Implementing the Gaia Astrometric Global Iterative Solution (AGIS) in Java

This paper provides a description of the Java software framework which has been constructed to run the Astrometric Global Iterative Solution for the Gaia mission. This is the mathematical framework to provide the rigid reference frame for Gaia observations from the Gaia data itself. This process makes Gaia a self calibrated, and input catalogue independent, mission. The framework is highly distributed typically running on a cluster of machines with a database back end. All code is written in the Java language. We describe the overall architecture and some of the details of the implementation.Comment: Accepted for Experimental Astronom

Security and the digital domain

Security does not sound a very exciting topic for this book, which is showing you new and challenging ways to view your business and how you conduct it. Security means many different things in different contexts. Most of the time, what it is about is protection of people or objects. In our context, security is about protection of information. Two questions arise from the notion of protection of information: 1)Why is protection necessary? and 2)What are we protecting it from? The first question concerns the fact that information has value. If it did not, there would be little point in keeping it. That value is not always value in a strictly financial sense, although the cost of recovering or recreating information may be a significant issue. Archivists have traditionally defined four main types of record value, namely: administrative/informational, legal/evidential, compliance/regulatory and historical. Security is about protecting these as much as anything else. Additionally, a great deal of information is about people, and in many cultures and circumstances people have a right to expect that at least some of the information about them is treated as confidential. Confidentiality implies protection. The second question concerns the fact that there are threats to information, an aspect that we will return to at intervals in this chapter. If one is to protect something, one has to identify what the threats are, so as to take appropriate steps to mitigate them. This chapter is essentially about what the threats are and the steps that can be taken in relation to them. If you have been an archivist or records manager for some time, you will probably have a fairly shrewd idea as to how to deal with many of these issues in a world of physical manifestations of information (books, manuscripts, ledgers, minute books, maps, plans and such like). You may be rather less clear how to deal with these matters in a world of digital manifestations (bits, bytes, computer files, databases and networks). One of the tasks of this chapter is to make the connections between the two worlds, so that you can use and build upon what you already know as the balance of your work moves from physical towards digital, as it probably will

Lifecycle information for e-literature: full report from the LIFE project

This Report is a record of the LIFE Project. The Project has been run for one year and its aim is to deliver crucial information about the cost and management of digital material. This information should then in turn be able to be applied to any institution that has an interest in preserving and providing access to electronic collections. The Project is a joint venture between The British Library and UCL Library Services. The Project is funded by JISC under programme area (i) as listed in paragraph 16 of the JISC 4/04 circular- Institutional Management Support and Collaboration and as such has set requirements and outcomes which must be met and the Project has done its best to do so. Where the Project has been unable to answer specific questions, strong recommendations have been made for future Project work to do so. The outcomes of this Project are expected to be a practical set of guidelines and a framework within which costs can be applied to digital collections in order to answer the following questions: • What is the long term cost of preserving digital material; • Who is going to do it; • What are the long term costs for a library in HE/FE to partner with another institution to carry out long term archiving; • What are the comparative long-term costs of a paper and digital copy of the same publication; • At what point will there be sufficient confidence in the stability and maturity of digital preservation to switch from paper for publications available in parallel formats; • What are the relative risks of digital versus paper archiving. The Project has attempted to answer these questions by using a developing lifecycle methodology and three diverse collections of digital content. The LIFE Project team chose UCL e-journals, BL Web Archiving and the BL VDEP digital collections to provide a strong challenge to the methodology as well as to help reach the key Project aim of attributing long term cost to digital collections. The results from the Case Studies and the Project findings are both surprising and illuminating

Métodos computacionais para análise de dados de microarrays

Mestrado em Engenharia de Computadores e TelemáticaOs microarrays de ácido desoxirribonucleico (ADN) são uma importante tecnologia para a análise de expressão genética. Permitem medir o nível de expressão de genes em várias amostras para, por exemplo, identificar genes cuja expressão varia com a administração de determinado medicamento. Um slide de microarray mede o nível de expressão de milhares de genes numa amostra ao mesmo tempo e uma experiência pode usar vários slides, surgindo assim muitos dados que é preciso processar e analisar, com recurso a meios informáticos. Esta dissertação inclui um levantamento de métodos e recursos de software utilizados na análise de dados de experiências de microarrays. Em seguida, descreve-se o desenvolvimento de um novo módulo de análise de dados que visa, usando métodos de identificação de genes diferencialmente expressos, identificar genes que se encontram diferencialmente expressos entre dois ou mais grupos experimentais. No final, é apresentado o trabalho resultante, a nível de interfaces gráficas e funcionamento.Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) microarrays are an important technology for the analysis of gene expression. They allow measuring the expression of genes among several samples in order to, for example, identify genes whose expression varies with the administration of a certain drug. A microarray slide measures the expression level of thousands of genes in a sample at the same time, and an experiment can include various slides, leading to a lot of data to be processed and analyzed, with the aid of computerized means. This dissertation includes a review of methods and software tools used in the analysis of microarray experimental data. Then it is described the development of a new data analysis module that intends, using methods of identifying differentially expressed genes, to identify genes that are differentially expressed between two more groups. Finally, the resulting work is presented, describing its graphical interface and structural design

