Open Source Software Components Research Articles

Integration of Open Source GIS Software for Improving Decision Making in Small and Medium Companies


 
 
 
 In this paper, a prototype is proposed of integrating various features and functionalities of different open source GIS software to improve decision-making in small and medium companies. The paper shows possibilities of integrating various open source GIS software to support decision making. Open source software features is combined with the functionalities of GIS such as processing using Quantum GIS, storing and analyzing of spatial data to produce results using PostgreSQL, Providing and sharing Geo-data over the network locally or over the globe using Geoserver, The prototype is based on the three basics features low /free cost of using GIS open source software, simplicity and usability, multiplatform supporting. The integration of open source software is appropriate and successful for the use of companies in the field of GIS, this initiative represents a suitable business solutions that do not consume a lot of money and training to develop the skills of the technicians in this field, therefore, this will open the door for other companies to follow this trend. This prototype provides an opportunity for open source software components to process and store data in databases or shares the results over different networks.
 
 
 
 

Industrial Data Space Architecture Implementation Using FIWARE.

We are in front of a new digital revolution that will transform the way we understand and use services and infrastructures. One of the key factors of this revolution is related to the evolution of the Internet of Things (IoT). Connected sensors will be installed in cities and homes affecting the daily life of people and providing them new ways of performing their daily activities. However, this revolution will also affect business and industry bringing the IoT to the production processes in what is called Industry 4.0. Sensor-enabled manufacturing equipment will allow real time communication, smart diagnosis and autonomous decision making. In this scope, the Industrial Data Spaces (IDS) Association has created a Reference Architecture model that aims to provide a common frame for designing and deploying Industry IoT infrastructures. In this paper, we present an implementation of such Reference Architecture based on FIWARE open source software components (Generic Enablers). We validate the proposed architecture by deploying and testing it in a real industry use case that tries to improve the maintenance and operation of milling machines. We conclude that the FIWARE-based IDS implementation fits the requirements of the IDS Reference Architecture providing open source software suitable to any Industry 4.0 environment.

Migration of a library catalogue into RDA linked open data

The catalogue of the Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes contains about 200,000 records which were originally created in compliance with the MARC21 standard. The entries in the catalogue have been recently migrated to a new relational database whose data model adheres to the conceptual models pr omoted by the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA), in particular, to the FRBR and FRAD specifications. The database content has been later mapped, by means of an automated procedure, to RDF triples which employ basically the RDA vocabulary (Resource Description and Access) to describe the entities, as well as their properties and relationships. This RDF-based semantic description of the catalogue is now accessible online through an interface which supports browsing and searching the information. Due to their open nature, these public data can be easily linked and used for new applications created by external developers and institutions. The methods applied for the automation of the conversion, which build upon open-source software components, are described here.

SEMI AUTOMATED LAND COVER LAYER UPDATING PROCESS UTILIZING SPECTRAL ANALYSIS AND GIS DATA FUSION

Abstract. Technological improvements made in recent years of mass data gathering and analyzing, influenced the traditional methods of updating and forming of the national topographic database. It has brought a significant increase in the number of use cases and detailed geo information demands. Processes which its purpose is to alternate traditional data collection methods developed in many National Mapping and Cadaster Agencies. There has been significant progress in semi-automated methodologies aiming to facilitate updating of a topographic national geodatabase. Implementation of those is expected to allow a considerable reduction of updating costs and operation times. Our previous activity has focused on building automatic extraction (Keinan, Zilberstein et al, 2015). Before semiautomatic updating method, it was common that interpreter identification has to be as detailed as possible to hold most reliable database eventually. When using semi-automatic updating methodologies, the ability to insert human insights based knowledge is limited. Therefore, our motivations were to reduce the created gap by allowing end-users to add their data inputs to the basic geometric database. In this article, we will present a simple Land cover database updating method which combines insights extracted from the analyzed image, and a given spatial data of vector layers. The main stages of the advanced practice are multispectral image segmentation and supervised classification together with given vector data geometric fusion while maintaining the principle of low shape editorial work to be done. All coding was done utilizing open source software components.

