Open Software Platform Research Articles

The value of replicationg the data analysis of an empirical evaluation

The aim of this research was to determine whether the results of an empirical evaluation could be confirmed using a different evaluation method. In this investigation the Qualitative Weight and Sum method used by the researchers Graf and List to evaluate several free and open source e-learning software platforms, were studied and replicated with a different method.The Analytical Hierarchy Process was used as an alternative to the Qualitative Weight and Sum method. The same input data used by the researchers Graf and List were used to replicate the evaluation.It was found that the ranking of the e-learning platforms, when using the Qualitative Weight and Sum method, differs slightly from the outcome with the Analytical Hierarchy Process method. The Analytical Hierarchy Process method has an advantage over the Qualitative Weight and Sum method in that it determines the consistency of the evaluation judgments of evaluators. Both methods are useful but it is easier to rank software using the Analytical Hierarchy Process. It was found that replication of evaluation, which was done to validate the process and results, and also to determine the consistency of evaluators was useful.

Applying systems biology to develop T cell tolerance: Jurkat cell responses to knockdown hub genes using siRNA in-vitro transfection (169.47)

Abstract Introduction: Systems biology is increasingly gaining importance in studying complex genome wise associations and will, in future, integrate into personalized medicine. Aim: To study the effect of T cell lipotransfection by certain hub genes and evaluate their role in inducing T cell anergy. Methods: Using publically available gene-gene interactions, we constructed a network using an open bioinformatics software platform for visualizing molecular interaction networks to identify the following upregulated hub genes: ATP5C1, IL6ST, PRKCZ, MYC, FOS, JUN and MAPK1. We hypothesized that suppression of hub genes in the gene network would result in significant phenotypic effects on T cells resulting in T cell hyporesponsiveness and examined this in-vitro. Jurkat and HeLa cells were transfected with siRNA for the selected hub genes. Cell proliferation was measured using ATP luminescence and BRDU labeling. Results: We found a significant decrease in ATP production by Jurkat cells (P<0.05) when the hub genes ATP5C1 and PRKCZ were knocked down using siRNA transfection. No difference in ATP production was observed in siRNA transfected HELA cells. However, these cells showed a significant (P<0.05) decrease in cell proliferation when the genes MAPK1, IL6ST, ATP5C1, JUN and FOS were knocked down using siRNA. This experiment provides proof of principle of applying a systems biology approach in identifying hub genes for targeted therapeutics in transplant immunology.

UIAR Common Sense: an Augmented Reality Framework for Creating Games to Collect Common Sense from Users

Augmented Reality (AR) applications have become widespread with the continued miniaturization of technology. With the increasing use of smart phones, which often provide increased processing power, enhanced and open software platforms, Augmented Reality has become instrumental in the way we perceive our surroundings and the information that it carries. Augmented Reality has also become a welcome visualization tool for many fields, not restricted to Human-Computer Interaction. In this paper we present a novel approach for building interactive interfaces using Augmented Reality and we give an example how one can use our framework for creating games to collect common sense knowledge from users. We present a software framework for ubiquitous Augmented Reality enhancement for human-computer interaction called UIAR (User Interface through AR). Our framework improves on four areas in Augmented Reality development that we currently see lacking.

Single-Switch User Interface for Robot Arm to Help Disabled People Using RT-Middleware

We are developing a manipulator system in order to support disabled people with less muscle strength such as muscular dystrophy patients. Such a manipulator should have an easy user interface for the users to control it. But the supporting manipulator for disabled people cannot make large industry, so we should offer inexpensive manufacturing way. These type products are called “orphan products.” We report on the construction of the user interface system using RT-Middleware which is an open software platform for robot systems. Therefore other user interface components or robot components which are adapted to other symptoms can be replaced with the user interface without any change of the contents. A single switch and scanning menu panel are introduced as the input device for the manual control of the robot arm. The scanning menu panel is designed to perform various actions of the robot arm with the single switch. A manipulator simulation system was constructed to evaluate the input performance. Two muscular dystrophy patients tried our user interface to control the robot simulator and made comments. According to the comments by them, we made several improvements on the user interface. This improvements examples prepare inexpensive manufacturing way for orphan products.

