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Historically, scholarly editions of music have identified a managing editor and individual volume editors. Other contributors might receive an acknowledgement with a vague description of activities, with institutional support often appearing in the printed metadata. This model’s emphasis on single scholars perpetuates a myth, relying heretofore upon predominantly invisible labour. Digital editions require interdisciplinary collaboration combining musicological skills, technical skills, and infrastructural resources, thus challenging this model’s ability to endure. Moreover, digital editions proffer opportunities for reconsidering the roles, workflows, and knowledge structures involved in critical musical scholarship.Situated at the intersection of currently running and recently completed digital projects, continuously emergent tools, sociology, and philosophy, this essay reflects on the role of the editor in the digital age. Beginning with Howard Becker’s art worlds model of creative communities, it suggests a model based on FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable) and CARE (Collective Benefit, Authority to Control, Responsibility, and Ethics) principles and the Music Encoding Initiative (MEI). MEI affords expansive metadata recording for contributors – composers, librettists, performers, editors, researchers, funders, etc. – to a work and its embodiments, which in turn enables broader visibility and empowers greater acknowledgement of the labour involved in such projects. Alongside other digital projects, this essay pays particular attention to how these technological and team-focused concepts are at- and in-play in the Reger-Werkausgabe Online. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Supported employment is a promising vocational rehabilitation intervention for improving disability employment. Its implementation, however, is not without challenges. Lack of funding and the heavy caseload of job coaches significantly constrain its impacts. A mobile software, avail® by CentralReach, was created based on the individual placement and support model for assisting individuals with disabilities to perform their job tasks. The purpose of this pilot study was to explore the feasibility and preliminary efficacy of avail. A total of 17 participants with disabilities were recruited in a Midwestern state from the United States to try avail for a period of time ranging from 40 to 348 days. Participants' experiences, including perceived usability, acceptance, and satisfaction, were collected to determine the feasibility of avail. In addition, a pre- and post-intervention analysis was conducted to identify its effects on users' job satisfaction, self-efficacy, and self-determination. Participants of this study expressed positive user experience for avail. Specifically, they felt that avail was helpful for their job performance. The results also showed a statistically significant result for improving participants' self-determination. avail is a feasible and potentially promising application for assisting workers with disabilities in their job performance. Directly available on mobile devices, avail has several advantages, such as real-time support and good portability. Suggestions and future directions were discussed for further software development. A job coach is needed in the individual placement and support model (IPS) to provide on-site job support for individuals with disabilities. However, job coaches were typically overwhelmed by the heavy caseloads. A job coach application such as the avail was created, and this study was to test its feasibility and preliminary efficacy. The study showed that avail was appropriate for individuals with disabilities to use at work, and they generally enjoyed using the application. The preliminary efficacy showed that avail improved their job performances and overall self-determination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The digital transformation of architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) is being hailed as a panacea for the sectors' problems, with major actors in government and business promoting it as a benevolent harbinger of greater efficiency, productivity, better quality, and environmental performance. However, advancing digitalization in AEC is intertwined with a distinct political-economic logic that involves new constraints, dependencies, and a reconfiguration of power relations. Specifically, Building Information Modeling (BIM) as a digital convergence of three-dimensional building models, databases, and interfaces for multidisciplinary collaboration operates as a runway technology for digitalization and an entry point for platformization impelled by global software giants, such as this article's empirical case of software company Autodesk and its BIM product portfolio shows. BIM's linkage of governmental policy strategies with the techno-economic platform logic of software subscription models, open application programming interfaces, and cloud-enabled collaboration ensures management and control of construction data and software interoperability. At the same time, BIM's techno-economic and political configuration facilitates a near-monopolistic structure in the global architecture and construction software market. It thus grants one hegemonic company immense power to define what formats, standards, and data for building models and design processes are being used in creating the built environment. The expansive, intersecting logics of assetization, platformization, and datafication have been taking hold in the AEC sector, raising questions about their stratifying effects in the built environment and society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the possible benefits and substantial risks of 'Rules as Code', the parallel drafting of legislation and codification in software, which has been the subject of attention from policy-makers and pilot studies in some jurisdictions. It highlights the long history of these approaches, and the challenges of ossification, mis-translation of rules, and separation of powers problems. It also examines in the detail the Australian Pintarich case, which demonstrates the inadequacy of conventional judicial review of automated decision-making. It outlines some possible solutions to these issues — two 'internal' to development processes (greater transparency, and literate pair programming) and two 'external' (expanding the capacity of judicial review to look beyond a specific citizen/state interaction and consider the design and development of the controlling software system, and greater cross-disciplinary awareness by lawyers). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Single case experimental designs are an important research design in behavioral and medical research. Although there are design standards prescribed by the What Works Clearinghouse for single case experimental designs, these standards do not include statistically derived power computations. Recently we derived the equations for computing power for (AB)k designs. However, these computations and the software code in R may not be accessible to applied researchers who are most likely to want to compute power for their studies. Therefore, we have developed an (AB)k power calculator Shiny App () that researchers can use with no software training. These power computations assume that the researcher would be interested in fitting multilevel models with autocorrelations or conduct similar analyses. The purpose of this software contribution is to briefly explain how power is derived for balanced (AB)k designs and to elaborate on how to use the Shiny App. The app works well on not just computers but mobile phones without installing the R program. We believe this can be a valuable tool for practitioners and applied researchers who want to plan their single case studies with sufficient power to detect appropriate effect sizes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bioacoustics increasingly relies on large datasets and computational methods. The need to batch-process large amounts of data and the increased focus on algorithmic processing require software tools. To optimally assist in a bioacoustician's workflow, software tools need to be as simple and effective as possible. Five years ago, the Python package Parselmouth was released to provide easy and intuitive access to all functionality in the Praat software. Whereas Praat is principally designed for phonetics and speech processing, plenty of bioacoustics studies have used its advanced acoustic algorithms. Here, we evaluate existing usage of Parselmouth and discuss in detail several studies which used the software library. We argue that Parselmouth has the potential to be used even more in bioacoustics research, and suggest future directions to be pursued with the help of Parselmouth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

3D concrete printing (3DCP) is a recent trend in the construction sector. In 3DCP, the concrete is pumped layer by layer through a nozzle attached to a robotic arm to print structural components or the entire building. The application of 3DCP is not just limited to the earth; it's also gaining traction in space habitat construction. However, there are constraints associated with using 3DCP in construction projects. This review details the top challenges faced in the 3DCP process related to material, strength, printer and highlights the applications of 3DCP in the construction sector. By choosing the suitable materials and configuring the printing parameters, it is possible to overcome the material and structural strength-related challenges such as workability, hardening time, mechanical and durability properties. The use of 3DCP on construction sites certainly provides cost and waste reductions, faster build rates, safer working environments and the possibility of more intricate architecture. Reinforcing methods and sustainable processes are the most frequently encountered issues with the 3DCP. Lack of technology, material variability, process optimization and many other issues are barriers to advancing 3D printing technology for concrete. It is concluded that 3DCP has potential and opportunity for the construction if the challenges are addressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An important aspect of complex hardware-software systems reliability is the interaction between hardware and software. Most of the existing work has assumed either independence between hardware (HW) and software (SW) or a fixed proportion of hardware reported failures to represent HW/SW interactions. These assumptions do not necessarily reflect reality. In this paper, probabilistic HW/SW interactions, in conjunction with hardware and software reliability, are considered to model and assessment overall hardware-software systems reliability. However, incorporating uncertainty demands the use of stochastic programming to estimate the parameters of the hardware reliability model. To capture the HW/SW interactions, a Markov Stochastic process model with uncertainty in transition rates is proposed and solved using Monte Carlo sampling. By combining hardware, software, and probabilistic HW/SW interactions, the overall system reliability can be predicted not only as a point estimator but as quantiles or confidence intervals. The proposed methodology was demonstrated with data from a real computer system provided by Los Alamos National Laboratory. Reliability predictions for a 1,095-day horizon were carried out with an R script in approximately 1.5 s running on a laptop, which demonstrates the feasibility and convenience of the approach. In the four cases analyzed, the 97.5% lower bound of system reliability estimation was above the reliability calculated assuming independent hardware and software reliability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The work aims at improving Chinese music lessons using multimedia technologies. In this regard, the authors applied some testing methods, as well as statistical calculations. The research process involved 160 Chinese school and university students. The test results showed that the main percentage of the respondents had an average level of knowledge at the introductory stage – 52% of the school students and 58% of the university students. Repetitions of notes and melodies aurally caught the greatest interest of the school students (27%) during learning, and so did reproductions of sound effects in the university students (24%) according to some specified parameters. The authors developed a multimedia training program based on the data obtained, using, inter alia, interactive whiteboards, electronic textbooks, software, video demonstrations and psychological support. The level of the respondents' knowledge has increased significantly after training. Acquiring average knowledge by 3% of the school students and 6% of the university students confirms this. The calculation of standard deviations showed that the majority of the respondents confirmed their high level of knowledge, since there was practically no standard deviation. This indicator was 0.06 and 0.002 for the school students and the university students, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Parallel Coordinate Plots (PCP) are a valuable tool for exploratory data analysis of high-dimensional numerical data. The use of PCPs is limited when working with categorical variables or a mix of categorical and continuous variables. In this article, we propose Generalized Parallel Coordinate Plots (GPCP) to extend the ability of PCPs from just numeric variables to dealing seamlessly with a mix of categorical and numeric variables in a single plot. In this process we find that existing solutions for categorical values only, such as hammock plots or parsets become edge cases in the new framework. By focusing on individual observations rather than a marginal frequency we gain additional flexibility. The resulting approach is implemented in the R package ggpcp. for this article are available online. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Institutional and academic debates have intensified regarding the recent efforts to claim inventorship of AI-related patent applications, as has notably been seen in the known cases of Thaler v Comptroller ('DABUS') that have been examined in various jurisdictions. The pertinent question that has emerged is whether artificial intelligence systems can independently produce patentable subject matter. What has to be looked at, first, is the preliminary question of what the claim of producing inventions 'autonomously' can possibly mean under a technological perspective – an essential stage in the debate that is usually bypassed in legal commentary. Once such a technological explanation has been provided, a legal question can reasonably arise as to whether an AI process, such as software, may make a contribution that rewards a patent. AI inventions are legally approached and analysed as processes and as to their relationship with their direct products. Thus, where a process (AI) 'creates' or 'makes' a product, the focus is reasonably put on if and to what extent disclosing the product can provide a contribution separate to that which has already been provided by the process that created it. It is stressed that the current push for AI-generated products bypasses this key question which is essential in assessing the invention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to the COVID-19, educational institutions fully or partially shifted to online teaching. Hardware-based laboratories presented a major challenge given the online learning environment. Online running of hardware-based laboratory classes using software does not provide students. Online teaching reduces the interaction level between students and demonstrators. As a result, students' performance and satisfaction were reduced. To address these challenges, this article presents a novel mixed mode delivery approach for undergraduate engineering students. This approach is based on pairing remotely and on-campus students. This article uses a case study to describe the implementation of the proposed approach for a large first-year electronics circuit theory class. Compared to students' laboratory performance before COVID-19 pandemic (on-campus only laboratories), online students' laboratory experience was not affected. Their lab performance found to be at 89.64%. Online students gained experience in troubleshooting by their involvement, while on-campus students are connecting the hardware and obtaining measurement results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Excessive software development is the tendency to develop new software above and beyond the requirements of the market and/or planned specifications. It is a widespread phenomenon involving both risks and flexibility advantages. As it represents a challenging dilemma for software developers, it is important to study its human origins. Drawing on the tripartite model of individual attitudes, this study investigates the influence of developers's cognitive (intuitive and rational thinking styles), affective (emotional attachment) and behavioural (reliance on past experiences) traits on two forms of excess, beyond needs and beyond plans. Using survey data on 307 software developers, this study shows that different manifestations of excess are associated with distinct traits of software developers. Emotional attachment drives beyond needs excess. A positive (negative) association is found between relying on past experiences and beyond needs excess (beyond plans excess). An intuitive cognitive style fosters the inclusion of extra features in the new product scope, whereas a rational style might lead to developing one-size-fits-all software that targets the needs of a broad user base. These findings contribute to research on the development of digital new products and production technologies by offering a comprehensive yet fine-grained picture of excessive software development's nature and drivers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cataloging is an essential activity of a children's hospital library used not only to identify and retrieve bibliographic resources, but mainly to protect its users: hospitalized child and accompanying adult. The child is in a situation of extreme vulnerability, in which reading a mis-indicated book may harm him/her, while an appropriate book may help his/her recovery. In this paper, metadata is introduced to indicate the most appropriate user profile for each book. In addition, the design and cataloging process in the children's hospital library of a Brazilian public hospital are detailed, including specific software and experimental results for cataloging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sound speed and elastic constants measurements in solids and liquids are commonly performed using the ultrasound pulse-echo technique. Recent advances have expanded the use of this technique at numerous high pressure synchrotron beamlines and offline laboratories. However, the increased experimental throughput has revealed many limitations in existing software for handling the rapid measurement and the subsequent data-reduction. We report the development of a collection of computer programs for sound speed measurements using the ultrasound pulse-echo technique, compatible with stepped multi-frequency, as well as broadband-pulse, couplant-corrected methods. The programs provide a highly interactive graphical interface, enable efficient measurement, exploration and near real-time analysis of the ultrasound data, and contain features useful for working with samples under high pressure and/or high temperature. The included analysis programs can alleviate the time required for data reduction from hours to less than a minute, allowing users to make timely and informed decisions regarding the appropriate experimental parameters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After almost two decades of litigation characterizing software payments for income taxation, the Hon'ble Supreme Court of India delivered a judgment on a batch of over a hundred appeals before it. The judgment respited the taxpayers. The present article analyzes the various arguments presented by the taxpayers and the Revenue Department and tests their applicability on the touchstone of International and Indian legal provisions and the established understanding of copyright law. The article concludes that the impact of copyright law on taxation cannot be avoided and any exploitation of copyright leading to income-generation is subject to tax. However, instead of bypassing copyright laws, a correct interpretation of the nuances of copyright laws would lead to more effective and less debilitating results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Software is at the core of digitalisation and is often claimed to play a central role in innovation and in shaping competition across industries and firms. There are yet few studies of the extent and nature of software development across firms. We employ a unique firm-level survey comprising 3,929 firms across Sweden to analyse the distribution and characteristics of firms that invest in software development and the orientation of their investments. The results confirm that software development activities are present in most industries, but heterogeneously distributed across firms. Internal software development is associated with innovation-oriented large firms in high-tech and knowledge-intensive industries, and is often affiliated with MNEs. The results suggest that software development is comparable to R&D investments and constitutes an example of digital innovation. This strengthens the value of studying software development activities to understand how firms invest in and build competitive advantage in the digitalised economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The covalent modification of RNA molecules is a pervasive feature of all classes of RNAs and has fundamental roles in the regulation of several cellular processes. Mapping the location of RNA modifications transcriptome-wide is key to unveiling their role and dynamic behaviour, but technical limitations have often hampered these efforts. Nanopore direct RNA sequencing is a third-generation