Retrospective Analysis of Clinical Performance of an Estonian Speech Recognition System for Radiology: Effects of Different Acoustic and Language Models

The aim of this study was to analyze retrospectively the influence of different acoustic and language models in order to determine the most important effects to the clinical performance of an Estonian language-based non-commercial radiology-oriented automatic speech recognition (ASR) system. An ASR system was developed for Estonian language in radiology domain by utilizing open-source software components (Kaldi toolkit, Thrax). The ASR system was trained with the real radiology text reports and dictations collected during development phases. The final version of the ASR system was tested by 11 radiologists who dictated 219 reports in total, in spontaneous manner in a real clinical environment. The audio files collected in the final phase were used to measure the performance of different versions of the ASR system retrospectively. ASR system versions were evaluated by word error rate (WER) for each speaker and modality and by WER difference for the first and the last version of the ASR system. Total average WER for the final version throughout all material was improved from 18.4% of the first version (v1) to 5.8% of the last (v8) version which corresponds to relative improvement of 68.5%. WER improvement was strongly related to modality and radiologist. In summary, the performance of the final ASR system version was close to optimal, delivering similar results to all modalities and being independent on user, the complexity of the radiology reports, user experience, and speech characteristics.

Analysis of land-use/land-cover changes in a livestock landscape dominated by traditional silvopastoral systems: a methodological approach

ABSTRACTRemote sensing, which is a common method to examine land-use/land-cover (LULC) changes, could be useful in the analysis of livestock ecosystem transformations. In the last two decades, before Landsat images were free, developing countries could not afford monitoring through remote sensing because of the high cost of acquiring satellite imagery and commercial software. However, Landsat time series nowadays allows the characterization of changes in vegetation across large areas over time. The aim of this study is to analyse the LULC changes affecting forest frontiers and traditional silvopastoral systems (TSPS) in a representative livestock area of Nicaragua. Nearly cloud-free Landsat scenes – a Landsat 5 Thematic Mapper (TM) scene from 1986 and a Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI) scene from 2015 – have been the data sets used in the study. A process chain following a four-step definition of the remote-sensing process was conceptually developed and implemented based onfree open source software components and by applying the random forest (RF) algorithm. A conceptual LULC classification scheme representing TSPS was developed. Although the imagery shows a heterogeneous surface cover and mixed pixels, it is possible to achieve promising classification results with the RF algorithm with out-of-the-bag (OOB) errors below 13% for both images along with an overall accuracy level of 85.9% for the 2015 subset and 85.2% for the 1986 subset. The classification shows that from 1986 to 2015 (29 years) the intervened secondary forest (ISF) increased 2.6 times, whereas the degraded pastures decreased by 34.5%. The livestock landscape in Matiguás is in a state of constant transformation, but the main changes head towards the positive direction of tree-cover recovery and an increased number of areas of natural regeneration.

System requirements-OSS components: matching and mismatch resolution practices – an empirical study

Developing systems by integrating Open Source Software (OSS) is increasingly gaining importance in the software industry. Although the literature claims that this approach highly impacts Requirements Engineering (RE) practices, there is a lack of empirical evidence to demonstrate this statement. To explore and understand problems and challenges of current system requirement–OSS component matching and mismatches resolution practices in software development projects that integrate one or more OSS components into their software products. Semi-structured in-depth interviews with 25 respondents that have performed RE activities in software development projects that integrate OSS components in 25 different software development companies in Spain, Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. The study uncovers 15 observations regarding system requirements-OSS components matching and mismatch resolution practices used in industrial projects that integrate OSS components. The assessed projects focused mainly on pre-release stages of software applications that integrate OSS components in an opportunistic way. The results also provide details of a set of previously unexplored scenarios when solving system requirement–OSS component mismatches; and clarify some challenges and related problems. For instance, although licensing issues and the potential changes in OSS components by their corresponding communities and/or changes in system requirements have been greatly discussed in the RE literature as problems for OSS component integration, they did not appear to be relevant in our assessed projects. Instead, practitioners highlighted the problem of getting suitable OSS component documentation/information.

