Online Data Portal Research Articles

Does the growing of Bt maize change abundance or ecological function of non-target animals compared to the growing of non-GM maize? A systematic review protocol

Abstract Background Since 1996, genetically modified (GM) crops have been grown on an ever increasing area worldwide. Maize producing a Cry protein from the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) was among the first GM crops released for commercial production and it is the only GM crop currently cultivated in Europe. A major part of the regulatory process that precedes the commercial release of GM crops is the environmental risk assessment. Because Bt maize is modified to produce insecticidal proteins, potential interactions with non-target organisms are a major area of concern to be addressed in the risk assessment. In particular, beneficial arthropods that provide important agro-ecological services, such as pollination, decomposition, and biological control are the focus. This systematic review will evaluate if the growing of Bt maize changes abundance or ecological function of non-target animals compared to the growing of conventional, non-GM maize. The review will be limited to plot or field level data including field margins. Potential cropping system effects and off-field effects will not be addressed. Bt maize will be compared to conventional maize either untreated or treated with chemical insecticides. Methods Stakeholders from academia, competent authorities, industry, and civil society organizations were given the opportunity to comment on the review question and an earlier draft of this review protocol. Keyword searches will be conducted in a range of abstracting and full text literature databases. Retrieved records will be screened against a set of inclusion criteria, first on title and abstract level, then on full text level. Selected studies will be evaluated for risks of bias (quality assessment). Data on field/plot characteristics, maize cultivars, insecticide treatments, non-target animal taxa, sampling methods, and response variables of populations and ecological functions will be extracted. Meta-analysis will be conducted using the effect size estimator Hedge’s d on a range of comparisons and including sensitivity analysis. The review process will be fully documented in CADIMA, an open access online data portal for evidence synthesis.

The Data Portal of the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) as part of the German Open Government Approach

A German online data portal containing tables with statistical data material was launched in early summer 2011. This is offered by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research and implemented by the HIS Higher Education Research Institute. The portal is intended as an information system for research support as well as a data source for ministries, press, businesses and interested private citizens. It offers a wide range of data in the fields of education, research and innovation. The portal covers, amongst others, partially very long time series from the paper based publication „Federal Report on Research and Innovation“ and the former paper series „Basic and Structural Data“. It comprises more than 400 tables from different sources (e.g. Federal Statistical Office, European Union, OECD, Centre for European Economic Research, HIS Higher Education Information System, Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training). The data portal is regularly updated, namely, several times a year, as soon as recent data is available from any source.

Abstract 5142: COSMIC: Exploring the world's knowledge of somatic mutations in cancer.

Abstract COSMIC, the Catalogue Of Somatic Mutations in Cancer (http://cancer.sanger.ac.uk/), is the world's largest database of curated somatic mutations. The current version (v62, Nov 2012) has over a million mutations across 800000 samples from 15327 peer-reviewd publications, online data portals such as TCGA, ICGC, the IARC p53 database and the Cancer Genome Project (CGP) at the Sanger Institute, UK. The project aims to build a comprehensive catalogue of somatic mutations prioritized by the Cancer Gene Census (http://cancer.sanger.ac.uk/cancergenome/projects/census/), allowing users to explore correlations between cancer phenotypes and mutant genotypes. At present, a full distribution of somatic mutations have been curated across 116 known cancer genes and 169 gene fusion pairs. A focus on cancer genomes has recently emerged from the rapid expansion of whole genome/exome resequencing, as shown by our "COSMIC Genomes" website (http://cancer.sanger.ac.uk/cancergenome/projects/studies/), already comprising over 4500 tumours across a variety of cancer types. There are a number of ways to examine the data within COSMIC. A newly released website provides an intuitive interface for users to scrutinize the data through numerous filters, including mutation types, histology and tissue types. This is supplimented with statistical summaries presented in many graphs and charts. The website includes a COSMIC genome browser for views across combined cancer genomes, including all mutation types in one graphical window. Many other resources are designed for bioinformatic access including a Biomart, and FTP downloads in a variety of formats (ftp://ftp.sanger.ac.uk/pub/CGP/cosmic/). We actively seek to integrate with the wider bioinformatics community and are integrated within the UCSC and Ensembl genome browsers. COSMIC both documents mutation trends in known cancer genes, and combines distributed information to allow substantial mining of these data for discovery of novel correlations. COSMIC can aid discovery of novel recurrence patterns between variants, genes and tissues in different mutant genotypes and cancer phenotypes. The most frequently mutated gene in COSMIC (v62, Nov 2012), is JAK2 with the p.V617F mutation observed in 36% of all blood cancers examined. This is followed by TP53 with a variety of truncating mutations observed at a total frequency of 29.7%, and KRAS, found mutated in 21% of cancers, most frequently p.G12D in pancreatic tumours. Focusing particularly on the 4571 whole genomes, the most mutated gene is unsurprisingly TP53 at 27.57% (followed by TTN, MUC16, PIK3CA, CSMD3). Many techniques may identify putative novel cancer genes outside the cancer gene census. For instance, in Lung cancer the most mutated genes (correcting for CDS length) are TPTE, FAM5C, CDH10 and KEAP1. The rapid combination of increasingly large datasets in COSMIC ensure its future relevance in discovery of new trends in cancer genetics. Citation Format: Kenric Leung, Chai Yin Kok, Rebecca Shepherd, John Gamble, Mingming Jia, Sally Bamford, Sari Ward, Charlotte Cole, David Beare, Nidhi Bindal, Prasad Gunasekaran, Jon Teague, Simon A. Forbes, Michael R. Stratton, Peter Campbell. COSMIC: Exploring the world's knowledge of somatic mutations in cancer. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 104th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2013 Apr 6-10; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2013;73(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 5142. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2013-5142