A Survey of the Scholarly Journals Using Open Journal Systems

A survey of 998 scholarly journals that use Open Journal Systems (OJS), an open source journal software platform, captures the characteristics of an emerging class of scholarpublisher open access journals (with some representation from more traditional scholarly society and print-based titles). The journals in the sample follow traditional norms for peerreviewing,acceptance rates, and disciplinary focus, but are distinguished by the number that offer open access to their content, the growth rates in new titles, the participation rates from developing countries, and the extremely low operating budgets. The survey also documents the limited degree to which open source software can alter a field of communication, as OJS appears to have created a third path, dedicated to maximizing access to research and scholarship, as an alternative to traditional scholarly society and commercial publishing routes.

OPRoS 컴포넌트를 위한 구조적 적합성 시험 도구 설계 및 구현

최근 우리 생활에 로봇 시스템이 빠르게 확산되고 있으며, 로봇의 기능성에 대한 사용자의 요구가 증대됨으로써, 로봇 소프트웨어 컴포넌트는 세분화 되고 더욱 복잡하게 되었다. 따라서 표준화된 소프트웨어 플랫폼의 채택이 불가피하게 되었다. OPRoS는 로봇 시스템을 위한 컴포넌트 기반의 개방 표준 소프트웨어 플랫폼으로 소프트웨어 컴포넌트가 개발되면, OPRoS 표준 규격을 따르는 로봇 소프트웨어 컴포넌트의 적합성 검증이 필수적이다. 본 논문에서는 사용자들에 의해 개발된 각 컴포넌트의 적합성을 검증하는 구조적 적합성 테스트 도구에 대한 설계와 구현에 대하여 다룬다. 일부 실험적 테스트의 결과로서 컴포넌트가 표준 요구를 수용하는지, 수용하지 않는지를 본 테스트 도구로서 확인할 수 있었다. In recent years, there has been a rapid and wide spread of robot system in our lives and with the ever increasing the requirement of user for robot functionality, the software component is increasingly sophisticated and complicated. Accordingly it is inevitable to employ a standardized software platform. The OPRoS is open standard software platform based on component for robot system. When the software components were developed, it has got to validate the conformity of robot software components which comply with the OPRoS standard specification. In this paper, we deal with the design and implementation of the structural conformance test suite to verify and validate the conformance of components to be developed by user. As the results of some experiments, we could verify it from this test suite whether the components satisfied standard requirement or not.

A Survey of Scholarly Journals Using Open Journal Systems

A survey of 998 scholarly journals that use Open Journal Systems (OJS), an open source journal software platform, captures the characteristics of an emerging class of scholar-publisher open access journals. The journals in the sample follow traditional norms for peer-reviewing, acceptance rates, and disciplinary focus, but as a group are distinguished by the number that offer open access to their content, growth rates in new titles, participation rates from developing countries, and extremely low operating budgets. The survey also documents the limited degree to which open source software can alter a field of communication, for OJS appears to have created a third path, dedicated to maximizing access to research and scholarship, as an alternative to traditional scholarly society and commercial publishing routes.

Intelligent Agents supporting user interactions within self regulated learning processes

The paper focuses on the main advantages in the defnition and utilization of an open and modular e-learning software platform to support highly cognitive tasks performed by the main actors of the learning process. We present in detail the integration inside the platform of two intelligent agents devoted to talking with the student and to retrieving new information sources on the Web. The process is triggered as a reply to the system’s perception that the student feels discontented with the presented contents. The architecture is detailed, and some conclusions about the growth of the platform’s overall performance are expressed.

AUTOSAR 기반의 FlexRay 모듈 개발

AUTOSAR는 자동차용 공개 소프트웨어 플랫폼으로서 차세대 자동차용 네트워크 표준인 FlexRay 모듈을 포함하고 있다. 본 연구는 AUTOSAR 규격을 기반으로 FlexRay 기본 소프트웨어 모듈들인 FlexRay State Manager, FlexRay Transport, FlexRay Interface, FlexRay Transceiver Driver, FlexRay Driver 모듈들을 개발하였다. 또한 개발 과정에서 얻은 설계와 구현 방법을 함께 제시하고, 개발된 모듈들을 마이크로컨트롤러에 탑재하여 동작을 검증하였다. The AUTOSAR(AUTOmotive Open System ARchitecture) is an open software platform for automotive. The AUTOSAR contains the modules of FlexRay that is the next generation automotive network protocol. We have developed the modules including FlexRay State Manager, FlexRay Transport, FlexRay Interface, FlexRay Transceiver Driver and FlexRay Driver based on the standard of the module. This thesis presented not only the result of development but the result of design and implementation. And the developed modules were ported to the microcontroller board and verified.

