning processes and outcomes. The analyses of these data from observation, interviews, questionnaires, and documents were to evaluate implementation of the course, then suggest for revisions of the course set-up, which was executed and then assessed again in a subsequent case study. Main outcomes of the three case studies can be summarized as follows: within a limited time (3 life sessions spread over 2-3 months), the heterogeneous groups of pre-service teachers achieved a reasonable level of competence regarding the use of ICT tools in inquiry-based lessons. The blended set-up with support materials, especially the Coach activities and the lesson-plan form for an ICT-integrated inquiry-based lesson, contributed to this result under the condition that the course participants really spent considerable time outside the life sessions. There was a need for more time for hands-on, in-group activities in life

Visual Basic, Excel-based fish population modeling tool - The pallid sturgeon example

Science.gov (United States)

Moran, Edward H.; Wildhaber, Mark L.; Green, Nicholas S.; Albers, Janice L.

2016-02-10

The model presented in this report is a spreadsheet-based model using Visual Basic for Applications within Microsoft Excel (http://dx.doi.org/10.5066/F7057D0Z) prepared in cooperation with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. It uses the same model structure and, initially, parameters as used by Wildhaber and others (2015) for pallid sturgeon. The difference between the model structure used for this report and that used by Wildhaber and others (2015) is that variance is not partitioned. For the model of this report, all variance is applied at the iteration and time-step levels of the model. Wildhaber and others (2015) partition variance into parameter variance (uncertainty about the value of a parameter itself) applied at the iteration level and temporal variance (uncertainty caused by random environmental fluctuations with time) applied at the time-step level. They included implicit individual variance (uncertainty caused by differences between individuals) within the time-step level.The interface developed for the model of this report is designed to allow the user the flexibility to change population model structure and parameter values and uncertainty separately for every component of the model. This flexibility makes the modeling tool potentially applicable to any fish species; however, the flexibility inherent in this modeling tool makes it possible for the user to obtain spurious outputs. The value and reliability of the model outputs are only as good as the model inputs. Using this modeling tool with improper or inaccurate parameter values, or for species for which the structure of the model is inappropriate, could lead to untenable management decisions. By facilitating fish population modeling, this modeling tool allows the user to evaluate a range of management options and implications. The goal of this modeling tool is to be a user-friendly modeling tool for developing fish population models useful to natural resource

A web-based tool for the Comprehensive Unit-based Safety Program (CUSP).

Science.gov (United States)

Pronovost, Peter J; King, Jay; Holzmueller, Christine G; Sawyer, Melinda; Bivens, Shauna; Michael, Michelle; Haig, Kathy; Paine, Lori; Moore, Dana; Miller, Marlene

2006-03-01

An organization's ability to change is driven by its culture, which in turn has a significant impact on safety. The six-step Comprehensive Unit-Based Safety Program (CUSP) is intended to improve local culture and safety. A Web-based project management tool for CUSP was developed and then pilot tested at two hospitals. HOW ECUSP WORKS: Once a patient safety concern is identified (step 3), a unit-level interdisciplinary safety committee determines issue criticality and starts up the projects (step 4), which are managed using project management tools within eCUSP (step 5). On a project's completion, the results are disseminated through a shared story (step 6). OSF St. Joseph's Medical Center-The Medical Birthing Center (Bloomington, Illinois), identified 11 safety issues, implemented 11 projects, and created 9 shared stories--including one for its Armband Project. The Johns Hopkins Hospital (Baltimore) Medical Progressive Care (MPC4) Unit identified 5 safety issues and implemented 4 ongoing projects, including the intravenous (IV) Tubing Compliance Project. The eCUSP tool's success depends on an organizational commitment to creating a culture of safety.

A web-based endodontic case difficulty assessment tool.

Science.gov (United States)

Shah, P K; Chong, B S

2018-01-25

To develop a web-based tool to facilitate identification, evaluation and management of teeth requiring endodontic treatment. Following a literature search and thorough analysis of existing case difficulty assessment forms, the web-based tool was developed using an online survey builder (Qualtrics, Qualtrics Lab, UT, USA). Following feedback from a pilot study, it was refined and improved. A study was performed, using the updated version (EndoApp) on a cohort (n = 53) of dental professionals and dental students. The participants were e-mailed instructions detailing the assessment of five test cases using EndoApp, followed by completion of a structured feedback form. Analysis of the EndoApp responses was used to evaluate usage times, whereas the results of the feedback forms were used to assess user experience and relevance, other potential applications and comments on further improvement/s. The average usage time was 2 min 7 s; the average times needed for the last three (Cases 3-5) were significantly less than the preceding two (Cases 1 & 2) test cases. An overwhelming majority of participants expressed favourable views on user experience and relevance of the web-based case difficulty assessment tool. Only two participants (4%) were unlikely or very unlikely to use EndoApp again. The potential application of EndoApp as an 'educational tool' and for 'primary care triage' was deemed the most popular features and of greater importance than the secondary options of 'fee setting' and as a 'dento-legal justification tool'. Within the study limitations, owing to its ability to quantify the level of difficulty and provide guidance, EndoApp was considered user-friendly and helped facilitate endodontic case difficulty assessment. From the feedback, further improvements and the development of a Smartphone App version are in progress. EndoApp may facilitate treatment planning, improve treatment cost-effectiveness and reduce frequency of procedural errors by providing

Using a Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing Model To Determine the Actual Cost of Services Provided by a Transgenic Core.

Science.gov (United States)

Gerwin, Philip M; Norinsky, Rada M; Tolwani, Ravi J

2018-03-01

Laboratory animal programs and core laboratories often set service rates based on cost estimates. However, actual costs may be unknown, and service rates may not reflect the actual cost of services. Accurately evaluating the actual costs of services can be challenging and time-consuming. We used a time-driven activity-based costing (ABC) model to determine the cost of services provided by a resource laboratory at our institution. The time-driven approach is a more efficient approach to calculating costs than using a traditional ABC model. We calculated only 2 parameters: the time required to perform an activity and the unit cost of the activity based on employee cost. This method allowed us to rapidly and accurately calculate the actual cost of services provided, including microinjection of a DNA construct, microinjection of embryonic stem cells, embryo transfer, and in vitro fertilization. We successfully implemented a time-driven ABC model to evaluate the cost of these services and the capacity of labor used to deliver them. We determined how actual costs compared with current service rates. In addition, we determined that the labor supplied to conduct all services (10,645 min/wk) exceeded the practical labor capacity (8400 min/wk), indicating that the laboratory team was highly efficient and that additional labor capacity was needed to prevent overloading of the current team. Importantly, this time-driven ABC approach allowed us to establish a baseline model that can easily be updated to reflect operational changes or changes in labor costs. We demonstrated that a time-driven ABC model is a powerful management tool that can be applied to other core facilities as well as to entire animal programs, providing valuable information that can be used to set rates based on the actual cost of services and to improve operating efficiency.

TRANSNATIONAL EDUCATION AS TOOL OF MARKETING POLICY OF THE BRITISH EDUCATION SYSTEM IN THE INTERNATIONAL MARKET OF EDUCATIONAL SERVICES

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ш В Тагирова

2015-12-01

Full Text Available The growth of academic mobility of students, professors, professionals, experts, as well as educational programs and institutions has led to the emergence of new forms of educational services in the global education market - transnational (cross-border education. International branch campuses, distance learning, joint educational programs, educational services of commercial providers are the most common types of transnational education and act as an effective tool of a national marketing strategy to promote a national education system in education global market

A web application to support telemedicine services in Brazil.

Science.gov (United States)

Barbosa, Ana Karina P; de A Novaes, Magdala; de Vasconcelos, Alexandre M L

2003-01-01

This paper describes a system that has been developed to support Telemedicine activities in Brazil, a country that has serious problems in the delivery of health services. The system is a part of the broader Tele-health Project that has been developed to make health services more accessible to the low-income population in the northeast region. The HealthNet system is based upon a pilot area that uses fetal and pediatric cardiology. This article describes both the system's conceptual model, including the tele-diagnosis and second medical opinion services, as well as its architecture and development stages. The system model describes both collaborating tools used asynchronously, such as discussion forums, and synchronous tools, such as videoconference services. Web and free-of-charge tools are utilized for implementation, such as Java and MySQL database. Furthermore, an interface with Electronic Patient Record (EPR) systems using Extended Markup Language (XML) technology is also proposed. Finally, considerations concerning the development and implementation process are presented.

New developments in Generator Services project

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Karneyeu, A; Kirsanov, M; Konstantinov, D; Ryabov, A; Zenin, O; Pokorski, W; Ribon, A

2011-01-01

The LOG Generator Services project provides validated, LOG compliant Monte Carlo generators code for both the theoretical and experimental communities at the LHC. In this paper we present the recent developments and the future plans of the project. We report on the current status of the generators repository, the new Autotools-based build system, as well as the new installation tools to create mirrors of the repository. We discuss new developments in testing and physics validation procedures in particular the use of HepMC Analysis Tool, as well as the Rivet validation tool. We also present a new activity, enlarging the scope of the Generator Services project, it is the involvement in the tuning of the Monte Carlo generators. This work, being essential for the understanding of the future LHC data, is now starting with the involvement of all the LHC experiments.

An Integral Model to Provide Reactive and Proactive Services in an Academic CSIRT Based on Business Intelligence

OpenAIRE

Walter Fuertes; Francisco Reyes; Paúl Valladares; Freddy Tapia; Theofilos Toulkeridis; Ernesto Pérez

2017-01-01

Cyber-attacks have increased in severity and complexity. That requires, that the CERT/CSIRT research and develops new security tools. Therefore, our study focuses on the design of an integral model based on Business Intelligence (BI), which provides reactive and proactive services in a CSIRT, in order to alert and reduce any suspicious or malicious activity on information systems and data networks. To achieve this purpose, a solution has been assembled, that generates information stores, bein...

Risk based service life prediction of underground cast iron pipes subjected to corrosion

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Li, C.Q.; Mahmoodian, M.

2013-01-01

Aging and deterioration of underground cast iron pipes is inevitable after their long time in service, with corrosion being the most predominant mechanism for pipe failures. Although considerable research has been undertaken in the past few decades, more is on the effects of corrosion on structural capacity of pipes than that on the prediction of their service life. This paper presents a methodology to quantitatively assess the risk of pipe collapse and predict its remaining service life using a time-dependent reliability theory. The concept of stress intensity in fracture mechanics is employed to establish the failure criterion of pipe collapse. An empirical model is derived for maximum pit growth of corrosion from the available data based on mathematical regressions. An example is provided to illustrate the application of the proposed method. It is found in the paper that the risk of pipe collapse increases with an increase in the diameter of the pipe for both external and internal corrosion. It is also found that the tougher the pipe is, the smaller the risk of its collapse. The paper concludes that a time-dependent reliability method is a very useful tool to predict the risk of pipe collapse and its remaining service life. The proposed method can help the water industry develop rehabilitation or replacement strategy for existing pipe networks with a view for better management of the pipe asset

NASA Cloud-Based Climate Data Services

Science.gov (United States)

McInerney, M. A.; Schnase, J. L.; Duffy, D. Q.; Tamkin, G. S.; Strong, S.; Ripley, W. D., III; Thompson, J. H.; Gill, R.; Jasen, J. E.; Samowich, B.; Pobre, Z.; Salmon, E. M.; Rumney, G.; Schardt, T. D.

2012-12-01

Cloud-based scientific data services are becoming an important part of NASA's mission. Our technological response is built around the concept of specialized virtual climate data servers, repetitive cloud provisioning, image-based deployment and distribution, and virtualization-as-a-service (VaaS). A virtual climate data server (vCDS) is an Open Archive Information System (OAIS) compliant, iRODS-based data server designed to support a particular type of scientific data collection. iRODS is data grid middleware that provides policy-based control over collection-building, managing, querying, accessing, and preserving large scientific data sets. We have deployed vCDS Version 1.0 in the Amazon EC2 cloud using S3 object storage and are using the system to deliver a subset of NASA's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) data products to the latest CentOS federated version of Earth System Grid Federation (ESGF), which is also running in the Amazon cloud. vCDS-managed objects are exposed to ESGF through FUSE (Filesystem in User Space), which presents a POSIX-compliant filesystem abstraction to applications such as the ESGF server that require such an interface. A vCDS manages data as a distinguished collection for a person, project, lab, or other logical unit. A vCDS can manage a collection across multiple storage resources using rules and microservices to enforce collection policies. And a vCDS can federate with other vCDSs to manage multiple collections over multiple resources, thereby creating what can be thought of as an ecosystem of managed collections. With the vCDS approach, we are trying to enable the full information lifecycle management of scientific data collections and make tractable the task of providing diverse climate data services. In this presentation, we describe our approach, experiences, lessons learned, and plans for the future.; (A) vCDS/ESG system stack. (B) Conceptual architecture for NASA cloud-based data services.