A Spatial Information System (SIS) for the Architectural and Cultural Heritage of Sardinia (Italy)

The paper presents a spatial information system (SIS) developed in the research project, “Tecniche murarie tradizionali: conoscenza per la conservazione ed il miglioramento prestazionale” (Traditional building techniques: from knowledge to conservation and performance improvement), with the aim of archiving and managing the data derived from the project. The research project has the purpose of studying the building techniques of the 13th–18th centuries in the Sardinia region (Italy) for their knowledge, conservation, and promotion. The research is founded on a multidisciplinary approach involving several specialists integrating their expertise and providing their input to the knowledge of the dimensional, technical constructive, mensiochronological, materials, physical-mechanical, and energy performance features. This multidisciplinary approach is used to define the peculiarities and behavior of the examined structures, including their performance levels, and then direct the interventions toward innovative, mindful, and ethically correct solutions. The management of the huge amount of data produced during the research required the building of a SIS composed of a geodatabase connected to a GIS and a WebGIS through a Web Map Service (WMS). The entire infrastructure is developed and implemented using open source software components, and will make the research data available to the scientific and professional communities, both for further development and for technical uses. As of today, we surveyed and archived more than 500 buildings belonging to the Sardinia region architectural heritage, and classified them into four main macro categories: defensive architectures, religious architectures, residential architectures, and industrial architectures.

An automated colorimetric inline titration of CO2 concentrations in solvent flow streams using a Teflon AF-2400 tube-in-tube device

Using a number of open source software components (Python, SciPy, OpenCV, PySerial), together with an inexpensive webcam device, an automated inline colorimetric titration methodology was developed to measure CO2 concentration levels in organic flow streams emerging from a Teflon AF-2400 tube-in-tube device. A bisection search algorithm was used in combination with a curve-fitting approach to determine colorimetric titration endpoints. The results obtained are consistent with a simple ‘negative exponential’ model of permeation/dissolution.

P228 Affordable automation for small and intermediate size laboratories

Aim Laboratory automation increases test reproducibility and decreases errors. Many laboratories are excluded from automation due to cost, space, automation expertise, and/or low sample number. Open source software and hardware were utilized to build a system, which overcomes these obstacles. The aim is to build an affordable automation platform and demonstrate the capabilities. Methods Various open source software and hardware components as well as custom machined and 3D printed parts were used to build the MVO (Minimal Viable Option) automation platform. The MVO has an on-deck commercial shaker, magnets, and a unique electromagnet system for moving plates. Four commercial (Rainin 300 μl) pipette plungers with disposable tips are used for liquid transfer. Illumina’s TruSight HLA NGS post-PCR procedure purifies HLA PCR amplicons from primer dimers and excess PCR components. Three samples and NODNA controls were amplified with 8 reactions encompassing 11 HLA loci. Post-PCR purification procedures were performed on the MVO and a commercial automation platform (Hamilton’s Nimbus). Post-PCR amplicons, MVO purified products, and commercial automation purified products were compared by ethidium bromide stained agarose gels. Results The MVO shaker on/off, plate movements, tip pickup/ejection, incubations, and aspirate/dispense commands and parameters functioned as expected. Primer dimer and excess PCR components were removed using the MVO and were comparable to the commercial automated system. Conclusions The MVO is a preprogrammed solution with specifications and capabilities necessary to perform many laboratory procedures. The MVO is a viable automation option for small and intermediate size laboratories. Download : Download high-res image (167KB) Download : Download full-size image Download : Download high-res image (175KB) Download : Download full-size image

Open Source Software Detection Using Function Parameter Based Software Birthmark

As more software companies widely use Open-Source Software (OSS), the risk of open-source license violation has grown increasingly high. Moreover, because the companies often receive software module from upstream suppliers in binary form, it is very hard to obtain the source code. Software distributed in binary form frequently includes third-party libraries without following their licenses. Therefore, it is necessary to develop a technique for detecting OSS or unlicensed third-party code in their software products at the binary level not source level. In this paper, we propose an efficient function parameter based software birthmark at the binary level and develop a scheme to detect OSS using the birthmark. The proposed birthmark is based on the attributes of function parameters such as the number, types, and order. These attributes represent an intrinsic property of a function and are resilient to compiler optimization too. The new birthmark makes use of type mapping of function parameters of each function. Our scheme first extracts the birthmarks from target binary files, and determines whether a binary file contains another binary (e.g., OSS component) by computing the similarity between the extracted birthmarks. We also present an OSS detection framework that can integrate various birthmarking schemes with similarity computation algorithms. Our framework selects an appropriate algorithm to measure software similarity depending on the binary file type of target executables. The framework provides semi-global alignment, local alignment, and sliding-window k-gram algorithms for efficient detection of an OSS component contained in a target executable. The efficiency and effectiveness of the proposed framework are demonstrated through extensive experimentation.

