A User-centric Framework for Accessing Biological Sources and Tools

Biologists face two problems in interpreting their experiments: the integration of their data with information from multiple heterogeneous sources and data analysis with bioinformatics tools. It is difficult for scientists to choose between the numerous sources and tools without assistance. Following a thorough analysis of scientists’ needs during the querying process, we found that biologists express preferences concerning the sources to be queried and the tools to be used. Interviews also showed that the querying process itself – the strategy followed – differs between scientists. In response to these findings, we have introduced a user-centric framework allowing to specify various querying processes. Then we have developed the BioGuide system which helps the scientists to choose suitable sources and tools, find complementary information in sources, and deal with divergent data. It is generic in that it can be adapted by each user to provide answers respecting his/her preferences, and obtained following his/her strategies

The Core Value Compass: visually evaluating the goodness of brands that do good

yesBrands that do good for the society as well as for themselves are motivated by the core values they espouse, which necessitates a better understanding of what qualities a true core value must possess. The inherent tension within brands that do good, between commercial interests to increase competitiveness, and societal interests that are closely linked to the brand’s authenticity, has largely been overlooked. Hence, we develop and demonstrate a relatively easy-to-apply visual tool for evaluating core values based on a set of ‘goodness’ criteria derived from extant theory. The Core Value Compass adopts a paradox-based, evolutionary perspective by incorporating the inherent tensions within true core values, and classifying them according to their temporal orientation. Thus, we contribute towards a better understanding of underlying tensions of core values and provide a practical tool that paves the way for improved, and indeed ethical, corporate branding strategies. Furthermore, we demonstrate the Compass’ application using the case of a public sector brand, which is a quintessential brand that does good. Therefore, we also contribute to the nascent theoretical discourse on public sector branding. This paper therefore adds to the notable attempts to bridge the gap between theory and practice in core values-based corporate branding

A framework for cost based optimization of hybrid CPU/GPU query plans in database systems

Current database research identified the use of computational power of GPUs as a way to increase the performance of database systems. As GPU algorithms are not necessarily faster than their CPU counterparts, it is important to use the GPU only if it is beneficial for query processing. In a general database context, only few research projects address hybrid query processing, i.e., using a mix of CPU- and GPU-based processing to achieve optimal performance. In this paper, we extend our CPU/GPU scheduling framework to support hybrid query processing in database systems. We point out fundamental problems and propose an algorithm to create a hybrid query plan for a query using our scheduling framework. Additionally, we provide cost metrics, accounting for the possible overlapping of data transfers and computation on the GPU. Furthermore, we present algorithms to create hybrid query plans for query sequences and query trees

Foederierungsdienst fuer heterogene Dokumentenquellen Abschlussbericht

Available from TIB Hannover: RR 4485(2003,4) / FIZ - Fachinformationszzentrum Karlsruhe / TIB - Technische InformationsbibliothekSIGLEDEGerman