NORRRM: A Free Software to Calculate the CIPW Norm

This work gives an introduction to the R package NORRRM whose main purpose is to calculate the CIPW Norm. Although there are many softwares and spreadsheets available to estimate the standard mineral assemblages in igneous rocks, this package has the following advantages: a) it has the ability to be run on any operating computer systems (BSD, GNU/Linux, Mac OS X®, Windows®);b) an input argument allows choose different procedures to set the Fe-oxidation ratio;c) the options to use whole-rock major as well as minor oxides and trace elements in the computation;d) the output data yields highly consistent results achieving absolute match between the sum of the input weights of oxides recalculated on an anhydrous basis and the sum of the weights of estimated normative minerals and;e) the functions are written in R language and released under terms that guarantee users the freedom to study, adapt, modify, and distribute the software.

Evaluation and Customization of Different Open Source Desktop GIS Software

This paper gave a general evaluation on existing three popular free and open source desktop GIS projects,according to the selected evaluation criteria.To further the understanding of the open source software,this paper also presented a customization example of QGIS with python and PyQT.

Proposal for Design and Application of Business Intelligence as a Decision Support System to the Editorial Sector of Distance Education （DE）

In recent years, industrial and service organizations have invested in improvement projects with emphasis on increasing the performance of processes regarding to the production of manufactured goods and services, applying techniques to optimize production time in order to minimize the restrictive effects of the funds invested in processing or obtaining processes in order to reduce the losses of general scope. This paper discusses the impact of the innovation in making use of business intelligence （BI） concepts about production records of a publishing area in a higher education institution （HEI） that promotes distance education （DE） in Brazil, helping the industry in their managements decisions, having a target minimize time on production of learning material through more effective control with the use of cubes in the form of reports for metric queries of delivery delays and metrics on the production tasks financial values, and filtering the processed information so that managers can view information from various angles and managerial perspectives. The objectives of this paper are to demonstrate the impact on using BI concepts in the process of an editorial department of a HEI focusing on the development of teaching materials for the courses of DE and identify the financial cost-benefit ratio for the HEI with the deploying BI in a software fee platform in its publishing department. The sector is responsible by in courseware publishing organizations that usually do not have systems with this emphasis： support on making managerial decisions.

Hospital Information Systems Shortage in Sub-Saharan African Hospitals: Opportunities and Challenges

The HIS is recognised as an essential tool for optimising the management of a health establishment in particular and the health system in general. But it is still very little implemented in hospitals in the South. Open source HIS software, available on the Internet, can be a solution for starting a (HIS) project in these hospitals. A search on the Internet for open source HIS software allowed us to choose MedBoard, the second most popular open source software out of 381, to start an HIS project called PERFORMANCE at the Kara University Hospital in northern Togo. A questionnaire allowed us to assess the level of knowledge of health actors on hospital information systems. The results of this evaluation allowed us to strengthen our proposal. The analysis of the current computer park of the CHU Kara does not allow whatever the functionalities of MedBoard to implement PERFORMANCE at the CHU Kara. Logistics are needed to make PERFORMANCE work. The real difficulty to start and perpetuate HIS project is linked to the human factor.

Untargeted LC–MS Data Preprocessing in Metabolomics

Liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry(LC–MS)has enabled the detection of thousands of metabolite features from a single biological sample that produces large and complex datasets.One of the key issues in LC–MS-based metabolomics is comprehensive and accurate analysis of enormous amount of data.Many free data preprocessing tools,such as XCMS,MZmine,MAVEN,and MetaboAnalyst,as well as commercial software,have been developed to facilitate data processing.However,researchers are challenged by the inevitable and unconquerable yields of numerous false-positive peaks,and human errors while manually removing such false peaks.Even with continuous improvements of data processing tools,there can still be many mistakes generated during data preprocessing.In addition,many data preprocessing software exist,and every tool has its own advantages and disadvantages.Thereby,a researcher needs to judge what kind of software or tools to choose that most suit their vendor proprietary formats and goal of downstream analysis.Here,we provided a brief introduction of the general steps of raw MS data processing,and properties of automated data processing tools.Then,characteristics of mainly free data preprocessing software were summarized for researchers’consideration in conducting metabolomics study.