sequencing technology that allows the sequencing of native RNA molecules, thus providing a direct way to detect modifications at single-molecule resolution. Despite recent advances, the analysis of nanopore sequencing data for RNA modification detection is still a complex task that presents many challenges. Many works have addressed this task using different approaches, resulting in a large number of tools with different features and performances. Here we review the diverse approaches proposed so far and outline the principles underlying currently available algorithms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated the role of information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructure, software, competencies and values in blended education. A 28-item survey was administered to a sample of 102 respondents from several institutes of higher education. Results show that infrastructure is considered to play a vital role in promoting blended education, that software services facilitate IT applications over the internet and that respondents feel they have sufficient knowledge about ICT. Respondents more strongly adhere to sustainability-oriented values than to self-oriented ones. The sustainability orientation was correlated with software and the self-orientation with knowledge. Based on the outcomes of this study, higher education institutions should focus more on the optimisation of ICT infrastructure and software, and promote ICT knowledge and sustainable values among users. For future research, a similar study could be done at (inter)national hotel schools among students and teaching staff with an instrument that includes indicators on drivers, appreciation, performance and impact of blended education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The MDC-model (Microstructural Dislocation Creep – model) is an advanced approach incorporating numerous creep mechanisms in complex alloys. It leads to a differential equation system that cannot be solved in a closed algebraic form. Also, some parameters of these equations cannot be measured directly. The application CreeSo (from 'Creep Software') helps finding numerical solutions of this model and it can also help determining missing parameters by comparing simulated with experimental creep curves. CreeSo is not limited to the MDC-model but open to any model formulated in its script language. The application is written in C++ and JavaScript and it will be available as a desktop version for MS-Windows and as an online version for web browsers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Autonomous recording units now facilitate the large collection of audio recordings. However, the analysis of large amounts of acoustic data remains a challenge. The time required for manually searching for bird vocalisations may be equivalent or greater to the duration of audio recordings. This major constraint can be significantly reduced through the use of software developed for automated identification of bird vocalisations in audio recordings. We have compared the performance of four software (CallSeeker, Kaleidoscope Pro, Raven Pro, and Song Scope) and a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) using audio recordings containing calls of Bicknell's Thrush and Gray-Cheeked Thrush, as well as the vocalisations of other bird species whose acoustic characteristics overlap with those of our target species. We evaluated all the software on the basis of two main criteria, their ability to detect calls and their ability to classify them correctly by species. Software performance ranged from 30 to 90% in terms of call detection (recall) and from 27 to 99% in terms of correct call classification (precision). CNNs offer a promising solution to the long-standing problem of detecting animal vocalisations in noisy soundscapes, while eliminating the tedious manual step of configuring the algorithms to maximise software performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A user-friendly software SolCelSim is introduced for the simulation of the charge transport in a solar cell with an arbitrary number of layers. Various recombination mechanisms, types of transport through internal layer interfaces and conditions at the contacts can be chosen. A wide range of the measurement methods available for the solar cells such as photocurrent-voltage, incident photon-to-current efficiency and impedance spectroscopy can be simulated with SolCelSim. Any parameter of the layers can be swept automatically during the simulation in order to obtain the dependence of the simulation results on the particular parameter values. Import/export buttons for the experimental/simulated data are provided to facilitate comparison between the measurements and simulations. The application provides a convenient entry-point for the experimentally oriented researchers in order to execute the drift-diffusion simulation of their solar cell devices. Furthermore, SolCelSim provides an example of advanced use of Comsol Application Builder in the development of complex Comsol applications with dynamic geometry, import/export and error handling features. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Regression trees and their ensemble methods are popular methods for nonparametric regression: they combine strong predictive performance with interpretable estimators. To improve their utility for locally smooth response surfaces, we study regression trees and random forests with linear aggregation functions. We introduce a new algorithm that finds the best axis-aligned split to fit linear aggregation functions on the corresponding nodes, and we offer a quasilinear time implementation. We demonstrate the algorithm's favorable performance on real-world benchmarks and in an extensive simulation study, and we demonstrate its improved interpretability using a large get-out-the-vote experiment. We provide an open-source software package that implements several tree-based estimators with linear aggregation functions. for this article are available online. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of one of the first mass-market nonfiction books about computing – a topic to which he recently returned – gives his impressions of the effects of emerging new technologies, and more important, the mindset of those who build them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The diffuse scattering signal of amorphous or liquid systems contains information on the local atomic structure, and this can be related to the density, compressibility, thermal expansion and other thermoelastic properties. However, the analysis and full exploitation of the diffuse scattering signal, in particular for systems under extreme conditions of high pressures and temperatures are difficult to handle. Amorpheus is a Python-based software allowing the determination of the structure factor and the radial distribution function of amorphous and liquid systems. Based on previously reported methodologies, Amorpheus stands out for the implementation of automatic algorithms allowing the user to choose the most suitable parameters for the data treatment and making possible systematic analysis of datasets collected in experiments carried out in Paris-Edinburgh press, multi-anvil apparatus or diamond anvil cell. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In an increasingly digital world, technology-based start-ups face challenges which are of unique nature and hence cannot be fathomed by organizations belonging to another genre. The case study focuses on a series of strategic and business model redesigning challenges faced by Ashutosh Chouksey, Executive Vice President – Expansion and Strategic Operations, while co-leading a technology-based customer engagement and digital signage solutions start-up, MintM. MintM has a business to business (B2B) based model that relies on its own proprietary software to display targeted audio-visual content in stores and supermarkets, offering the unique value proposition of simultaneous last mile advertising connectivity and customer analysis. The core product of MintM requires regular upkeep creating a conflict: a chance of global outreach versus operational hassles hindering its growth trajectory. The case is an appropriate platform for demonstrating information technology-based business model management dilemma in a fast-changing digital milieu, whether to improvise on organizational structure or product particulars. The case also presents an opportunity to discuss operational challenges hindering expansion plans and how to strategize and redesign business model to overcome the same and cater to clientele in a niche nascent market while still maintaining a lean team. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent disruptive events, such as earthquakes or floods, have caused severe damage to civil infrastructure systems. Thus, there is a need to extend the focus of traditional design practices to include resilience-based design approaches which can help in defining preventive actions and measures to mitigate the consequences caused by such disruptive events. This paper presents a Civil Infrastructure Resilience Assessment Framework (CIRAF) to assess the seismic fragility and resilience of a single or multiple interconnected civil infrastructure systems following a disruptive event. Once the information regarding the infrastructure system, hazards, fragility functions, component's damage state correlation, recovery models, and upgrade models are identified, then the framework can be used to quantify the loss of functionality, recovery time, repair cost, and overall resilience using a Bayesian Network approach. A state-of-the-art engineering tool is also developed using the framework that would enable the stakeholders to compare different upgrade strategies through an easy to use web interface and thus easing the decision-making process. A case study of a hypothetical nuclear power generation system is used to assess the seismic fragility and resilience using the proposed framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are high technological and software demands associated with conducting Brain–Computer Interface (BCI) research. In order to accelerate the development and accessibility of BCIs, it is worthwhile to focus on open-source and community desired tooling. Python, a prominent computer language, has emerged as a language of choice for many research and engineering purposes. In this article, BciPy, an open-source, Python-based software for conducting BCI research is presented. It was developed with a focus on restoring communication using Event-Related Potential (ERP) spelling interfaces; however, it may be used for other non-spelling and non-ERP BCI paradigms. Major modules in this system include support for data acquisition, data queries, stimuli presentation, signal processing, signal viewing and modeling, language modeling, task building, and a simple Graphical User Interface (GUI). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

3D Organon VR Anatomy is a virtual reality program that allows individuals to interact with anatomy in a 3D environment. This column provides a brief overview of the product and its potential uses within a medical library. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The growing use of software in biomedicine has enlarged the capacities of researchers and clinicians. This, one might expect, would enhance the precision and safety of biomedicine. However, it has been recognized that software can bring about new risks to the field of medicine and medical devices, requiring at least some degree of caution from the different players responsible for technology governance and risk management. This phenomenon is focused on in this paper, from the viewpoint of 3D bioprinting. Bioprinting is the production of bioactive structures in a layer-by-layer deposition of cells, with the use of devices called bioprinters. The latter can only function by receiving instructions from software. This paper focuses on some software-supported techniques that are key for bioprinting. It shows that a growing range of software packages has been used in bioprinting, a trend that is greatly fostered by open source software. In this evolution, the clinical potentialities of bioprinting come closer to their realization. At the same time, however, uncertainties emerge, related to issues such as data protection, use of biological samples, and others. The growing use of open source software complexifies the scenario, because it leads to a multiplication of actors directly or indirectly involved in the technology's development, making it difficult to trace liabilities and damages. As no national regulation has been produced to tackle such uncertainties, they have been (provisionally and precariously) addressed in the licenses of software packages. In the years to come, as clinical products eventually spring from bioprinting research, more robust governance schemes will have to emerge in which risks and liabilities are dealt with more carefully by different players. Moreover, regulations will have to address the practice of combining different software packages in the same bioprinting process, as well as the growing globalization of bioprinting research and commercial exploration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates students' learning needs to prepare them for workplaces characterised by rapidly changing information and communication technology (ICT) requirements. Interviews enabled employers to give their perspectives on the types and extent of software used by accounting graduates, their required workplace ICT competencies and the extent to which graduates met employers' ICT competency expectations. Overall, employers' expectations of graduates in the workplace are higher although they have mixed views about their ICT competencies. It remains essential for graduates to have a sound foundation of accounting skills. Graduates need to understand how transactions move through the accounting process so that they can evaluate the reasonableness of accounting information. The study highlights where enhancements can be made to courses. These findings can be used by accounting educators in the planning and delivery of accounting programmes to ensure that accounting graduates have the essential ICT competencies required for their future careers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mass spectrometry-based proteomics is actively embracing quantitative, single-cell level analyses. Indeed, recent advances in sample preparation and mass spectrometry (MS) have enabled the emergence of quantitative MS-based single-cell proteomics (SCP). While exciting and promising, SCP still has many rough edges. The current analysis workflows are custom and built from scratch. The field is therefore craving for standardized software that promotes principled and reproducible SCP data