BeerMIMS: Exploring the Use of Membrane-Inlet Mass Spectrometry (MIMS) Coupled to KNIME for the Characterization of Danish Beers

Beer is a complex mix of more than 7700 compounds, around 800 of which are volatile. While GC-MS has been actively employed in the analysis of the volatome of beer, this method is challenged by the complex nature of the sample. Herein, we explored the possible of using membrane-inlet mass spectrometry (MIMS) coupled to KNIME to characterize local Danish beers. KNIME stands for Konstanz Information Miner and is a free open-source data processing software which comes with several prebuilt nodes, that, when organized, result in data processing workflows allowing swift analysis of data with outputs that can be visualized in the desired format. KNIME has been shown to be promising in automation of large datasets and requires very little computing power. In fact, most of the computations can be carried out on a regular PC. Herein, we have utilized a KNIME workflow for data visualization of MIMS data to understand the global volatome of beers. Feature identification was not possible as of now but with a combination of MIMS and a KNIME workflow, we were able to distinguish beers from different micro-breweries located in Denmark, laying the foundation for the use of MIMS in future analysis of the beer volatome.

Evaluation of the use of the Moodle Platform for Fundamental Physics Lectures at University

Almost all countries in the world use E-Learning as a teaching medium. Moodle is a Learning Management System (LMS), a free, open-source platform designed to assist educators in creating online courses with dynamic interaction opportunities. In this study, an evaluation of the use of Moodle was carried out, especially in fundamental physics courses (Newton's Law). Evaluation is given by distributing online questionnaires using Google Forms as a database to store answers, collect feedback, and as statistical software to provide analysis of the effect of using Moodle according to students' opinions or perspectives. The study results show that students experience problems in taking tests/quizzes using SEB due to the instability of the internet signal. One of the reasons is that students also have to join the exam zoom simultaneously. Meanwhile, the Newton's Law material provided is very contextual and rich in sample questions, including providing student feedback which is considered good.

Open Digital Shoreline Analysis System: ODSAS v1.0

In this study, we propose a new baseline and transect method, the open-source digital shoreline analysis system (ODSAS), which is specifically designed to deal with very irregular coastlines. We have compared the ODSAS results with those obtained using the digital shoreline analysis system (DSAS). Like DSAS, our proposed method uses a single baseline parallel to the shoreline and offers the user different smoothing and spacing options to generate the transects. Our method differs from DSAS in the way that the transects’ starting points and orientation are delineated by combining raster and vector objects. ODSAS uses SAGA GIS and R, which are both free open-source software programs. In this paper, we delineate the ODSAS workflow, apply it to ten study sites along the very irregular Galician coastline (NW Iberian Peninsula), and compare it with the one obtained using DSAS. We show how ODSAS produces similar values of coastline changes in terms of the most common indicators at the aggregated level (i.e., using all transects), but the values differ when compared at the transect-by-transect level. We argue herein that explicitly requesting the user to define a minimum resolution is important to reduce the subjectivity of the transect and baseline method.

QuickFigures: A toolkit and ImageJ PlugIn to quickly transform microscope images into scientific figures

Publications involving fluorescent microscopy images generally contain many panels with split channels, merged images, scale bars and label text. Similar layouts of panels are used when displaying other microscopy images, electron micrographs, photographs, and other images. Assembling and editing these figures with even spacing, consistent font, text position, accurate scale bars, and other features can be tedious and time consuming. In order to save time, I have created a toolset and ImageJ Plugin called QuickFigures. QuickFigures includes many helpful features that streamline the process of creating, aligning, and editing scientific figures. Those features include tools that automatically create split channel figures from a region of interest (“Quick Figure” button and “Inset Tool”), layouts that make it easy to rearrange panels, multiple tools to align objects, and “Figure Format” menu options that help a user ensure that large numbers of figures have consistent appearance. QuickFigures was compared to previous tools by measuring the amount of time needed for a user to create a figure using each software (QuickFigures, OMERO.figure. EZFig, FigureJ and PowerPoint). QuickFigures significantly reduced the amount of time required to create a figure. The toolsets were also compared by checking each software against a list of features. QuickFigures had the most extensive set of features. Therefore, QuickFigures is an advantageous alternative to traditional methods of constructing scientific figures. After a user has saved time by creating their work in QuickFigures, the figures can be exported to a variety of formats including PowerPoint, PDF, SVG, PNG, TIFF and Adobe Illustrator. Export was successfully tested for each file format and object type. Exported objects and text are editable in their target software, making them suitable for sharing with collaborators. The software is free, open source and can be installed easily.

