A Community-Based Approach to Developing a Mobile Device for Measuring Ambient Air Exposure, Location, and Respiratory Health.

In west Eugene (Oregon), community research indicates residents are disproportionately exposed to industrial air pollution and exhibit increased asthma incidence. In Carroll County (Ohio), recent increases in unconventional natural gas drilling sparked air quality concerns. These community concerns led to the development of a prototype mobile device to measure personal chemical exposure, location, and respiratory function.

Bioinformatics Resource Manager v2.3: an integrated software environment for systems biology with microRNA and cross-species analysis tools.

Background: MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are noncoding RNAs that direct post-transcriptional regulation of protein coding genes. Recent studies have shown miRNAs are important for controlling many biological processes, including nervous system development, and are highly conserved across species. Given their importance, computational tools are necessary for analysis, interpretation and integration of high-throughput (HTP) miRNA data in an increasing number of model species.

Integration of data systems and technology improves research and collaboration for a superfund research center.

Large collaborative centers are a common model for accomplishing integrated environmental health research. These centers often include various types of scientific domains (e.g.

VESPA: software to facilitate genomic annotation of prokaryotic organisms through integration of proteomic and transcriptomic data.

Background: The procedural aspects of genome sequencing and assembly have become relatively inexpensive, yet the full, accurate structural annotation of these genomes remains a challenge. Next-generation sequencing transcriptomics (RNA-Seq), global microarrays, and tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS)-based proteomics have demonstrated immense value to genome curators as individual sources of information, however, integrating these data types to validate and improve structural annotation remains a major challenge. Current visual and statistical analytic tools are focused on a single data type, or existing software tools are retrofitted to analyze new data forms.

Smoking, COPD, and 3-nitrotyrosine levels of plasma proteins.

Background: Nitric oxide is a physiological regulator of endothelial function and hemodynamics. Oxidized products of nitric oxide can form nitrotyrosine, which is a marker of nitrative stress. Cigarette smoking decreases exhaled nitric oxide, and the underlying mechanism may be important in the cardiovascular toxicity of smoking.

PQuad--a visual analysis platform for proteomic data exploration of microbial organisms.

Unlabelled: The visual Platform for Proteomics Peptide and Protein data exploration (PQuad) is a multi-resolution environment that visually integrates genomic and proteomic data for prokaryotic systems, overlays categorical annotation and compares differential expression experiments. PQuad requires Java 1.5 and has been tested to run across different operating systems.

PRISM: a data management system for high-throughput proteomics.

Advanced proteomic research efforts involving areas such as systems biology or biomarker discovery are enabled by the use of high level informatics tools that allow the effective analysis of large quantities of differing types of data originating from various studies. Performing such analyses on a large scale is not feasible without a computational platform that performs data processing and management tasks. Such a platform must be able to provide high-throughput operation while having sufficient flexibility to accommodate evolving data analysis tools and methodologies.