analyses. This special report is the first step toward the formalization and standardization of SCP data analysis. scp, the software that accompanies this work, successfully replicates one of the landmark SCP studies and is applicable to other experiments and designs. We created a repository containing the replicated workflow with comprehensive documentation in order to favor further dissemination and improvements of SCP data analyses. Replicating SCP data analyses uncovers important challenges in SCP data analysis. We describe two such challenges in detail: batch correction and data missingness. We provide the current state-of-the-art and illustrate the associated limitations. We also highlight the intimate dependence that exists between batch effects and data missingness and offer avenues for dealing with these exciting challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The covalent modification of RNA molecules is a pervasive feature of all classes of RNAs and has fundamental roles in the regulation of several cellular processes. Mapping the location of RNA modifications transcriptome-wide is key to unveiling their role and dynamic behaviour, but technical limitations have often hampered these efforts. Nanopore direct RNA sequencing is a third-generation sequencing technology that allows the sequencing of native RNA molecules, thus providing a direct way to detect modifications at single-molecule resolution. Despite recent advances, the analysis of nanopore sequencing data for RNA modification detection is still a complex task that presents many challenges. Many works have addressed this task using different approaches, resulting in a large number of tools with different features and performances. Here we review the diverse approaches proposed so far and outline the principles underlying currently available algorithms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Peptidomics is an emerging field of omics sciences using advanced isolation, analysis, and computational techniques that enable qualitative and quantitative analyses of various peptides in biological samples. Peptides can act as useful biomarkers and as therapeutic molecules for diseases The use of therapeutic peptides can be predicted quickly and efficiently using data-driven computational methods, particularly artificial intelligence (AI) approach. Various AI approaches are useful for peptide-based drug discovery, such as support vector machine, random forest, extremely randomized trees, and other more recently developed deep learning methods. AI methods are relatively new to the development of peptide-based therapies, but these techniques already become essential tools in protein science by dissecting novel therapeutic peptides and their functions (Figure 1). Researchers have shown that AI models can facilitate the development of peptidomics and selective peptide therapies in the field of peptide science. Biopeptide prediction is important for the discovery and development of successful peptide-based drugs. Due to their ability to predict therapeutic roles based on sequence details, many AI-dependent prediction tools have been developed (Figure 1). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We have designed an anti-plagiarism software to detect plagiarism in students' assignments, especially written assignments, homework, and research reports, which will hereinafter be collectively referred to as student work. We used our university network to gather student work to detect plagiarism.. To collect data, we used a domain name system to store the student work data based on the respective location, time, and the subject on which each student was assigned work. Once the student work data were collected, they were sent to an extraction module to remove unwanted data. The remaining data were then fed to a similarity index module, which produced similarity values based on comparisons between the collected data and the student work. This module uses mathematical equations that are built using semantic and syntactic similarity reports. Furthermore, in this study, we recommended procedures that can be applied to avoid plagiarism using the programming approach. This approach can raise awareness of plagiarism among students and encourage them to generate innovative ideas instead of plagiarizing. To attract faculty members to use the software, promotional materials can be customized based on the actual control factors that directly affect their adoption of the software. For example, the campaign should provide information highlighting the ease of implementation of the software for senior faculty members. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: To understand the process through which some hospitals have become ready to assimilate the digital technologies required for 3D bioprinting. By enhancing their digital readiness, hospitals will be able to develop the current proto-clinical potentialities of bioprinting. Materials & methods: We conducted interviews with bioprinting researchers, entrepreneurs and regulators in three countries (United Kingdom, Italy and Brazil). We analyzed bioprinting papers in which hospital-based researchers participated. We also analyzed the international bioprinting market. Results: Digital readiness is more advanced in some hospitals and countries, which have noticed the strategic relevance of bioprinting. Furthermore, it is strengthened by the reformulation of the relations between hospitals and other institutions, a phenomenon that is here interpreted with the concept of interfaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We introduce COCO, an open-source platform for Comparing Continuous Optimizers in a black-box setting. COCO aims at automatizing the tedious and repetitive task of benchmarking numerical optimization algorithms to the greatest possible extent. The platform and the underlying methodology allow to benchmark in the same framework deterministic and stochastic solvers for both single and multiobjective optimization. We present the rationals behind the (decade-long) development of the platform as a general proposition for guidelines towards better benchmarking. We detail underlying fundamental concepts of COCO such as the definition of a problem as a function instance, the underlying idea of instances, the use of target values, and runtime defined by the number of function calls as the central performance measure. Finally, we give a quick overview of the basic code structure and the currently available test suites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This randomised clinical trial was conducted on 153 pregnant women. Participants were assigned into two intervention groups including educational software and an educational booklet and a control group through block randomisation. A training session was implemented for the intervention groups at 30-36 weeks and they were taught how to use the educational methods. Participants were followed-up until the childbirth time and the severity of pain was measured at four stage of cervical dilatation (4, 6, 8 and 10 cm) by Visual Analogue Scale (VAS). Spielberger State-Trait Anxiety Inventory was completed at 4-5 cm cervical dilatation. There was no significant difference between groups in terms of the labour pain intensity (p > .05). After intervention, mean (SD) of state anxiety score was 38.7 (2.6) in educational software group, 44.3 (7.4) in educational booklet group and 63.3 (8.2) in control