Towards the Realization of an Integrated Decision Support Environment for Organizational Decision Making

Traditional decision support systems are based on the paradigm of a single decision maker working at a standalone computer or terminal who has a specific decision to make with a specific goal in mind. Organizational decision support systems aim to support decision makers at all levels of an organization (from executive, middle management managers to operators), who have a variety of decisions to make, with different priorities, often in a distributed and dynamic environment. Such systems need to be designed and developed with extra functionality to meet the challenges such as collaborative working. This article proposes an Integrated Decision Support Environment (IDSE) for organizational decision making. The IDSE distinguishes itself from traditional decision support systems in that it can flexibly configure and re-configure its functions to support various decision applications. IDSE is an open software platform which allows its users to define their own decision processes and choose their own exiting decision tools to be integrated into the platform. The IDSE is designed and developed based on distributed client/server networking, with a multi-tier integration framework for consistent information exchange and sharing, seamless process co-ordination and synchronisation, and quick access to packaged and legacy systems. The prototype of the IDSE demonstrates good performance in agile response to fast changing decision situations.

Multi-agent based beam search for intelligent production planning and scheduling

Production planning and scheduling is a long standing research area of great practical value, while industrial demand for production planning and scheduling systems is acute. Regretfully, most research results are seldom applied in industry because existing planning and scheduling methods can barely meet the requirements for practical applications. This paper identifies four major requirements, namely generality, solution quality, computation efficiency, and implementation difficulty, for practical production planning and scheduling methods. Based on these requirements, method, a multi-agent based beam search (MABBS), is developed. It seamlessly integrates the multi-agent system (MAS) method and beam search (BS) method into a generic multi-stage multi-level decision making (MSMLDM) model to systematically address all the four requirements within a unified framework. A script language, called EXASL, and an open software platform are developed to simplify the implementation of the MABBS method. For solving complex real-world problems, an MABBS-based prototype production planning, scheduling and execution system is developed. The feasibility and effectiveness of this study is demonstrated with the prototype system and computation experiments.

A Bayesian compositional estimator for microbial taxonomy based on biomarkers

Determination of microbial taxonomy based on lipid or pigment spectra requires use of a compositional estimator. We present a new approach based on Bayesian inference and an implementation in the open software platform R. The Bayesian Compositional Estimator (BCE) aims not only to obtain a maximum likelihood solution, but also to provide a complete estimate of the taxonomic composition, including probability distributions and dependencies between estimated values. BCE results are compared with those obtained with CHEMTAX. The BCE has not only a similar accuracy, but also extracts more information from the data, the most obvious being standard deviation and covariance estimates.

