Using Plone to support collaborative research

Abstrac

Adaptive reuse of Libre software systems for supporting on-line collaboration

In this paper, the adaptive reuse of Plone; an open source content management system is described. In one instance, Plone has been used as the backbone of a collaboration and communication support infrastructure within a large research project. In the other, Plone has been used as the main web-presence of a specialist group of the British Computer Society. This paper analyses the benefits and problems of reusing Plone to support collaboration. Based on this reuse experience, a more systematic approach to supporting Plone reuse is proposed. This approach takes into account the special case of reuse support relevant to open source software developments

Using open source tools to support collaboration within CALIBRE

Abstract – This paper describes the deployment of Plone, an Open-Source content management system, to support the activities of CALIBRE, an EU-funded coordination action integrating research into Libre software. The criteria by which Plone was selected are described, and the goodness of fit to these criteria is analysed. As a coordination action, CALIBRE involves 12 partners with different requirements and characteristics. The CALIBRE Working Environment (CWE) must therefore support a variety of users with different levels of technical expertise and expectations. Implementation of the support infrastructure for CALIBRE is ongoing, and has provided some interesting insights into the benefits of the use of libre software. Although Plone has not been explicitly developed as a collaboration infrastructure, with its wealth of plugins, it has proven highly adaptable for this purpose

Residential fire detection

"Residential fires have become a significant problem throughout the U.S. The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) estimates that in 1982 residential fires in the U.S. killed 4,940 persons and resulted in injury to 21,100 more. In addition, these residential fires accounted for an estimated $3,253,000,000 in property damage. Figure 1 shows the causes of residential fires as reported by the Federal Emergency Management Agency in its National Fire Incident Reporting System. The leading causes of fires in one-and-two family dwellings were heating (31 percent), cooking (15 percent), and incendiary or suspicious (10 percent). In residential properties, cigarettes are still the leading cause of accidental multiple death fires (those fires that are fatal to three or more persons) by a factor of two to one. Fires resulting from fixed or portable heating equipment-woodstoves, kerosene heaters, gas or electric cooking stoves, etc.,-are the second most common cause of accidental multipledeath fires in residential properties."--First page.David E. Baker (Department of Agricultural Engineering, College of Agriculture) and Paul Adams (Director, Missouri Fire and Rescue Training Institute, University of Missouri--Columbia)Revised 8/84/10

Life Cycle Assessment of Biofertilizer Production and Use Compared with Conventional Liquid Digestate Management

Handling of digestate produced by anaerobic digestion impacts the environment through emission of greenhouse gases, reactive nitrogen, and phosphorus. Previous life cycle assessments (LCA) evaluating the extraction of nutrients from digestate using struvite precipitation and ammonia stripping did not relate synthetic fertilizer substitution (SFS) to nutrient use efficiency consequences. We applied an expanded LCA to compare the conventional management of 1 m³ of liquid digestate (LD) from food waste against the production and use of digestate biofertilizer (DBF) extracted from LD, accounting for SFS efficacy. Avoidance of CH₄, N₂O, and NH₃ emissions from LD handling and enhanced SFS via more targeted use of nutrients in the versatile DBF product could generate environmental savings of up to 0.129 kg Sb eq, 4.16 kg SO₂ eq, 1.22 kg PO₄ eq, 33 kg CO₂ eq, and 20.6 MJ eq per m³ LD, for abiotic resource depletion, acidification, eutrophication, global warming, and cumulative energy demand burdens, respectively. However, under worst-case assumptions, DBF extraction could increase global warming and cumulative energy demand by 7.5 kg CO₂e and 251 MJ eq per m³ LD owing to processing inputs. Normalizing these results against per capita environmental loadings, we conclude that DBF extraction is environmentally beneficial

Simplifying Satellite and Ground Data Validation with Level-2 Subsetting

We demonstrate that scientists can simplify their satellite data validation workflow with the use of NASA Godddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center (GES DISC) subsetting services. We perform a sample validation of Aura ozone products collocated with ground-based ozone measurements using subsetting services to trim satellite data to only the relevant user-defined variables and spatio-temporal region. Because the subsetting service automatically returns only relevant data granules that adhere to a set of user-defined coincidence criteria, user workload is greatly reduced. Moreover, the resultant data files are substantially smaller than full data granules due to the subsetting service further culling the data to the relevant geospatio-temporal coincidence criteria, user-defined variables, and user-defined dimensions of variables. This decreases data download throughput and file storage requirements. The validation presented here quantifies the time and file size savings that can be achieved by utilizing subsetting services within the satellite data validation workflow

Carbon Cycle Science Data and Services at the Goddard Earth Sciences Data Information and Services Center (GES DISC)

The Goddard Earth Sciences Data Information and Services Center (GES DISC) archives and distributes a number of observational and model carbon cycle science data sets. We also provide services that facilitate data discovery, intercomparison, and visualization of these heterogeneous datasets for both research and applications users, such as subsetting, format conversion, How-To documentation, and the Help Desk

Multi-signal quality monitoring of aluminium resistance spot welding using principal component analysis

The current migration to lighter materials in car bodies, such as aluminium, has resulted in significant challenges for joining in production. Resistance Spot Welding (RSW) is the primary sheet metal joining technique in the automotive industry due to its quick cycle time, low cost and high strength. However, aluminium RSW suffers from problems with quality consistency compared to steel, requiring more frequent interventions. This results in a higher cost in production through increased cycle times and the use of consumable electrodes. To address this issue, a new multi-signal quality monitoring technique is proposed to allow for complete real-time quality monitoring of aluminium spot welds in production. The proposed solution utilises multiple signals during welding and an efficient algorithm using Principal Component Analysis to determine the signal shapes of interest. It was found that an RMSE of 119N could be achieved when predicting the strength of aluminium spot welds using multiple signals, which is approximately ±5% of the mean strength of the welds and an improvement on previous attempts.This research was supported by an Australian Government Research Training Program (RTP) Scholarship

Hubble Space Telescope High Resolution Imaging of Kepler Small and Cool Exoplanet Host Stars

High resolution imaging is an important tool for follow-up study of exoplanet candidates found via transit detection with the Kepler Mission. We discuss here HST imaging with the WFC3 of 23 stars that host particularly interesting Kepler planet candidates based on their small size and cool equilibrium temperature estimates. Results include detections, exclusion of background stars that could be a source of false positives for the transits, and detection of physically-associated companions in a number of cases providing dilution measures necessary for planet parameter refinement. For six KOIs, we find that there is ambiguity in which star hosts the transiting planet(s), with potentially strong implications for planetary characteristics. Our sample is evenly distributed in G, K, and M spectral types. Albeit with a small sample size, we find that physically-associated binaries are more common than expected at each spectral type, reaching a factor of 10 frequency excess at M. We document the program detection sensitivities, detections, and deliverables to the Kepler follow-up program archive.Comment: Accepted for the Astronomical Journal; 13 pages with 9 figure