group. Also, mean (SD) of trait anxiety score was 47.4 (2.7) in educational software group, 47.2 (2.4) in educational booklet group and 61.8 (3.9) in control group. The mean state and trait anxiety scores in both intervention groups were significantly lower than control group (p < .001). Both intervention groups were effective in reducing anxiety. Thus, these educational methods should be recommended for pregnant women in clinical practices.IMPACT STATEMENTWhat is already known on this subject? Childbirth is one of the most important crises in women's life, in which stress and other forms of emotional distress such as anxiety are likely to occur during it. Safe practices and effective interventions can be offered to pregnant women to tolerate the labour pain and reduce anxiety during labour.What do the results of this study add? There was no statistically significant difference between two intervention groups (educational software and educational booklet groups) and control group in terms of the pain intensity at the cervical dilatation of 4, 6, 8 and 10 cm. But the state and trait anxiety in both groups (educational software and educational booklet groups) was significantly less than the control group. Also, the anxiety level was significantly lower in the educational software group than the educational booklet group.What are the implications of these findings for clinical practice and/or future research? Educational software and booklet with educational content about position modification during pregnancy, stretching exercises, breathing techniques and exercises, relaxation and lower back massage for reducing anxiety should be recommended for pregnant women in clinical practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents an interrogation of streamification, a concept that addresses the influence of streaming software on cultural artifacts and uses. I argue that the streamification builds on an underlying tangle of transcodes. I base this on empirical findings from a qualitative study of digital online music uses and the technologies that operate beyond the interface of streaming media. I map the typical online path of music files and exemplify the tangle of transcodes with three empirical cases and detail their meaning-making processes: 1) The most informal and tangled, when a listener is stream-ripping from YouTube. 2) The re-appropriation of informal YouTube material by a musician. 3) The more formal transcoding performed by a distributor. By drawing on metaphor theory and software studies, I discuss cultural transcoding and metaphor as central to streamification and discuss how a focus on ease-of-use inevitably hides the tangle of transcodes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Synthetic, computer-generated signals are widely used in playback studies of animal acoustic communication. Depending on the goals of the experimenter, they can offer several significant advantages over playbacks of recordings of edited or unedited natural signals. However, there are few 'off the shelf' software options for the bioacoustician interested in synthesizing signals that combine ease of use with versatility. Here, we introduce SynSing, a free, open-source graphical user interface (GUI) for generating synthetic acoustic and seismic signals in MATLAB for use in playback studies of animal acoustic communication. Following a brief overview of the GUI, we describe how users can specify a variety of spectral properties (e.g., fundamental frequency, relative amplitudes and starting phases of harmonic and inharmonic components, frequency modulation) and temporal properties (e.g., pulse, note, or call duration and rate, onset and offset characteristics of amplitude envelopes) to generate individual signals or long sequences of repeated signals. We demonstrate SynSing's versatility by reconstructing synthetic signals from published studies of several frogs, a field cricket, a katydid, a grasshopper, and a spider. We also provide worked examples of simple birdsong, as well as pure tones, linear frequency modulated sweeps, and noise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

3D printing (3DP) is one of the modern approaches in the field of manufacturing. Although this process has been known for a fair amount of time, only the more-recent developments have revealed its potential for applications in different manufacturing sectors. Textiles, one of the basic human requirements, does more than just fulfilling the fundamental necessity of covering the body. Integrating 3DP technology in textiles has broadened the horizon of the textile world. This review explores the historical background as well as state-of-the-art developments in 3DP related to textiles and fashion. It discusses basic ideas about fundamental textile substrates, various 3DP technologies related to textiles, different printing devices and tools, materials used as print inks, direct printing of 3D objects on various textile substrates, fabrication techniques of 3D printed textile structures, different process parameters and their impacts, tests and standards, benefits and limitations. It also highlights the future for further implementation of 3DP technology in the textile industry. Overall, this issue of Textile Progress attempts to ascertain the potential of 3DP which, despite having some drawbacks, could enrich the outputs of the textile and fashion industry and motivate future designers and scientists to engage in its further exploration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mediation analysis is a methodology used to understand how and why an independent variable (X) transmits its effect to an outcome (Y) through a mediator (M). New causal mediation methods based on the potential outcomes framework and counterfactual framework are a seminal advancement for mediation analysis, because they focus on the causal basis of mediation analysis. There are several programs available to estimate causal mediation effects, but these programs differ substantially in data set up, estimation, output, and software platform. To compare these programs, an empirical example is presented, and a single mediator model with treatment-mediator interaction was estimated with a continuous mediator and a continuous outcome in each program. Even though the software packages employ different estimation methods, they do provide similar causal effect estimates for mediation models with a continuous mediator and outcome. A detailed explanation of program similarities, unique features, and recommendations is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between social work and Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) is an awkward one in Spanish tradition, particularly from social work perspective due to a certain lack of institutional and professional competence in terms of understanding the capabilities of ICTs. Young people use ICTs to connect to each other and express themselves, however. ICTs represent a means—increasingly the main one—for young people to build and communicate their own identities and understand reality. As with other social sciences, social work suffers from a difficult relationship with young people. Youth is often studied differently and sometimes perceived as a problem that ends when adulthood is reached. In this context, the relationship among ICTs, social work and young people is also a difficult one. But this problem may also be a solution. By adopting a critical ICT approach, social