Software for Distributed Computation on Medical Databases: A Demonstration Project

Bringing together the information latent in distributed medical databases promises to personalize medical care by enabling reliable, stable modeling of outcomes with rich feature sets (including patient characteristics and treatments received). However, there are barriers to aggregation of medical data, due to lack of standardization of ontologies, privacy concerns, proprietary attitudes toward data, and a reluctance to give up control over end use. Aggregation of data is not always necessary for model fitting. In models based on maximizing a likelihood, the computations can be distributed, with aggregation limited to the intermediate results of calculations on local data, rather than raw data. Distributed fitting is also possible for singular value decomposition. There has been work on the technical aspects of shared computation for particular applications, but little has been published on the software needed to support the "social networking" aspect of shared computing, to reduce the barriers to collaboration. We describe a set of software tools that allow the rapid assembly of a collaborative computational project, based on the flexible and extensible R statistical software and other open source packages, that can work across a heterogeneous collection of database environments, with full transparency to allow local officials concerned with privacy protections to validate the safety of the method. We describe the principles, architecture, and successful test results for the site-stratified Cox model and rank-k Singular Value Decomposition (SVD)

AGENDA: A NEW TOOL FOR SUSTAINABLE FARM MANAGEMENT, INTEGRATED IN THE AGRI-ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY OF THE EU

AGeNDA is an Italian acronym which stands for Analysis and Integrated Management of the Farm (Analisi e GEstione iNtegrata Dell'Azienda agraria). It denominates a new software developed by a research project carried out at the Department of Agronomy, Environment and Crop Production (DAAPV, University of Padova) in collaboration with the Environmental Protection Agency of the Veneto Region (ARPAV). Although developed from scratch, the software originates from a past joint research carried out by the two above mentioned institutions in collaboration with the Department of Agricultural Economics and the Center for Farm Financial Management (CFFM) of the University of Minnesota. The joint research started in the early 1990's, focussing on the Planetor software and, in particular, on the evaluation of its potentials for Italy and the development of an Italian version. The source codes and the elaboration procedures of the old and new software tools have nothing in common. Nevertheless, the methodological approach of the two tools is very similar and so is the input structure of the databases. AGeNDA, in fact adopts an approach similar to that of the previous software in utilising an extensive knowledge base about the environment and the production processes (crops and livestock) saved on databases, which are browsed (and edited if required) at the moment of the practical on farm implementation. The paper presents the results, current activities and future prospects of the AGeNDA Project, with the aim of informing the Italian - American group and stimulating possible new collaborations in the future.Farm management, Agri-environmental policy, Software, Environmental Economics and Policy, Farm Management,

An improved software process management tool: ReMoTe (recursively estimating multi-threaded observation tool enterprise)

The principal purpose of the project is to enable ReMoTe support for multi-databases. ReMoTe stands for the Recursively Estimating Multi-Threaded Observation Technology Enterprise, which is a web-based computer aided software engineering tool for monitoring software development process. Development of ReMoTe is based on the RMT (Recursive Multi-Threaded) software life cycle developed by Scott Simon, a CSUSB alum, in his master\u27s thesis in 1997. ReMoTe enables the monitoring of projects that use different databases in various locations. Central management can view the progress information of each project using a web browser no matter where the database or project team is located. In this project, three database software were supported, namely MySQL, Oracle, and Microsoft Access, and employed contemporary technologies such as JavaScript, PHP, and Open Database Connectivity (ODBC). Source codes are included

A software service supporting software quality forecasting

Software repositories such as source control, defect tracking systems and project management tools, are used to support the progress of software projects. The exploitation of such data with techniques like forecasting is becoming an increasing need in several domains to support decision-making processes. However, although there exist several statistical tools and languages supporting forecasting, there is a lack of friendly approaches that enable practitioners to exploit the advantages of creating and using such models in their dashboard tools. Therefore, we have developed a modular and flexible forecasting service allowing the interconnection with different kinds of databases/data repositories for creating and exploiting forecasting models based on methods like ARIMA or ETS. The service is open source software, has been developed in Java and R and exposes its functionalities through a REST API. Architecture details are provided, along with functionalities’ description and an example of its use for software quality forecasting.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

The Universe on a Desktop: Observational Astronomy Simulations in the Instructional Laboratory

Though the value of hands-on learning has long been recognised by educators, it is difficult to design laboratories in astronomy classes that present realistic astrophysical techniques to undergraduate students. Unlike most other sciences, astronomy is largely observational, not experimental, and making useful observations involves expensive equipment over time scales inconvenient for pedagogy. In recent years, however, astronomy has gone almost completely digital, and the advent of large on-line databases and fast personal computers has made it possible to realistically simulate the experience of research astrophysics in the laboratory. Since 1992, Project CLEA (Contemporary Laboratory Experiences in Astronomy) has been developing computer-based exercises aimed primarily at the introductory astronomy laboratory. These exercises simulate important techniques of astronomical research using digital data and Windows-based software. Each of the nine exercises developed to date consists of software, technical guides for teachers, and student manuals for the exercises. CLEA software is used at many institutions in all the United States and over 60 countries worldwide, in a variety of settings from middle school to upper-class astronomy classes. The current design philosophy and goals of Project CLEA are discussed along with plans for future development

Вільне програмне забезпечення моделювання термомодернізації приміщень

The free software for modeling of the thermo-modernization of a residential building has been developed. The mathematical models, software architecture, algorithms, databases structure, source code, design and markup have been developed. The software is available as free web-service. The service gives possibility to obtain an economical effect value of the thermo-modernization procedure of old residential buildings. Free and open-source software tools and facilities were used for this project only

Irrigation Management Improvement Project: Final report. Vol.1 Main report; Vol.2 Annexes

Irrigation management / Computer software / Databases / Decision making / Project management / Monitoring / Data collection / Irrigation canals / Irrigation scheduling / Crop-based irrigation / Performance evaluation / Sri Lanka / Inginimitiya