The Project OASIS (Openly Accessible Services and Interacting Society)

Public authorities have been designing and developing several initiatives for more than ten years in the attempt to guarantee an easy access and a wide offer of on-line services to citizens. Moreover, public authorities should guarantee a common heritage of data, accessible for any person at the same conditions. Despite of these initiatives, public bodies are still often dependent on software vendors. The European project OASIS aims to place the user at the center of a sustainable ecosystem where data, described by an open format, are shared among interoperable and reusable services. This approach allows public authorities to reduce costs, citizens to benefit of a wide range of high quality services and service providers to access to linked data for the development of new applications. Providers can also be part of the OASIS ecosystem, thus benefiting of an open a sustainable economic model. This manuscript describes in the details motivations behind the OASIS project and the portal Ozwillo, presents the platform architecture and discusses preliminary results

A Kriging constrained efficient global optimization approach applied to low-energy building design problems

3rd Symposium on Inverse Problems, Design and Optimization (IPDO) / School on Physical Properties, Joao Pessoa, BRAZIL, AUG 25-27, 2010International audienceLow-energy building design is constrained not only by the total cost but also by both the energy demand and the comfort requirements. However, the evaluation of these criteria may require the implementation of time-consuming tasks, such as the direct building thermal simulation, which leads to difficulties in the design process. Moreover, it is of interest in this field to provide the designer with a large range of acceptable solutions rather than some unique optimal design. In this article, the application of an efficient global optimization approach is proposed as a tool to analyse the response functions of a building design problem. The method is based on a Kriging metamodel, which provides the global prediction of the objective and constraint functions, and an evaluation of uncertainty of the prediction at each point. The criterion for the infill sample selection is a generalized expected improvement function with desirable properties for stochastic responses. This criterion is maximized according to different constraints. First, inexpensive constraints are used as boundary constraints. Then, the expected violation criterion is used as a penalty. We use a particle swarm optimization algorithm to maximize the infill sample criterion according to the constraints. This approach is shown to be efficient for the building design problem, since the optimization is performed with an important reduction of the number of objective and constraint function calls. The Kriging metamodel is used to evaluate the sensitivity and the possible range of variations of the design parameters near their optimal values

Impact of segmentation and discretization on radiomic features in 68Ga-DOTA-TOC PET/CT images of neuroendocrine tumor

OBJECTIVE: To identify the impact of segmentation methods and intensity discretization on radiomic features (RFs) extraction from 68Ga-DOTA-TOC PET images in patients with neuroendocrine tumors.METHODS: Forty-nine patients were retrospectively analyzed. Tumor contouring was performed manually by four different operators and with a semi-automatic edge-based segmentation (SAEB) algorithm. Three SUVmax fixed thresholds (20, 30, 40%) were applied. Fifty-one RFs were extracted applying two different intensity rescale factors for gray-level discretization: one absolute (AR60 = SUV from 0 to 60) and one relative (RR = min-max of the VOI SUV). Dice similarity coefficient (DSC) was calculated to quantify segmentation agreement between different segmentation methods. The impact of segmentation and discretization on RFs was assessed by intra-class correlation coefficients (ICC) and the coefficient of variance (COVL). The RFs' correlation with volume and SUVmax was analyzed by calculating Pearson's correlation coefficients.RESULTS: DSC mean value was 0.75 ± 0.11 (0.45-0.92) between SAEB and operators and 0.78 ± 0.09 (0.36-0.97), among the four manual segmentations. The study showed high robustness (ICC >0.9): (a) in 64.7% of RFs for segmentation methods using AR60, improved by applying SUVmax threshold of 40% (86.5%); (b) in 50.9% of RFs for different SUVmax thresholds using AR60; and (c) in 37% of RFs for discretization settings using different segmentation methods. Several RFs were not correlated with volume and SUVmax.CONCLUSIONS: RFs robustness to manual segmentation resulted higher in NET 68Ga-DOTA-TOC images compared to 18F-FDG PET/CT images. Forty percent SUVmax thresholds yield superior RFs stability among operators, however leading to a possible loss of biological information. SAEB segmentation appears to be an optimal alternative to manual segmentation, but further validations are needed. Finally, discretization settings highly impacted on RFs robustness and should always be stated

Prognostic Value of Whole-Body PET Volumetric Parameters Extracted from 68Ga-DOTATOC PET/CT in Well-Differentiated Neuroendocrine Tumors

Our objective was to evaluate the prognostic value of somatostatin receptor tumor burden on Ga-68-DOTATOC PET/CT in patients with well-differentiated (WD) neuroendocrine tumors (NETs). Methods: We retrospectively analyzed the 68Ga-DOTATOC PET/CT scans of 84 patients with histologically confirmed WD NETs (51 grade 1, 30 grade 2, and 3 grade 3). For each PET/CT scan, all Ga-68-DOTATO-Cavid lesions were independently segmented by 2 operators using a customized threshold based on the healthy liver SUVmax (LIFEx, version 5.1). Somatostatin receptor-expressing tumor volume (SRETV) and total lesion somatostatin receptor expression (TLSRE = SRETV X SUVmean) were extracted for each lesion, and then whole-body SRETV and TLSRE (SRETVwb and TLSREwb, respectively) were defined as the sum of SRETV and TLSRE, respectively, for all segmented lesions in each patient. Time to progression (TTP) was defined as the combination of disease-free survival in patients undergoing curative surgery (n = 10) and progression-free survival for patients with unresectable or metastatic disease (n = 74). TTP and overall survival were calculated by Kaplan-Meier analysis, log-rank testing, and the Cox proportional-hazards regression model. Results: After a median follow-up of 15.5 mo, disease progression was confirmed in 35 patients (41.7%) and 14 patients died. A higher SRETVwb (>39.1 cm(3)) and TLSREwb (>306.8 g) correlated significantly with a shortermedian TTP (12 mo vs. not reached; P < 0.001). In multivariate analysis, SRETVwb (P = 0.005) was the only independent predictor of TTP regardless of histopathologic grade and TNM staging. Conclusion: According to our results, SRETVwb and TLSREwb extracted from Ga-68-DOTATOC PET/CT could predict TTP or overall survival and might have important clinical utility in the management of patients with WD NETs