work can create innovative initiatives and frameworks to improve communication between social work practitioners and teachers as with young people and students. Imagination and empathy will clearly be key to achieving this, in addition to deeper involvement in the use of new software and applications that can offer enhanced communication and build bridges between social workers and young people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Texture mapping of 3D models in fields like architecture and archaeology is a real challenge especially with a large number of images which are not always captured with the ideal photogrammetric order. In this paper, a new algorithm for full automatic texture mapping is developed based on several parameters. The developed algorithm assigns the suitable texture based on the score summation of five parameters. The algorithm is coded and applied to a megaproject. The results are compared with the state-of-the-art texture mapping algorithms qualitatively and quantitatively. The comparison shows the efficiency and reliability of the developed algorithm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the current article, an overview of recent applications and opportunities of image evaluation of high-performance thin-layer chromatograms (HPTLC) in food analysis and natural product research is presented. The article shortly covers the aspects of specialized software packages for image analysis, image post-correction, signal acquisition, and preprocessing. Contemporary aspects of image-based HPTLC fingerprinting, quantification of target compounds, and advanced chemometric modeling were reviewed. Special attention was dedicated to freely available software packages. Advantages and disadvantages of each one were discussed in terms of abilities to obtain chromatographic profiles and perform crucial steps in signal manipulation, such as background subtraction, denoising, and background detrending. The most frequently applied techniques for signal manipulation have been discussed and recommendation provided. In that sense, the article aims to provide a valuable guideline for readers dealing with the application of HPTLC image analysis in food and natural products research, especially in connection with the most frequently used chemometric techniques, in domains of pattern recognition, classification, and regression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Capsule endoscopy is a widely recognized method to study the small bowel, including in patients with Crohn's disease (CD). The Lewis score (LS) is a valuable tool in this setting, able to assess inflammatory activity. TOP100, a new software tool of the RAPID Reader®, emerged to assist in the time-consuming capsule reading process, by automatically selecting 100 images that will most likely contain abnormalities. Aim: Evaluate the agreement between TOP100 and classic reading (CR) in determining LS in the setting of CD. Methods: Retrospective study including consecutive patients undergoing small bowel capsule endoscopy (SBCE) for suspected or established CD. One experienced reader performed CR and calculated the LS. Another experienced reader, blinded to the CR results, reviewed all SBCE videos using TOP100 and calculated the LS. Results: One hundred and fifteen patients were included. SBCE detected significant inflammatory activity (LS ≥135) in 64 patients (55.7%). We verified a strong agreement between the two methods of capsule reading (Kappa = 0.83, p <.001), with an agreement on 89.6% of the cases. The agreement was superior in moderate-to-severe inflammatory activity (Kappa = 0.92, p <.001). All cases of moderate-to-severe activity detected by CR were identified by TOP100 as significant inflammatory activity. A good agreement was verified in all tertiles (p <.001). Conclusions: Although the classical review of the entire video remains the gold standard, the TOP100 has been shown to be a useful tool in assisting the reader in a prompt calculation of LS, in particular for identifying patients with moderate-to-severe inflammatory disease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Computer hardware, software, numerical algorithms, and science and engineering applications are traced for a half century from the author's perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Universal Molecular Modelling Analysis Package (UMMAP) is a software package designed to provide a command line driven analysis suite for particle-based simulation codes. It is developed to work closely alongside the mesoscale dissipative particle dynamics software embedded in DL_MESO , and the molecular dynamics codes NAMD and LAMMPS. UMMAP is designed to be extendable to other modelling software. UMMAP is targeted at users working in the computational soft matter field and those looking for an 'all-in-one' analytical software package. It offers a unique mix of analytical tools, from widely used geometrical analyses (e.g. bond and angles distributions, structure factor, radial distributions and density profiles), to specific solutions for the soft matter community (e.g. polymer statistics, critical micelle concentration and cluster/micelle shape analyses). It provides the possibility, for a more expert user, to build in additional bespoke analyses, whilst benefiting from UMMAP 's core functionality. It is very flexible in the way it reads and analyses the trajectory, allowing for several tools to be used at the same time via a single command line input. A rational set of software flags and detailed error messages render UMMAP ergonomic and user friendly while output integrity is ensured by storing manifest files to prevent the storage of unrelated material. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The emergence of Lethal Autonomous Weapon Systems (LAWS) offers a comparatively low adoption-cost strategy to emerging great powers that would allow them to offset the conventional military advantage enjoyed by their rivals, which threatens the established global balance of power. This article critically analyses the role of China and the United States in the development of the "hardware" and "software" components of LAWS, concluding that, while the demonstration point has not yet been reached, the incubation of this emerging revolution in military affairs has already begun to have a geopolitical impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the current trend toward solving issues of procurement and processing of publicly disclosed pollution source data in China, where this data is characterized by heterogeneity and lack of standardization. Through ethnography and software analysis, the article examines the hidden labor entailed in automation using the case study of a Chinese e-NGO. We identify the bulk of this labor in "datascape navigation", or the practices needed to locate, acquire and process the desired information within the infrastructure enabling the circulation of the data. The aspects of this labor are examined in relation to two data flows: enterprise environmental supervision records and information about real-time emissions. We identify several forms of unpredicted human and non-human labor entailed by both unsuccessful and successful automation attempts. We conclude that the labor involved by software automation of environmental data procurement and processing can critically impact environmental disclosure timing and quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]