Open-source Information System Research Articles

Water and sanitation asset management at a national scale with an open-source information system

Water and sanitation asset management at a national scale with an open-source information system

Implementing Open-Source Information Systems for Assessing and Managing the Seismic Vulnerability of Historical Constructions

The characterisation of the seismic vulnerability of historical constructions represents a complex problem in which the typological variability, the difficulty of performing reliable large-scale assessments and dealing with a large database all play a role. Nevertheless, reducing the uncertainty regarding the structural vulnerability of the existing building stock (mostly for small and/or isolated human settlements) is key for risk assessment and management. The present work proposes a novel approach based on the integration of a series of open-source tools for assembling a vulnerability-oriented database that is linked to a series of external services for increasing its capabilities. The database was implemented in a Geographical Information System (GIS) environment and contains the survey of a seismic vulnerability index for masonry constructions based on an adapted version of the GNDT-II approach. A customised Python-based software for reading, managing and editing the database is herein presented. This program allows the execution of the most typical operations with no assistance from the GIS environment, facilitating user interaction. Furthermore, the calculations regarding the vulnerability index and levels of damage have been implemented in this program. Alternatives for distributing the database are implemented and discussed, such as cloud-based distribution and the use of the Transactional Web Feature Service (WFS-T) protocol for its virtual publishing. The entire framework herein presented is a replicable and feasible workflow that can be set even with reduced infrastructure, allowing a progressive enlargement.

BreedingEIS: An Efficient Evaluation Information System for Crop Breeding

Crop breeding programs generate large datasets. Thus, it is difficult to ensure the accuracy and integrity of all the collected data in the breeding process. To improve breeding efficiency, we established an open source and free breeding evaluation information system (BreedingEIS). The full system is composed of a web client and a mobile client. The web client is used to name the individual breeding offspring plants and analyze data. The mobile client is based on the technology of widely used smartphones and is suitable for Android and iOS systems. Its functions focus on field evaluation, including quick response code recognition, evaluation data entry, and real-time viewing. In addition, near-field communication technology and portable label machines are introduced to enable breeders to quickly locate each individual plant and accurately label any samples collected from it. Generally, BreedingEIS enables users to accurately and conveniently register phenotypic data and quickly lock target individual plants from large volumes of data. The system provides a low-cost and highly efficient solution for crop information evaluation and enables breeders to better collect, manage, and use breeding data for decision making, which is a valuable resource for crop breeding.

A methodology to improve energy efficiency and comfort conditions with low-cost ICTs in rural public buildings

This paper presents a methodology to improve energy efficiency and hygrothermal comfort conditions in public buildings using low-cost ICTs. A change in the daily users` habits is further on suggested. The process develops circularly in four steps: building definition model, monitoring, analysis, and users’ participation. The method has been tested in four similar public buildings of traditional construction. Firstly, a building model has been defined (climatology, thermal envelope and maintenance, interior design, systems, and occupancy). Secondly, a low-cost, scalable, and open-source information system has been installed to collect data of energy consumption, temperature, humidity and CO2 values. The resulting time series were analysed and compared to the energy consumption bills of the previous three years to obtain the real building behaviour. Data gathered by the sensors and suggestions have been made available to users for real-time monitoring. Furthermore, reliable energy indicators to characterize this building typology in services sector have been obtained. Other sub goals include raising awareness among users about the use of public resources, and the initiation of a smart-village strategy using low-cost technologies. The results highlight inefficient consumption patterns and discomfort situation that should encourage users to take action and reorient municipal policies.