A Camera-Based Music-Making Tool for Physical Rehabilitation

The universality of music among human cultures as well as our common experience of naturally responding to music with motion, seem to be widely recognized (Tramo 2001). Recent brain-imaging studies (Lahav et al. 2005; Lahav, Saltzman, and Schlaug 2007) show that humans, given appropriate auditory inputs, seem to be tuned to produce corresponding motor outputs. This unique auditorymotor interplay provides the conceptual basis for the use of music therapy, in particular, active music therapy, where a patient is physically involved in producing music rather than simply reacting to or accompanying music (Pacchetti et al. 2000; Paul and Ramsey 2000; Lahav 2005). Music therapy has benefited people with physical disabilities, mental health needs, developmental and learning disabilities, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease, autism, substance abuse problems, brain injuries, and acute and chronic pain (Pacchetti et al. 2000; Harris and Summa-Chadwick 2005; see also the American Music Therapy Association's Web site, www.musictherapy.org). Playing an instrument, such as piano, guitar, or drums, may be very difficult or even inf easible for patients with motor dysfunctions. As an alternative, easy-to-use tool for active music therapy, we designed Music M ker, a human-computer interface that converts body movements into musical and visual feedback in real time using the open software platform EyesWeb (Camurri et al. 2004). Music Maker is a non-obtrusive camera-based tool that allows physically impaired patients to naturally create music with no prior musical training. Patients simply move their hand or foot in space or on a surface, and Music Maker detects and interprets these movements. Detection is accomplished without any sensors or markers that must be attached to the patients' bodies. Music Maker relies only on the video input from a camera to observe patient motion and on computervision techniques to analyze the motion. Music Maker is an adaptive interface that can be adjusted to provide auditory and visual feedback based on the patient's needs and interests. Auditory feedback could range from a single piano note to a recording of the patient's favorite piece of music. Visual feedback is provided by a graphical display on a computer monitor or wall-mounted screen. Music Maker uses fun displays, for example, cartoon drawings or pictures of musical instruments. Its hardware setup can be adjusted according to patients' levels of impairment, their particular therapeutic goals, and the equipment available in hospitals or patients' homes. (See Figure 1 for sample setups.) Computer Music Journal, 31:2, pp. 39-53, Summer 2007 © 2007 Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

DAMARIS — a flexible and open software platform for NMR spectrometer control

Home-built NMR spectrometers with self-written control software have a long tradition in porous media research. Advantages of such spectrometers are not just lower costs but also more flexibility in developing new experiments (while commercial NMR systems are typically optimized for standard applications such as spectroscopy, imaging or quality control applications). Increasing complexity of computer operating systems, higher expectations with respect to user-friendliness and graphical user interfaces as well as increasing complexity of the NMR experiments themselves have made spectrometer control software development a more complex task than it used to be some years ago. Like that, it becomes more and more complicated for an individual lab to maintain and develop an infrastructure of purely homebuilt NMR systems and software. Possible ways out are: ● commercial NMR hardware with full-blown proprietary software or ● semistandardized home-built equipment and common open-source software environment for spectrometer control. Our present activities in Darmstadt aim at providing a nucleus for the second option: DArmstadt MAgnetic Resonance Instrument Software (DAMARIS) [1]. Based on an ordinary PC, pulse control cards and ADC cards, we have developed an NMR spectrometer control platform that comes at a price tag of about 8000 Euro. The present functionalities of DAMARIS are mainly focused on TD-NMR: the software was successfully used in single-sided NMR [2], pulsed and static field gradient NMR diffusometry [3]. Further work with respect to multipulse/multitriggering experiments in the time domain [4] and solid state NMR spectroscopy multipulse experiments are under development.

Networked sensing for high-speed machining processes based on CORBA

The goal of this paper is to show preliminary results concerning the development of an open software platform supported by portable, low-cost technologies accepted worldwide (i.e., real-time CORBA), aiming at networked monitoring of a complex electromechanical process. A high-speed machining process was selected as a case study. Preliminary results in the networked real-time monitoring of a high-speed machining process were encouraging in spite of constraints dictated by computerized numerical control. The results also corroborated the viability of the platform for monitoring on the basis of current communications and computation technologies using open architectures.

Humanoid robotics platforms developed in HRP

This paper presents humanoid robotics platform that consists of a humanoid robot and an open architecture software platform developed in METI’s Humanoid Robotics Project (HRP). The final version of the robot, called HRP-2, has 1540 mm height, 58 kg weight and 30 degrees of the freedom. The software platform includes a dynamics simulator and motion controllers of the robot for biped locomotion, falling and getting up motions. The platform has been used to develop various applications and is expected to initiate more humanoid robotics research.

E-speak e-xplained

HP's e-speak is an open software platform designed to simplify Internet-based e-services by making it easier for unrelated Web sites to work together.

News Briefs

Apple and IBM Outline Technology Initiatives for the 1990s. Apple Computer, Inc. and IBM will work to create powerful new open system software platforms for the 1990s, according to a letter of intent signed by both companies. The companies will develop and market new technologies that both Apple and IBM will integrate into existing and future products, as well as offer for use on other vendors' computers. The letter of intent covers four areas of general understanding: