Maintainability and evolvability of control software in machine and plant manufacturing -- An industrial survey

Automated Production Systems (aPS) have lifetimes of up to 30-50 years, throughout which the desired products change ever more frequently. This requires flexible, reusable control software that can be easily maintained and evolved. To evaluate selected criteria that are especially relevant for maturity in software maintainability and evolvability of aPS, the approach SWMAT4aPS+ builds on a questionnaire with 52 questions. The three main research questions cover updates of software modules and success factors for both cross-disciplinary development as well as reusable models. This paper presents the evaluation results of 68 companies from machine and plant manufacturing (MPM). Companies providing automation devices and/or engineering tools will be able to identify challenges their customers in MPM face. Validity is ensured through feedback of the participating companies and an analysis of the statistical unambiguousness of the results. From a software or systems engineering point of view, almost all criteria are fulfilled below expectations

A Theory-Based Approach for a Modular System of Interactive Decision Aids

In web stores, a large amount of product information is easily available for consumers. This often leads to information overload on the consumer-side which decreases user-satisfaction and can cause purchase deferral. Therefore, our goal is to prevent consumers from information overload by supporting the cumbersome process of comparing and evaluating products. We propose easy to understand, interactive decision aids, called interactive information management tools such as filtering, sorting and scoring. The contribution of this paper is to (1) retrieve guidelines for designing such tools from both literature on decision behavior research and information systems, and (2) build a prototype following these guidelines. The prototype is evaluated in two usability studies

Intercomparison study of atmospheric 222Rn and 222Rn progeny monitors

The use of the noble gas radon (222Rn) as a tracer for different research studies, for example observation-based estimation of greenhouse gas (GHG) fluxes, has led to the need of high-quality 222Rn activity concentration observations with high spatial and temporal resolution. So far a robust metrology chain for these measurements is not yet available. A portable direct atmospheric radon monitor (ARMON), based on electrostatic collection of 218Po, is now running at Spanish stations. This monitor has not yet been compared with other 222Rn and 222Rn progeny monitors commonly used at atmospheric stations. A 3-month intercomparison campaign of atmospheric 222Rn and 222Rn progeny monitors based on different measurement techniques was realized during the fall and winter of 2016–2017 to evaluate (i) calibration and correction factors between monitors necessary to harmonize the atmospheric radon observations and (ii) the dependence of each monitor's response in relation to the sampling height and meteorological and atmospheric aerosol conditions. Results of this study have shown the following. (i) All monitors were able to reproduce the atmospheric radon variability on a daily basis. (ii) Linear regression fits between the monitors exhibited slopes, representing the correction factors, between 0.62 and 1.17 and offsets ranging between -0.85 and -0.23¿Bq¿m-3 when sampling 2¿m above ground level (a.g.l.). Corresponding results at 100¿m¿a.g.l. exhibited slopes of 0.94 and 1.03 with offsets of -0.13 and 0.01¿Bq¿m-3, respectively. (iii) No influence of atmospheric temperature and relative humidity on monitor responses was observed for unsaturated conditions at 100¿m¿a.g.l., whereas slight influences (order of 10-2) of ambient temperature were observed at 2¿m¿a.g.l. (iv) Changes in the ratio between 222Rn progeny and 222Rn monitor responses were observed under very low atmospheric aerosol concentrations. Results also show that the new ARMON could be useful at atmospheric radon monitoring stations with space restrictions or as a mobile reference instrument to calibrate in situ 222Rn progeny monitors and fixed radon monitors. In the near future a long-term comparison study between ARMON, HRM, and ANSTO monitors would be useful to better evaluate (i) the uncertainties of radon measurements in the range of a few hundred millibecquerels per cubic meter to a few becquerels per cubic meter and (ii) the response time correction of the ANSTO monitor for representing fast changes in the ambient radon concentrations.Postprint (published version

AutozygosityMapper: Identification of disease-mutations in consanguineous families

With the shift from SNP arrays to high-throughput sequencing, most researchers studying diseases in consanguineous families do not rely on linkage analysis any longer, but simply search for deleterious variants which are homozygous in all patients. AutozygosityMapper allows the fast and convenient identification of disease mutations in patients from consanguineous pedigrees by focussing on homozygous segments shared by all patients. Users can upload multi-sample VCF files, including WGS data, without any pre-processing. Genome-wide runs of homozygosity and the underlying genotypes are presented in graphical interfaces. AutozygosityMapper extends the functions of its predecessor. HomozygosityMapper, to the search for autozygous regions, in which all patients share the same homozygous genotype. We provide export of VCF files containing only the variants found in homozygous regions, this usually reduces the number of variants by two orders of magnitude. These regions can also directly be analysed with our disease mutation identification tool MutationDistiller. The application comes with simple and intuitive graphical interfaces for data upload, analysis, and results. We kept the structure of HomozygosityMapper so that previous users will find it easy to switch. With AutozygosityMapper, we provide a fast web-based way to identify disease mutations in consanguineous families. AutozygosityMapper is freely available at https://www.genecascade. org/AutozygosityMapper/

Procedural Creation of Medical Reports with Hierarchical Information Processing in Radiation Oncology

Background: For many years, the oncological doctor's letter has been the pivotal means of information transfer to general practitioners, medical specialists or medical consultants. Yet, both creator and recipient require a high level of abstraction, retentiveness and analysis due to the large number of diagnoses and therapies. In contrast to the commonly used structure of doctor's letters, where all diagnoses and therapies are listed in sequential order with all diagnoses first, it is by no means trivial to establish the important chronological and hierarchical context in the description of oncological cases. Additional aspects of importance are the integration of these letters into existing clinical and departmental information systems (for example via HL7 interface), various export formats (for example PDF, HTML), fax and encrypted email. Moreover these letters need a modern layout that, among others, meets the requirements of corporate design. Methods: The requirements for a doctor's letter system are manifold and can only be represented rudimentarily via a normal word processing system. Due to this deficiency we developed a system that covers all special features and requirements for clinical use. The system is based on a scalable and extensible client-server architecture. We use the programming languages Harbour, C++, PHP and JavaScript, Microsoft SQL database for data storage and the HL7 standard as the interface to other information systems such as hospital information system (HIS). Export formats are PDF, HTML/XML. Layouts are generated with TeX, LaTeX and MikTeX. Results: The aforementioned requirements were resolved with the doctor's letter and finding system IntDok. The hierarchical presentation of diagnoses, histologies and therapies provides the recipient with a first outline of the course of the disease. A strict procedure controls the whole process of document compilation and assists the user with many highly regarded tools such as text blocks, import and export (PDF and HTML/XML including barcodes) functions or HL7 interface to other information systems. The software also provides a sophisticated mail merging. All content from previous letters can easily be inserted into the current document. A TeX-server automatically provides document layout including supreme hyphenation so that uniform and perfect appearance (corporate design) is guaranteed. The documents are saved in a MS-SQL database (almost 230,000 documents since 1991), independent of any proprietary formats such as MS-Word. Conclusion: Creation of documents is fast, simple and well-structured. Sophisticated tools guarantee the optimal use of human resources and time. The system is an important module in our overall digital work environment

Novel order parameter to describe the critical behavior of Ising spin glass models

A novel order parameter Φ for spin glasses is defined based on topological criteria and with a clear physical interpretation. Φ is first investigated for well known magnetic systems and then applied to the Edwards-Anderson ±J model on a square lattice, comparing its properties with the usual q order parameter. Finite size scaling procedures are performed. Results and analyses based on Φ confirm a zero temperature phase transition and allow to identify the low temperature phase. The advantages of Φ are brought out and its physical meaning is established.Fil: Romá, Federico José. Universidad Nacional de San Luis; ArgentinaFil: Nieto Quintas, Felix Daniel. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - San Luis. Instituto de Física Aplicada "Dr. Jorge Andrés Zgrablich". Universidad Nacional de San Luis. Facultad de Ciencias Físico Matemáticas y Naturales. Instituto de Física Aplicada "Dr. Jorge Andrés Zgrablich"; ArgentinaFil: Ramirez Pastor, Antonio Jose. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - San Luis. Instituto de Física Aplicada "Dr. Jorge Andrés Zgrablich". Universidad Nacional de San Luis. Facultad de Ciencias Físico Matemáticas y Naturales. Instituto de Física Aplicada "Dr. Jorge Andrés Zgrablich"; ArgentinaFil: Vogel, E. E.. Universidad de La Frontera; Chil