Ubiquitous Access to Digital Cultural Heritage

The digitization initiatives in the past decades have led to a tremendous increase in digitized objects in the cultural heritage domain. Although digitally available, these objects are often not easily accessible for interested users because of the distributed allocation of the content in different repositories and the variety in data structure and standards. When users search for cultural content, they first need to identify the specific repository and then need to know how to search within this platform (e.g., usage of specific vocabulary). The goal of the EEXCESS project is to design and implement an infrastructure that enables ubiquitous access to digital cultural heritage content. Cultural content should be made available in the channels that users habitually visit and be tailored to their current context without the need to manually search multiple portals or content repositories. To realize this goal, open-source software components and services have been developed that can either be used as an integrated infrastructure or as modular components suitable to be integrated in other products and services. The EEXCESS modules and components comprise (i) Web-based context detection, (ii) information retrieval-based, federated content aggregation, (iii) metadata definition and mapping, and (iv) a component responsible for privacy preservation. Various applications have been realized based on these components that bring cultural content to the user in content consumption and content creation scenarios. For example, content consumption is realized by a browser extension generating automatic search queries from the current page context and the focus paragraph and presenting related results aggregated from different data providers. A Google Docs add-on allows retrieval of relevant content aggregated from multiple data providers while collaboratively writing a document. These relevant resources then can be included in the current document either as citation, an image, or a link (with preview) without having to leave disrupt the current writing task for an explicit search in various content providers’ portals.

Orchestrating differential data access for translational research: a pilot implementation

BackgroundTranslational researchers need robust IT solutions to access a range of data types, varying from public data sets to pseudonymised patient information with restricted access, provided on a case by case basis. The reason for this complication is that managing access policies to sensitive human data must consider issues of data confidentiality, identifiability, extent of consent, and data usage agreements. All these ethical, social and legal aspects must be incorporated into a differential management of restricted access to sensitive data.MethodsIn this paper we present a pilot system that uses several common open source software components in a novel combination to coordinate access to heterogeneous biomedical data repositories containing open data (open access) as well as sensitive data (restricted access) in the domain of biobanking and biosample research. Our approach is based on a digital identity federation and software to manage resource access entitlements.ResultsOpen source software components were assembled and configured in such a way that they allow for different ways of restricted access according to the protection needs of the data. We have tested the resulting pilot infrastructure and assessed its performance, feasibility and reproducibility.ConclusionsCommon open source software components are sufficient to allow for the creation of a secure system for differential access to sensitive data. The implementation of this system is exemplary for researchers facing similar requirements for restricted access data. Here we report experience and lessons learnt of our pilot implementation, which may be useful for similar use cases. Furthermore, we discuss possible extensions for more complex scenarios.

Comparison of open source maturity models

Component based development was formerly dependent on propriety/closed source software’s (CSS) components. Open Source software components has attracted noteworthy attention and become an operational alternative of proprietary software because of OSS security, cost effectiveness, quality, flexibility and freedom. Due to the increased attention on component-based development in the past decades, companies have widely adopted open source software (OSS), with the view that using the right software is critical to project success. The availability of Internet as a marketplace for components and wide adoption of OSS has introduced new challenges for selection of software components. Source Forge, other general and domain specific software repositories, different software foundations and individual OSS providers offer an abundance of OSS components. Identification, evaluation and selection of best possible OSS Components for the required need is a quite challenging job. As a reaction to these challenges different methods have been proposed for OSS maturity measurements. E.g. Capgemini-Open Source Maturity Model(C-OSSM), Navicasoft-Open Source Maturity Model (N-OSSM), Qualification and Selection of Open Source (QSOS), Open Business Readiness Rating (Open BRR) and Easiest Open Source (E-OSS).In this paper we compare different Open Source software maturity models available in the market that will help user in OSS component selection.

Development a Modular Factory with Modular Software Components

Recent market trends require extremely short product life cycles to cope with individual customer requirements. The key technology to deal with these requirements is plug-and-produce, which reduces engineering time to change the production lines rapidly. This challenge is solved by the concept of a modular factory which allows to reconfigure individual machine stations without the need of extensive engineering effort. Current solutions focus on hardware approaches such as modular frames, cables and sensors. However software is still a barrier where the change of production line needs the reprogramming of individual devices. To deal with this challenge, the authors utilize the BEinCPPS architecture, which is built from open-source software components.

