scholarly journals The journey to establishing an IT-infrastructure within the German Biobank Alliance

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (9) ◽  
pp. e0257632
Author(s):  
Christina Schüttler ◽  
Hans-Ulrich Prokosch ◽  
Michael Hummel ◽  
Martin Lablans ◽  
Björn Kroll ◽  
...  

Background Biobanks ensure the long-term storage and accessibility of biospecimens and corresponding data sets. Thus, they form the foundation for many research projects which may contribute to improving medical care. With the establishment of the German Biobank Node and Alliance, expertise in biobanking is bundled and strengthened. An important component within this research infrastructure is the set-up of an information technology (IT) network for allowing feasibility requests across individual biobanks. Objective We aim to describe relevant aspects that have shaped the journey to interconnect biobanks, to enhance their visibility within the research-community, to harmonize data, and to enable feasibility searches to support access to available data and biosamples. Methods To achieve this task, we resorted to a wide variety of methods: we ran a requirement analysis, decided on the mode of operation for the federated team of IT-developers and on the development approach itself, took related national and international initiatives into account, and concluded with evaluations of the developed software artefacts and the operation of the entire chain of applications. Results We drew an IT framework including all heterogeneous data aspects derived from our requirement analysis and developed a comprehensive IT infrastructure. The successful implementation benefited from a smooth interaction of a federated IT team distributed across all participating sites that was even able to manage a major technology change mid-project. Authentication and project management services from associated partners could be integrated and the graphic user interface for an intuitive search tool for biospecimens was designed iteratively. The developed code is open source to ensure sustainability and the local implementation is concluded and functioning. The evaluation of the components was positive. Conclusions The entire project had given ample opportunity for challenges, predictable and unpredictable—from the mode of operation to changing some of the initial ideas. We learned our lessons concerning personnel, budget planning and technical as well as manual monitoring as well as some requirements arising only during the process of the project. Nevertheless, we can here report a success story of a network infrastructure, highly agile and much easier in local installation than initially anticipated.

Author(s):  
Lee Chao

This chapter reviews a five-phase solution development process. It points out that a well developed cloud based IT infrastructure should be constructed on a solid requirement analysis and thoughtful design. The selection of cloud technology should meet the needs of educational institutions. The successful implementation of a cloud based IT infrastructure relies on adequate training and tutoring services. The evaluation of a cloud based IT infrastructure gives direction on further improvement. This chapter provides strategies and guidelines for creating a cloud based IT infrastructure for educational institutions.


2020 ◽  
Vol 221 (3) ◽  
pp. 1542-1554 ◽  
Author(s):  
B C Root

SUMMARY Current seismic tomography models show a complex environment underneath the crust, corroborated by high-precision satellite gravity observations. Both data sets are used to independently explore the density structure of the upper mantle. However, combining these two data sets proves to be challenging. The gravity-data has an inherent insensitivity in the radial direction and seismic tomography has a heterogeneous data acquisition, resulting in smoothed tomography models with de-correlation between different models for the mid-to-small wavelength features. Therefore, this study aims to assess and quantify the effect of regularization on a seismic tomography model by exploiting the high lateral sensitivity of gravity data. Seismic tomography models, SL2013sv, SAVANI, SMEAN2 and S40RTS are compared to a gravity-based density model of the upper mantle. In order to obtain similar density solutions compared to the seismic-derived models, the gravity-based model needs to be smoothed with a Gaussian filter. Different smoothening characteristics are observed for the variety of seismic tomography models, relating to the regularization approach in the inversions. Various S40RTS models with similar seismic data but different regularization settings show that the smoothening effect is stronger with increasing regularization. The type of regularization has a dominant effect on the final tomography solution. To reduce the effect of regularization on the tomography models, an enhancement procedure is proposed. This enhancement should be performed within the spectral domain of the actual resolution of the seismic tomography model. The enhanced seismic tomography models show improved spatial correlation with each other and with the gravity-based model. The variation of the density anomalies have similar peak-to-peak magnitudes and clear correlation to geological structures. The resolvement of the spectral misalignment between tomographic models and gravity-based solutions is the first step in the improvement of multidata inversion studies of the upper mantle and benefit from the advantages in both data sets.


2003 ◽  
Vol 15 (9) ◽  
pp. 2227-2254 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wei Chu ◽  
S. Sathiya Keerthi ◽  
Chong Jin Ong

This letter describes Bayesian techniques for support vector classification. In particular, we propose a novel differentiable loss function, called the trigonometric loss function, which has the desirable characteristic of natural normalization in the likelihood function, and then follow standard gaussian processes techniques to set up a Bayesian framework. In this framework, Bayesian inference is used to implement model adaptation, while keeping the merits of support vector classifier, such as sparseness and convex programming. This differs from standard gaussian processes for classification. Moreover, we put forward class probability in making predictions. Experimental results on benchmark data sets indicate the usefulness of this approach.


Author(s):  
Hilal Bahlawan ◽  
Mirko Morini ◽  
Michele Pinelli ◽  
Pier Ruggero Spina ◽  
Mauro Venturini

This paper documents the set-up and validation of nonlinear autoregressive exogenous (NARX) models of a heavy-duty single-shaft gas turbine. The considered gas turbine is a General Electric PG 9351FA located in Italy. The data used for model training are time series data sets of several different maneuvers taken experimentally during the start-up procedure and refer to cold, warm and hot start-up. The trained NARX models are used to predict other experimental data sets and comparisons are made among the outputs of the models and the corresponding measured data. Therefore, this paper addresses the challenge of setting up robust and reliable NARX models, by means of a sound selection of training data sets and a sensitivity analysis on the number of neurons. Moreover, a new performance function for the training process is defined to weigh more the most rapid transients. The final aim of this paper is the set-up of a powerful, easy-to-build and very accurate simulation tool which can be used for both control logic tuning and gas turbine diagnostics, characterized by good generalization capability.


2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 87 ◽  
Author(s):  
Faten Karim ◽  
Giselle Rampersad

The main advantage of cloud computing is to reduce the IT cost. By using cloud computing, organisations do not have to set up an IT infrastructure, and instead are able to rent resources and give payment only for the using services. Even with the appealing of cloud computing benefits, it is still in infancy in developing countries due to many reasons. Technology adoption has been explored to a limited degree in developing countries, particularly in relation to cloud computing in the tertiary education sector. Existing studies have examined technology adoption in developed countries and to a lesser extent in developing countries in non-education contexts such as e-government. This paper contributes to the cloud computing adoption literature in developing countries, and specifically in Saudi Arabian universities. 


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