EVALUATION OF NATURAL DISASTER RESPONCE EFFECTIVENESS WITH FUZZY LOGIC METHODS

The model and method of efficiency estimation for disaster relief process under hydrological emergency of natural character on the basis of fuzzy logic have been offered. It is determined that the implementation of a natural emergency can lead to disruption of the sustainable functioning of the city, region and country as a whole against the background of an constantly increasing human impact on the environment, climate change and other conditions. Natural hydrological emergencies, such as floods, levees, etc., are the most widespread in the world and affect a large number of people, especially the socially and economically disadvantaged part of urban population. An analysis of previous research in this field has been carried out and it is determined that the problem under consideration cannot be fully formulated as a classical deterministic or probabilistic mathematical programming problem. This problem is characterized by significant uncertainty about the problem input variables. Two classes of such uncertainty are identified with the sources of origin - strategic and tactical. The paper presents a formalized procedure for supporting managerial decision-making, which includes the steps of uncertainty consideration and parametric identification of a deterministic optimization model of resource support for the elimination of natural hydrological emergencies. Linguistic variables were introduced to determine the parameters of an emergency, the parameters of the affected area, the characteristics of the technical arsenal of the territorial unit of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine, as well as the life support system. The Mamdani fuzzy inference algorithm was used to evaluate the effectiveness of disaster relief process. The software implementation of this model is executed in the open source information system Scilab, namely in SciFLT subsystem. This model is the basis for further parametric identification and implementation of a deterministic model of resource support for disaster relief process that allows forming flexible management decisions. Keywords: natural emergency, fuzzy logic, flood, resourcing

A Platform for Innovation and Standards Evaluation: a Case Study from the OpenMRS Open-Source Radiology Information System

Open-source development can provide a platform for innovation by seeking feedback from community members as well as providing tools and infrastructure to test new standards. Vendors of proprietary systems may delay adoption of new standards until there are sufficient incentives such as legal mandates or financial incentives to encourage/mandate adoption. Moreover, open-source systems in healthcare have been widely adopted in low- and middle-income countries and can be used to bridge gaps that exist in global health radiology. Since 2011, the authors, along with a community of open-source contributors, have worked on developing an open-source radiology information system (RIS) across two communities—OpenMRS and LibreHealth. The main purpose of the RIS is to implement core radiology workflows, on which others can build and test new radiology standards. This work has resulted in three major releases of the system, with current architectural changes driven by changing technology, development of new standards in health and imaging informatics, and changing user needs. At their core, both these communities are focused on building general-purpose EHR systems, but based on user contributions from the fringes, we have been able to create an innovative system that has been used by hospitals and clinics in four different countries. We provide an overview of the history of the LibreHealth RIS, the architecture of the system, overview of standards integration, describe challenges of developing an open-source product, and future directions. Our goal is to attract more participation and involvement to further develop the LibreHealth RIS into an Enterprise Imaging System that can be used in other clinical imaging including pathology and dermatology.

The Future of Supply Chain Information Systems: The Open Source Ecosystem

The open source phenomenon has made a significant impression, not only on the software industry, but also on software-intensive organizations in both the public and private sectors. The collaborative model offered by the open source ecosystem can potentially change the collective nature of organizations and is claimed to increase innovation and technology adoption while reducing costs. These potential advantages are influencing how organizations acquire software and are leading to significant adoption of open source products across several domains. In fact, a recent Forrester Research report found that 78% of companies surveyed are running part or all of their operations on open source and 66% use open source to create software applications for their customers. Unfortunately, limited research exists regarding the implications and boundaries of open source technologies employed for supply chain management. For a firm to decide whether or not to pursue open source strategies, the field needs more research that helps us to understand how a firm’s use of open source information systems relate to flexibility, agility, operational performance, and the triple bottom line. In this brief thought piece, we describe the potential for open source software to change the nature of supply chain information systems.

