A Web/Grid Services Approach for Integration of Virtual Clinical & Research Environments

Clinicans have responsibilities for audit and research, often participating in projects with basic scientist colleagues. Our work in a regional teaching hospital setting involves collaboration with the medical school computer services and builds upon work developed in computer science department as part of the Collaborative Orthopaedic Research Environment (CORE) project[1]. This has established a pilot study for proof of concept work. Users are mapped to a personal profile implemented using XML and a service oriented architecture (SOA)[2,3]. This bridges the e-Health and e-Science domains, addressing some of the basic questions of security and uptake

A double-diffusive interface tank for dynamic-response studies

Author Posting. © Sears Foundation for Marine Research, 2005. This article is posted here by permission of Sears Foundation for Marine Research for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Marine Research 63 (2005): 263-289, doi:10.1357/0022240053693842.A large tank capable of long-term maintenance of a sharp temperature-salinity interface has been developed and applied to measurements of the dynamical response of oceanographic sensors. A two-layer salt-stratified system is heated from below and cooled from above to provide two convectively mixed layers with a thin double-diffusive interface separating them. A temperature jump exceeding 10°C can be maintained over 1–2 cm (a vertical temperature gradient of order 103°C/m) for several weeks. A variable speed-lowering system allows testing of the dynamic response of conductivity and temperature sensors in full-size oceanographic instruments. An acoustic echo sounder and shadowgraph system provide nondisruptive monitoring of the interface and layer microstructure. Tests of several sensor systems show how data from the facility is used to determine sensor response times using several fitting techniques and the speed dependence of thermometer time constants is illustrated. The linearity of the conductivity–temperature relationship across the interface is proposed as a figure of merit for design of lag-correction filters to accurately match temperature and conductivity sensors for the computation of salinity. The effects of finite interface thickness, slow sensor sampling rates and the thermal mass of the conductivity cell are treated. Sensor response characterization is especially important for autonomous instruments where data processing and compression must be performed in-situ, but is also helpful in the development of new sensors and in assuring accurate salinity records from traditional wire-lowered and towed systems.This research was supported by the National Science Foundation, grants OCE-97-11869 and OCE-02-40956, NOAA CORC grant 154368 and a WHOI Mellon Technical Staff Award

On being a good Bayesian

Bayesianism is fast becoming the dominant paradigm in archaeological chronology construction. This paradigm shift has been brought about in large part by widespread access to tailored computer software which provides users with powerful tools for complex statistical inference with little need to learn about statistical modelling or computer programming. As a result, we run the risk that such software will be reduced to the status of black boxes. This would be a dangerous position for our community since good, principled use of Bayesian methods requires mindfulness when selecting the initial model, defining prior information, checking the reliability and sensitivity of the software runs and interpreting the results obtained. In this article, we provide users with a brief review of the nature of the care required and offer some comments and suggestions to help ensure that our community continues to be respected for its philosophically rigorous scientific approach

The effectiveness of emergency obstetric referral interventions in developing country settings : a systematic review

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

The unusual ISM in blue and dusty gas-rich galaxies (BADGRS)

The Herschel-ATLAS unbiased survey of cold dust in the local Universe is dominated by a surprising population of very blue (FUV-K 0.5 fHI=MHI/(M∗+M+HI)>0.5 ). Dubbed ‘Blue and Dusty Gas-Rich Sources’ (BADGRS) they have cold diffuse dust temperatures, and the highest dust-to-stellar mass ratios of any galaxies in the local Universe. Here, we explore the molecular interstellar medium in a representative sample of BADGRS, using very deep CO(J up =1,2,3) CO(Jup=1,2,3) observations across the central and outer disc regions. We find very low CO brightnesses (Tp = 5–30 mK), despite the bright far-infrared emission and metallicities in the range 0.5 < Z/Z⊙ < 1.0. The CO line ratios indicate a range of conditions with R 21 =T 21 b /T 10 b =0.6−2.1 R21=Tb21/Tb10=0.6−2.1 and R 31 =T 32 b /T 10 b =0.2−1.2 R31=Tb32/Tb10=0.2−1.2 . Using a metallicity-dependent conversion from CO luminosity to molecular gas mass, we find M H 2 /M d ∼7−27 MH2/Md∼7−27 and Σ H 2 =0.5−6M ⊙ pc −2 ΣH2=0.5−6M⊙pc−2 , around an order of magnitude lower than expected. The BADGRS have lower molecular gas depletion time-scales (τd ∼ 0.5 Gyr) than other local spirals, lying offset from the Kennicutt–Schmidt relation by a similar factor to Blue Compact Dwarf galaxies. The cold diffuse dust temperature in BADGRS (13–16 K) requires an interstellar radiation field 10–20 times lower than that inferred from their observed surface brightness. We speculate that the dust in these sources has either a very clumpy geometry or a very different opacity in order to explain the cold temperatures and lack of CO emission. BADGRS also have low UV attenuation for their UV colour suggestive of an SMC-type dust attenuation curve, different star formation histories or different dust/star geometry. They lie in a similar part of the IRX-β space as z z ∼ 5 galaxies and may be useful as local analogues for high gas fraction galaxies in the early Universe

The Pi-puck Ecosystem : Hardware and Software Support for the e-puck and e-puck2

This paper presents a hardware revision of the Pi-puck extension board that now includes support for the e-puck2. This Raspberry Pi interface for the e-puck robot provides a feature-rich experimentation platform suitable for multi-robot and swarm robotics research. We also present a new expansion board that features a 9-DOF IMU and XBee interface for increased functionality. We detail the revised Pi-puck hardware and software ecosystem, including ROS support that now allows mobile robotics algorithms and utilities developed by the ROS community to be leveraged by swarm robotics researchers. We also present the results of an illustrative multi-robot mapping experiment using new long-range Time-of-Flight distance sensor modules, to demonstrate the ease-of use and efficacy of this new Pi-puck ecosystem

Surveying the views of pupils attending supplementary schools in England

This report is the first part of a wider research project intended to evaluate the role of supplementary school in supporting pupils’ educational progress. This study reports on the first phase of this research An attitude survey to find out what young people think about mainstream and supplementary education, about the core subjects of reading and mathematics, about themselves as learners and about their reasons for attending supplementary school.. Pupil questionnaires were sent to all schools who were successful in being awarded grants from the support service. Schools were asked to administer the questionnaires to ten nominated pupils within the school, although they could give the questionnaire to more than 10 pupils if they chose. Questionnaires were returned from a total of 772 pupils attending 63 supplementary schools in four major cities in England. This is the first study to systematically explore the attitudes of pupils attending supplementary school in England and is the largest ever study of supplementary schools and their pupils