Webliography of STI indicator databases and related publications

The Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) indicators have become essential tools for assessing knowledge capacity in a country or a region and as evidence for setting policy actions. Indicator development has become possible primarily because of two parallel efforts: collection and compilation of global, regional and national statistics on various dimensions of STI, and development of manuals/guidelines for their proper collection. These statistics and indicators are mostly available in the form of print or online publications as well as in the form of online databases or as sub datasets of online data portals. An indicative list of global, regional and national databases and publications is given in this webliography for engaging readers with STI indicators and related tools. Some of the key manuals/guidelines are also highlighted. Read more . . .

Telecom service provider portal: Revenue sharing and outsourcing

Early mobile phones only provided voice transmission, for a fee. They have now evolved into voice and online data portals for providing additional services through 3rd party vendors. These service providers (vendors) are given access to a customer base “owned” by the mobile phone companies, for a fee. Typically customers make two payments: to the mobile phone company for phone services and to the 3rd party vendors for specific services bought from them. Variations to the above business model may involve outsourcing the online portal and/or acquiring customers from other independent portals. For these scenarios, we study how the fees for phone service and customer access are established and how they may relate to the prices of vendor services, and which services should be located on the portal – all in a game-theoretic context. Our results prove that it is possible to reorganize revenue flows through an invoicing process that may benefit the mobile network operator more than the other parties. In addition, we establish optimality in terms of the number of vendors on the portal, and determine a rank-ordering of vendors for their inclusion into the portal.

Improving the Collection and Use of Human Egress Data

The analysis of human behavior in fire is a relatively young field, only existing for a matter of decades. For much of this time it was used to support the related engineering process, rather than as a significant pursuit in its own right—to provide support for the assumptions used by engineers, designers and by regulators. Prior to this point, the engineering process excluded the human response from the assessment process altogether. The field originally developed according to two principle objectives, both of which were tied to the practice of fire safety engineering: the ability to establish the importance of human performance and then the provision of key supporting evidence for engineering practice. In both instances, the development of the field was determined by engineering practice, rather than the generation of a comprehensive theory that helped to explain and predict phenomena. This evolution of the field has led to an incomplete, disorganized and disparate understanding of the subject matter: human performance in fire. The lifeblood of any field of study is data—data that bridges the gap between observation, understanding and application. This article, and the project on which it is based, represents an attempt to strengthen the data collection process, the representation of this data, and the dissemination of this data to interested parties; i.e., to strengthen the study of human performance in fire. This will be achieved through the provision of several tools (to aid the collection and presentation of data), that will be combined together in the form of an online data portal. This will benefit the field, allow the development of more refined and more comprehensive theories, and allow for better informed engineering activities.