Mobile Open-Source Plant-Canopy Monitoring System

Many agricultural applications, including improved crop production, precision agriculture, and phenotyping, rely on detailed field and crop information to detect and react to spatial variabilities. Mobile farm vehicles, such as tractors and sprayers, have the potential to operate as mobile sensing platforms, enabling the collection of large amounts of data while working. Open-source hardware and software components were integrated to develop a mobile plant-canopy sensing and monitoring system. The microcontroller-based system, which incorporated a Bluetooth radio, GPS receiver, infrared temperature and ultrasonic distance sensors, micro SD card storage, and voltage regulation components, was developed at a cost of US$292. The system was installed on an agricultural vehicle and tested in a soybean field. The monitoring system demonstrates an application of open-source hardware to agricultural research and provides a framework for similar or additional sensing applications.

Instant Message Classification in Finnish Cyber Security Themed Free-Form Discussion

Instant messaging enables rapid collaboration between professionals during cyber security incidents. However, monitoring discussion manually becomes challenging as the number of communication channels increases. Failure to identify relevant information from the free-form instant messages may lead to reduced situational awareness. In this paper, the problem was approached by developing a framework for classification of instant message topics of cyber security-themed discussion in Finnish. The program utilizes open source software components in morphological analysis, and subsequently converts the messages into Bag-of-Words representations before classifying them into predetermined incident categories. We compared support vector machines (SVM), multinomial naive Bayes, and complement naive Bayes (CNB) classification methods with five-fold cross-validation. A combination of SVM and CNB achieved classification accuracy of over 85 %, while multiclass SVM achieved 87 % accuracy. The implemented program recognizes cyber security-related messages in IRC chat rooms and categorizes them accordingly.

The continuous-flow synthesis of carbazate hydrazones using a simplified computer-vision controlled liquid–liquid extraction system

A computer-vision controlled liquid–liquid extraction system was used in the continuous-flow synthesis of a series of carbazate hydrazones. The system uses open-source software components (Python, OpenCV) and is simpler and potentially more economical, in terms of hardware, than one we have described previously.

A practical example of a software factory: building a custom application for analysing EU Cyber Physical System (CPS) projects using Open Source software components

AbstractThis paper is a retrospective analysis describing the development of a custom tool to organise data snippets derived from a substantial body of information, and a summary of the insights that this means of analysis provided in a very short time scale. The creation of data driven visualisations are of particular interest as they uncovered more cross‐domain aspects of Cyber‐Physical Systems projects than expert opinion had anticipated. These findings will be discussed fully in a second paper.The focus here is the development of the “Vulture” data scavenging tool using Open Source software as system components to create a custom application to serve the data collection and analysis requirements of a REA (Rapid Evidence Assessment) work‐package within an EU funded project, Road2CPS.

GPEC: A Real-Time–Capable Tokamak Equilibrium Code

A new parallel equilibrium reconstruction code for tokamak plasmas—the Garching Parallel Equilibrium Code (GPEC)—is presented. GPEC allows one to compute equilibrium flux distributions sufficiently accurate to derive parameters for plasma control within 1 ms of run time, which enables real-time applications at the ASDEX Upgrade (AUG) experiment and other machines with a control cycle of at least this size. The underlying algorithms are based on the well-established off-line–analysis code CLISTE, following the classical concept of iteratively solving the Grad-Shafranov equation and feeding in diagnostic signals from the experiment. The new code adopts a hybrid parallelization scheme for computing the equilibrium flux distribution and extends the fast, shared-memory-parallel Poisson solver that we have described previously by a distributed computation of the individual Poisson problems corresponding to different basis functions. The code is based entirely on open-source software components and runs on standard server hardware and software environments. The real-time capability of GPEC is demonstrated by performing an off-line computation of a sequence of 1000 flux distributions that are taken from 1 s of operation of a typical AUG discharge and deriving the relevant control parameters with a time resolution of 1 ms. On the current server hardware, the new code allows employing a grid size of 32 × 64 zones for the spatial discretization and up to 15 basis functions. It takes into account about 90 diagnostic signals while using up to four equilibrium iterations and computing more than 20 plasma-control parameters, including the computationally expensive safety factor q on at least four different levels of the normalized flux.