440 research outputs found
Sharing e-Health information through ontological layering
e-Health information, including patient clinical and demographic data, is very often dispersed across various environments, which either generate them or retrieve them from different sources. Healthcare professionals often need related e-health information in order to obtain a more comprehensive picture of a patient's health status. There are many obstacles to retrieving information and data from heterogeneous sources. In this paper we show that our ontological layering helps in (a) classifying requests imposed by healthcare professionals when retrieving e-health information from heterogeneous sources and (b) resolving semantic heterogeneities across repositories and composing an adequate answer to issued requests. We use a layered software architectural model based on Generic ontology for Context-aware, Interoperable and Data sharing (Go- CID) software applications, applicable to e-Health environments. Ontological layering and reasoning have been demonstrated with semantic web technologies
Experiences of generating COTS components when automating medicinal product evaluations
This paper reports on experiences of generating COTS
components when designing and deploying component based
software architecture for automation and interoperation of
medicinal product evaluations across different countries in the world. Our generic architectural model renders two sets of software components that are candidates for COTS components.
We identify which role such COTS components may play and
outline our approach of generating them. We advocate that such COTS components are developed with a specific component
platform in mind and must adhere to constraints of our software architecture
Experiences of revalidating the undergraduate and postgraduate courses within the information systems curricula at University of Westminster, UK
Information systems (IS) is the commonly accepted title for academic programs focusing on applied information technology provided by a range of Universities in the UK. The University of Westminster based in central London has successfully run BSc and MSc courses in IS for more than a decade. The courses underwent a major revision in 2002 focusing on subject content, construction of courses and teaching/learning strategies. We address the purpose of course reviews within the UK higher education (HE) environment, gives a rationale for our curriculum changes, describes the revalidated IS courses at both BSc and MSc levels including our teaching and assessment strategies, and comments on our progress to date
The Metallicity of the Monoceros Stream
We present low-resolution MMT Hectospec spectroscopy of 594 candidate
Monoceros stream member stars. Based on strong color-magnitude diagram
overdensities, we targeted three fields within the stream's footprint, with 178
deg < l < 203 deg and -25 deg < b < 25 deg. By comparing the measured iron
abundances with those expected from smooth Galactic components alone, we
measure, for the first time, the spectroscopic metallicity distribution
function for Monoceros. We find the stream to be chemically distinct from both
the thick disk and halo, with [Fe/H] = -1, and do not detect a trend in the
stream's metallicity with Galactic longitude. Passing from b = +25 deg to b =
-25 deg the median Monoceros metallicity trends upward by 0.1 dex, though
uncertainties in modeling sample contamination by the disk and halo make this a
marginal detection. In each field, we find Monoceros to have an intrinsic
[Fe/H] dispersion of 0.10-0.22 dex. From the CaII K line, we measure [Ca/Fe]
for a subsample of metal poor program stars with -1.1 < [Fe/H] < -0.5. In two
of three fields, we find calcium deficiencies qualitatively similar to
previously reported [Ti/Fe] underabundances in Monoceros and the Sagittarius
tidal stream. Further, using 90 spectra of thick disk stars in the Monoceros
pointings with b ~ +/-25 deg, we detect a 0.22 dex north/south metallicity
asymmetry coincident with known stellar density asymmetry at R_GC ~ 12 kpc and
|Z| ~ 1.7 kpc. Our median Monoceros [Fe/H] = -1.0 and its relatively low
dispersion naturally fit the expectation for an appropriately luminous M_V ~
-13 dwarf galaxy progenitor.Comment: accepted for publication in Ap
Experiences of teaching UML within the information systems curriculum
The Unified Modelling Language (UML) has been a standard modelling language for the development of software intensive systems since 2000. As a consequence, the information systems (IS) curriculum, at the Cavendish School of Computer Science, University of Westminster in London, had UML teaching incorporated two years ago. We have encouraged the introduction to and use of UML in modules that replaced traditional approaches to IS development. In this paper we report on experiences of using UML within the two modules of our undergraduate curriculum, delivered by the IS department. The first module is taught in the second year, i.e. at level 5, and delivers requirements analysis with UML. The second module uses the UML for modelling and designing distributed business applications and is taught in the final year, at level 6. In both modules it is assumed that an introduction to modelling in IS, with the syntax and semantics of a selection of UML modelling elements and diagrams, has been done earlier. We single out some problems and give a rationale for changes in the next academic yea
Design patterns for automation of marketing authorisations in pharmaceutical industry
This paper reports on the experiences
of using existing and creating new design
patterns when deploying layered and component
based software architecture that automates
procedures for marketing authorization. We use
the strategy pattern within the generic
architecture and deploy the architectural
components with the Model-View-Controller
(MVC) and front controller patterns. Three
domain specific patterns have been created and
named as: look-up, submission and evaluation.