Complete exon sequencing of all known Usher syndrome genes greatly improves molecular diagnosis

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Usher syndrome (USH) combines sensorineural deafness with blindness. It is inherited in an autosomal recessive mode. Early diagnosis is critical for adapted educational and patient management choices, and for genetic counseling. To date, nine causative genes have been identified for the three clinical subtypes (USH1, USH2 and USH3). Current diagnostic strategies make use of a genotyping microarray that is based on the previously reported mutations. The purpose of this study was to design a more accurate molecular diagnosis tool.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We sequenced the 366 coding exons and flanking regions of the nine known USH genes, in 54 USH patients (27 USH1, 21 USH2 and 6 USH3).</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Biallelic mutations were detected in 39 patients (72%) and monoallelic mutations in an additional 10 patients (18.5%). In addition to biallelic mutations in one of the USH genes, presumably pathogenic mutations in another USH gene were detected in seven patients (13%), and another patient carried monoallelic mutations in three different USH genes. Notably, none of the USH3 patients carried detectable mutations in the only known USH3 gene, whereas they all carried mutations in USH2 genes. Most importantly, the currently used microarray would have detected only 30 of the 81 different mutations that we found, of which 39 (48%) were novel.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Based on these results, complete exon sequencing of the currently known USH genes stands as a definite improvement for molecular diagnosis of this disease, which is of utmost importance in the perspective of gene therapy.</p

Caractérisation structurale des contacts ohmiques réalisés à partir d\u27encres métalliques sur cellules photovoltaïques en silicium multicristallin

Ce travail a pour but l\u27étude des contacts ohmiques réalisés, à partir d\u27encres métalliques, par sérigraphie sur les cellules solaires en silicium multicristallin. Cette étude a porté sur les contacts dans leur volume mais également sur l\u27interface qu\u27ils créent avec le silicium. Le cur de l\u27étude est une caractérisation structurale des contacts avants et arrières par microscopie électrique en transmission entre chaque étape de leur processus industriel d\u27élaboration. Cette première partie a permis de mettre en évidence une incompatibilité entre la pâte de la face avant et le traitement appliqué. Un second travail a consisté en l\u27étude de la faisabilité d\u27une reprise de soudure en surface des contacts par dépôt électroless. Les résultats énoncés ont été obtenus avec des solutions de cuivre et de nickel. En dernier lieu, nous avons étudié la formation d\u27un champ arrière en fonction de la composition de la pâte déposée et du traitement thermique appliqué. L\u27objectif est de diminuer les recombinaisons des porteurs minoritaires dans le cas de la réduction d\u27épaisseur du semi-conducteur

Caractérisation structurale des contacts ohmiques réalisés à partir d'encres métalliques sur cellules photovoltaïques en silicium multicristallin

Ce travail a pour but l'étude des contacts ohmiques réalisés, à partir d'encres métalliques, par sérigraphie sur les cellules solaires en silicium multicristallin. Cette étude a porté sur les contacts dans leur volume mais également sur l'interface qu'ils créent avec le silicium. Le cœur de l'étude est une caractérisation structurale des contacts avants et arrières par microscopie électrique en transmission entre chaque étape de leur processus industriel d'élaboration. Cette première partie a permis de mettre en évidence une incompatibilité entre la pâte de la face avant et le traitement appliqué. Un second travail a consisté en l'étude de la faisabilité d'une reprise de soudure en surface des contacts par dépôt électroless. Les résultats énoncés ont été obtenus avec des solutions de cuivre et de nickel. En dernier lieu, nous avons étudié la formation d'un champ arrière en fonction de la composition de la pâte déposée et du traitement thermique appliqué. L'objectif est de diminuer les recombinaisons des porteurs minoritaires dans le cas de la réduction d'épaisseur du semi-conducteur.The aim of this work is the study of ohmics contacts, realised with a metallic paste, screen printed on multi-crystalline silicon solar cells. This study is about the contacts structures in the bulk and also their interface with silicon. In a first part, we have characterised contacts structure of both sides by mean of transmission electron microscopy between each step of their industrial elaboration. This have putted ahead an incompatibility between the paste composition and a head treatment apply. In a second, part, we have demonstrated the feasibility of an electroless deposition on contacts surface for a better soldering. Results were obtained with nickel and copper solutions. Finally, we study the formation of a back surface field as a function of the paste composition and the heat treatment profile. The gaol is to decrease back surface recombinations of minority carriers due to the reduction of the silicon thicknessVILLEURBANNE-DOC'INSA LYON (692662301) / SudocSudocFranceF

Calcul des flux solaires pour le bâtiment par méthode de ray-tracing

National audienc