Perjalanan Penerapan Sistem Informasi Open Source Koha di Perpustakaan Universitas Muhammadiyah Surakarta dari tahun 2006 s.d. 2010

The title of the research is "The chronology of the application of open source information system Koha in the library of Muhammadiyah University of Surakarta from 2006 to 2010. "The background of this research is that the development of the information technology demands the library to use the technology. UMS' library was the first and its private-university library using Koha system as the automatic system in Indonesia. Koha's complete features and its development raised confusion UMS' library staff. The use od English language and the small number of the community of Koha users in Indonesia sometimes lead to misinterpretation.The method used in this research was the qualitative method, and its approach was the case study. The reason of using these was that the case happened was unique and the forms of the questions were how and why.The result of the research was that there were 3 periods of the chronology of Koha application in UMS library, namely: pre-Koha, whilst using Koha, and developing of Koha system. The application of Koha system in UMS library had been in accordance with the cycle of the development of the information system. This cycle includes influential factors were: (1) the rectorat's supports, (2) human resource and leadership, (3) trend in the library, (4) integration, (5) theneed of the system, (6) the data analyze, (7) conmunication, (8) good cooperation, (9) socialization, (10) open source, (11) financial condition, (12) the quality of the system, (13) the readiness of the facilities. Besides, the research found that were some factors as the theoretical contributors namely: good communication and cooperation, socialization, abd the readiness of the facilities. It also found that there were one was lost factor, namely: user interface.

Expert Systems with Applications in the Legal Domain

Abstract The most controversial aspect of the collaboration between computer science and legal sciences remained for about two decades trying to develop programs capable of simulating specific work of a lawyer or judge. An electronic platform will be designed, a new tool for prisoners, lawyers and economic environment. Information retrieval system will be different, the DSpace open source information system will be used, will be in touch with legislative database.

Case Study: Energy Industry Economic Impacts from Ohio River Transportation Disruption

Recent history is full of water transport disruption events that have had significant economic effects on the waterside industries. Such disruptions may be either natural or man-made disasters or planned outages on the river's lock and dam structures. To assess coal-based economic impacts for the Ohio River Basin, we developed a network flow model to represent waterside coal-fired power plants situated along the Ohio River, their respective coal supplying mines, and the various transportation modes that connect them. We show that significant transportation-centric insights can be derived by using only commonly available spreadsheet-based analysis tools, open-source information systems, and web-based geographic tools.

An efficient approach to the deployment of complex open source information systems.

Complex open source information systems are usually implemented as component-based software to inherit the available functionality of existing software packages developed by third parties. Consequently, the deployment of these systems not only requires the installation of operating system, application framework and the configuration of services but also needs to resolve the dependencies among components. The problem becomes more challenging when the application must be installed and used on different platforms such as Linux and Windows. To address this, an efficient approach using the virtualization technology is suggested and discussed in this paper. The approach has been applied in our project to deploy a web-based integrated information system in molecular genetics labs. It is a low-cost solution to benefit both software developers and end-users.

Open Source, Open Standards, and Health Care Information Systems

Recognition of the improvements in patient safety, quality of patient care, and efficiency that health care information systems have the potential to bring has led to significant investment. Globally the sale of health care information systems now represents a multibillion dollar industry. As policy makers, health care professionals, and patients, we have a responsibility to maximize the return on this investment. To this end we analyze alternative licensing and software development models, as well as the role of standards. We describe how licensing affects development. We argue for the superiority of open source licensing to promote safer, more effective health care information systems. We claim that open source licensing in health care information systems is essential to rational procurement strategy.

Lost in translation? Applying information behavior research to information systems design

AbstractInformation seeking and use research generates numerous results on how users approach systems. Why then does it seem that something is lost in translation between research results and systems design? Panelists will discuss their experiences with incorporating the findings of information behavior research in system design. This panel focuses on the gap between the research on information seeking and use and its applications to systems design. Panelists from industry and academia will address the following issues: Why is there a gap between research and design practice? How can that gap be characterized? What are the obstacles to applying information behavior research to system design? How can these be overcome? What is the role of information behavior research in development projects? Howe can research results more effectively benefit design? How can researchers become more involved in influencing design? What is needed to improve communication between information behavior researchers and others involved in the design of information systems? How can systems designers, vendors, and librarians who purchase and customize commercial and open source information systems address these issues?