We advocate that our combination of general and
domain specific patterns (i) facilitate the design
of distributed software applications, (ii) can be
reused in any problem domain where workflows
similar to submission and evaluations of
application licenses occur, and (iii) comprise
commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) components
that fit within our software architecture
Implementation of ontology for intelligent hospital ward
We have developed and implemented an ontology for an intelligent hospital ward. Our aim is to address the pervasiveness of computing applications in healthcare environments, which require: sharing of data across the hospital, including data generated by sensors and embedded in such environments, and dealing with semantic heterogeneity that exists across the hospital's data repositories. Our conceptual ontological model that supports such an environment has been implemented using semantic web tools and tested through the application developed with the J2EE technology
A survey of acceptance of e-government services in the UK
This paper gives an insight into the readiness of small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) for accepting e-government services in he UK. We conducted a survey of 128 SMEs, which revealed that there is a moderate demand for e-government services, but they were not rated as efficient and essential for SMEs' businesses as conventional services. The proliferation of the UK government's Web sites, which requires co-ordination between several organisations/multiple sites, and inadequate awareness of such services, do not comply with the common concepts of e-governance and consequently have an impact on the SMEs acceptance of e-government services in the UK
Ontological support for managing non-functional requirements in pervasive healthcare
We designed and implemented an ontological solution which makes provisions for choosing adequate devices/sensors for remote monitoring of patients who are suffering from post-stroke health complications. We argue that non-functional requirements in pervasive healthcare systems can be elicited and managed through semantics stored in ontological models and reasoning created upon them. Our contribution is twofold: we enrich the elicitation process and specification of non-functional requirements within the requirements engineering discipline and we address the pervasiveness of healthcare software systems through the way of choosing devices embedded in them and users expectations in terms of having access to pervasive services personalized to their needs
A ring as a model of the main belt in planetary ephemerides
We assess the ability of a solid ring to model a global perturbation induced
by several thousands of main-belt asteroids. The ring is first studied in an
analytical framework that provides an estimate of all the ring's parameters
excepting mass. In the second part, numerically estimated perturbations on the
Earth-Mars, Earth-Venus, and Earth-Mercury distances induced by various subsets
of the main-belt population are compared with perturbations induced by a ring.
To account for large uncertainties in the asteroid masses, we obtain results
from Monte Carlo experiments based on asteroid masses randomly generated
according to available data and the statistical asteroid model. The radius of
the ring is analytically estimated at 2.8 AU. A systematic comparison of the
ring with subsets of the main belt shows that, after removing the 300 most
perturbing asteroids, the total main-belt perturbation of the Earth-Mars
distance reaches on average 246 m on the 1969-2010 time interval. A ring with
appropriate mass is able to reduce this effect to 38 m. We show that, by
removing from the main belt ~240 asteroids that are not necessarily the most
perturbing ones, the corresponding total perturbation reaches on average 472 m,
but the ring is able to reduce it down to a few meters, thus accounting for
more than 99% of the total effect.Comment: 18 pages, accepted in A&
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