Massachusetts Health Passport Project Evaluation Final Report

Adapted from the Executive Summary: The Massachusetts Health Passport Project (MHPP) began in April 2004, as a pilot program of the Juvenile Rights Advocacy Project at Boston College Law School under the direction of Francine Sherman, Esq. The program was originally called the Girls’ Health Passport Project (GHPP) and was designed to address the unmet health needs and gaps in health care services for girls committed to the Massachusetts Department of Youth Services (DYS) and re-entering their communities from DYS assessment and treatment facilities. An advisory board of health, juvenile justice, philanthropy, and evaluation professionals assisted the program in its early development

3D modelling of the dolerite dyke network within the Siilinjärvi phosphate deposit

Non peer reviewe

A Predictive Model for the Parallel Processing of Digital Libraries

The computing world is facing the problem of a seemingly exponential increase in the amount of raw digital data, and the speed at which it is being collected, is eclipsing our ability to manage it manually. Combine this with the increasing expectations of a growing number of experienced computer users—including real-time access and a demand for expensive-to-process file types such as multimedia—and it is not hard to understand why managing data of this scale and providing timely access to useful information requires specialized algorithms, techniques, and software. Digital libraries are being used to help address these challenges. Drawing upon knowledge learned through traditional library science, digital libraries excel in providing structured user access to a wide variety of documents. They increasingly include tools for managing, moderating, and marking up these documents. Furthermore, they often feature phases where documents are independently processed and so can benefit from the application of parallel processing techniques—the focus of this thesis. Whether a digital library collection can benefit from parallel processing depends on considerations such as document type, processing cost per document, number of documents, and file-system input/output. To aid in deciding when to apply parallel processing techniques to digital libraries, this thesis explores the creation a model for predicting key outcomes of leveraging such techniques. It does so by implementing parallel processing in three distinct open-source digital library tools, undertaking experiments designed to measure key processing features (such as processing time versus number of compute nodes), and applying machine learning techniques to these features in order to derive a predictive model. The model created predicts parallel processing performance at 96% accuracy (adjusted r-squared) for a number of exemplar collection types. The result is a generally applicable tool for estimating the benefits of applying parallel processing to a wide range of digital collections

Lightweight component-based scalability

Digital libraries and information management systems are increasingly being developed according to component models with well-defined APIs and often with Web-accessible interfaces. In parallel with metadata access and harvesting, Web 2.0 mashups have demonstrated the flexibility of developing systems as independent distributed components. It can be argued that such distributed components also can be an enabler for scalability of service provision in medium to large systems. To test this premise, this article discusses how an existing component framework was modified to include support for scalability. A set of lightweight services and extensions were created to migrate and replicate services as the load changes. Experiments with the prototype system confirm that this system can in fact be quite effective as an enabler of transparent and efficient scalability, without the need to resort to complex middleware or substantial system reengineering. Finally, specific problems areas have been identified as future avenues for exploration at the crucial intersection of digital libraries and high-performance computing

P2P and SOA architecture for digital libraries

Doutoramento em Engenharia InformáticaIn an information-driven society where the volume and value of produced and consumed data assumes a growing importance, the role of digital libraries gains particular importance. This work analyzes the limitations in current digital library management systems and the opportunities brought by recent distributed computing models. The result of this work is the implementation of the University of Aveiro integrated system for digital libraries and archives. It concludes by analyzing the system in production and proposing a new service oriented digital library architecture supported in a peer-to-peer infrastructureNuma sociedade em que o volume e o valor da informação produzida e disseminada tem um peso cada vez maior, o papel das bibliotecas digitais assume especial relevo. O presente trabalho analisa as limitações dos actuais sistemas de gestão de bibliotecas digitais e as oportunidades criadas pelos mais recentes modelos de computação distribuída. Deste trabalho resultou a implementação do sistema integrado para bibliotecas e arquivos digitais da Universidade de Aveiro. Este trabalho finaliza debruçando-se sobre o sistema em produção e propondo uma nova arquitectura de biblioteca digital sustentada numa infrastrutura peer-to-peer e orientada a serviços

Earth Resources: A continuing bibliography with indexes, issue 13

This bibliography lists 524 reports, articles, and other documents introduced into the NASA scientific and technical information system between January 1977 and March 1977. Emphasis is placed on the use of remote sensing and geophysical instrumentation in spacecraft and aircraft to survey and inventory natural resources and urban areas. Subject matter is grouped according to agriculture and forestry, environmental changes and cultural resources, geodesy and cartography, geology and mineral resources, hydrology and water management, data processing and distribution systems, instrumentation and sensors, and economic analysis

PerCon: A Personal Digital Library for Heterogeneous Data Management and Analysis

Systems are needed to support access to and analysis of larger and more heterogeneous scientific datasets. Users need support in the location, organization, analysis, and interpretation of data to support their current activities with appropriate services and tools. We developed PerCon, a data management and analysis environment, to support such use. PerCon processes and integrates data gathered via queries to existing data providers to create a personal or a small group digital library of data. Users may then search, browse, visualize, annotate, and organize the data as they proceed with analysis and interpretation. Analysis and interpretation in PerCon takes place in a visual workspace in which multiple data visualizations and annotations are placed into spatial arrangements based on the current task. The system watches for patterns in the user’s data selection, exploration, and organization, then through mixed-initiative interaction assists users by suggesting potentially relevant data from unexplored data sources. In order to identify relevant data, PerCon builds up various precomputed feature tables of data objects including their metadata (e.g. similarities, distances) and a user interest model to infer the user interest or specific information need. In particular, probabilistic networks in PerCon model user interactions (i.e. event features) and predict the data type of greatest interest through network training. In turn, the most relevant data objects of interest in the inferred data type are identified through a weighted feature computation then recommended to the user. PerCon’s data location and analysis capabilities were evaluated in a controlled study with 24 users. The study participants were asked to locate and analyze heterogeneous weather and river data with and without the visual workspace and mixed-initiative interaction, respectively. Results indicate that the visual workspace facilitated information representation and aided in the identification of relationships between datasets. The system’s suggestions encouraged data exploration, leading participants to identify more evidences of correlation among data streams and more potential interactions among weather and river data

A Comprehensive Review and Synthesis of Open Source Research

The open source movement has grown steadily and matured in recent years, and this growth has been mirrored by a rise in open source related research. The objective of this paper is to pause and reflect on the state of the field. We start by conducting a comprehensive literature review of open source research, and organize the resulting 618 peer-reviewed articles into a taxonomy. Elements of this taxonomy are defined and described. We then draw on a number of existing categorization schemes to develop a framework to situate open source research within a wider nomological network. Building on concepts from systems theory, we propose a holistic framework of open source research. This framework incorporates current research, as represented by the taxonomy, identifies gaps and areas of overlap, and charts a path for future work

Program & Abstracts, 6th Annual Research Day (2019)

Program and abstracts from the Faculty of Science and Technology 6th Annual Research Day (2019). The research presented here encompasses both independent research projects and research in the classroom. In this volume you will find 82 abstracts authored by MRU students covering with a variety of disciplines including Biology, Chemistry, Geology, Geography, Environmental Sciences, Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science. This compilation is a testimony to our students’ hard work, and their professors’ diligent guidance