Analisis Tingkat Kesadaran Penggunaan Free/Open Source Software (FOSS) pada Lembaga Pendidikan Indonesia

In this paper, the authors conducted small-scale research to determine the awareness, utilization, and barriers of school teachers, especially for Information and Communication Technology (ICT) teachers in using Free and Open Source Software (FOSS). In Indonesia, the utilization of applications and operating systems in educational institutions are still dependent on popular software, it makes the process of learning in schools often mentions the names or brands of certain software that are often used and are usually proprietary. In recent years, several parties have started the Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) movement to break the notion of using Proprietary software, FOSS is starting to be seen by users because of it’s affordability and freedom to use and contribute to developing software together. There are many FOSS that is often used such as Ubuntu, Mozilla Firefox, Moodle, OJS, and many more. The Indonesian government also encourages the use of FOSS in some institutions that have been introduced to FOSS. in this research, the author uses a quantitative approach with a descriptive survey method, it takes a sample from a population and uses a questionnaire as the main data aid. As a result, many obstacles were found that made teachers and students reluctant to use FOSS in their education, such as lack of knowledge, lack of training, availability of technology, and awareness of it.

Recent advances in Apertium, a free/open-source rule-based machine translation platform for low-resource languages

This paper presents an overview of Apertium, a free and open-source rule-based machine translation platform. Translation in Apertium happens through a pipeline of modular tools, and the platform continues to be improved as more language pairs are added. Several advances have been implemented since the last publication, including some new optional modules: a module that allows rules to process recursive structures at the structural transfer stage, a module that deals with contiguous and discontiguous multi-word expressions, and a module that resolves anaphora to aid translation. Also highlighted is the hybridisation of Apertium through statistical modules that augment the pipeline, and statistical methods that augment existing modules. This includes morphological disambiguation, weighted structural transfer, and lexical selection modules that learn from limited data. The paper also discusses how a platform like Apertium can be a critical part of access to language technology for so-called low-resource languages, which might be ignored or deemed unapproachable by popular corpus-based translation technologies. Finally, the paper presents some of the released and unreleased language pairs, concluding with a brief look at some supplementary Apertium tools that prove valuable to users as well as language developers. All Apertium-related code, including language data, is free/open-source and available at https://github.com/apertium.

PoreMatMod.jl: Julia package for in silico post-synthetic modification of crystal structure models

PoreMatMod.jl is a free, open-source, user-friendly, and documented Julia package for modifying crystal structure models of porous materials such as metal-organic frameworks (MOFs). PoreMatMod.jl functions as a find-and-replace algorithm on crystal structures by leveraging (i) Ullmann's algorithm to search for subgraphs of the crystal structure graph that are isomorphic to the graph of a query fragment and (ii) the orthogonal Procrustes algorithm to align a replacement fragment with a targeted substructure of the crystal structure for installation. The prominent application of PoreMatMod.jl is to generate libraries of hypothetical structures for virtual screenings via molecular simulations. For example, one can install functional groups on the linkers of a parent MOF, mimicking post-synthetic modification. Other applications of PoreMatMod.jl to modify crystal structure models include introducing defects and correcting artifacts of X-ray structure determination (adding missing hydrogen atoms, resolving disorder, and removing guest molecules).