Undertaking Studies Within A Trial to evaluate recruitment and retention strategies for randomised controlled trials : lessons learnt from the PROMETHEUS research programme

Funding: This award was funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Health Technology Assessment programme (NIHR award ref: 13/55/80) and is published in full in Health Technology Assessment; Vol. 28, No. 2. See the NIHR Funding and Awards website for further award information.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Improving the usefulness and use of patient experience feedback

Patient experience is recognised as a pillar of healthcare quality equal to safety and effectiveness (1)(2). In the UK National Health Service (NHS), this paradigm has supported robust feedback collection, leading to a repository of nationally-collected patient experience data (3)(4). However, such data has not been effectively used to drive local quality improvements (4)(5)(6). This work addresses the question, how can the usefulness and use of patient experience feedback be improved? In order to contribute a clear body of knowledge in response, this work ascertains the root causes of limited data use; tests how novel analytic techniques can enhance data utility; and explores how experience data can be used in conjunction with other data to improve organisational responsiveness to patient feedback. First, this work systematically appraises the evidence relied upon to design patient surveys. This confirms a deficit of patient input into the evidence base, and subsequently insufficient information about how patients’ priorities differ. Population segmentation techniques are then employed to identify patient groups and their varying concerns, and present feedback in a disaggregated way that facilitates targeted improvement. Furthermore, interviews with NHS staff elucidate what adaptations they feel are necessary in order to embed national patient survey results within their local improvement strategies. This work then leverages existing data to generate a new patient experience composite score that challenges current national benchmarking metrics. The composite score is used to cluster acute NHS organisations, revealing organisational patterns in patient experience. Furthermore, multi-linear regression analysis delineates which organisational factors predict positive patient experience, intimating the importance of cultural variables. A translational research case study then captures the process towards achieving the organisational culture necessary to act on patient experience data. Individually, these findings convey a series of policy recommendations, while cumulatively they showcase the possibilities for a more patient-centric health service.Open Acces

Keeping Research Data Safe 2: Final Report

The first Keeping Research Data Safe study funded by JISC made a major contribution to understanding of long-term preservation costs for research data by developing a cost model and indentifying cost variables for preserving research data in UK universities (Beagrie et al, 2008). However it was completed over a very constrained timescale of four months with little opportunity to follow up other major issues or sources of preservation cost information it identified. It noted that digital preservation costs are notoriously difficult to address in part because of the absence of good case studies and longitudinal information for digital preservation costs or cost variables. In January 2009 JISC issued an ITT for a study on the identification of long-lived digital datasets for the purposes of cost analysis. The aim of this work was to provide a larger body of material and evidence against which existing and future data preservation cost modelling exercises could be tested and validated. The proposal for the KRDS2 study was submitted in response by a consortium consisting of 4 partners involved in the original Keeping Research Data Safe study (Universities of Cambridge and Southampton, Charles Beagrie Ltd, and OCLC Research) and 4 new partners with significant data collections and interests in preservation costs (Archaeology Data Service, University of London Computer Centre, University of Oxford, and the UK Data Archive). A range of supplementary materials in support of this main report have been made available on the KRDS2 project website at http://www.beagrie.com/jisc.php. That website will be maintained and continuously updated with future work as a resource for KRDS users

Development and evaluation of decision aids for people considering taking part in a clinical trial : a conceptual framework

Funding This research was supported by the MRC Methodology Fellowship (KG MR/L01193X/1. The Health Services Research Unit, University of Aberdeen, receives core funding from the Chief Scientist Office of the Scottish Government Health and Social Care Directorate. Authors’ contributions KG and MC conceived the idea for the article. KG wrote the first draft of the manuscript. KG and MC contributed to further development of the manuscript. Both reviewed and approved the final manuscript.Peer reviewedPublisher PD