2,753 research outputs found

    On various forms of bipolarity in flexible querying

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    International audienceThe paper discusses the modeling of “if possible" in requirements of the form “A and if possible B". We distinguish between two types of understanding: either i) A and B are requirements of the same nature and are viewed as constraints with different levels of priority, or ii) they are of different nature (only A induces constraint(s) and B is only used for breaking ties among items that are equally satisfying A). We indicate that the two views are related to different types of bipolarity, and discuss them in relation with possibilistic logic. The disjunctive dual of the first view (“A or at least B") is then presented in this logical setting. We also briefly mention the idea of an extension of the second view where B may refer both to bonus conditions or malus conditions that may increase or decrease respectively the interest in an item satisfying A

    Support for the Inclusion of Personal Value Preferences in Decision Support Systems

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    We consider the important issue of including personal value preferences in decision support systems (DSS). Various personal differences have been shown to affect the acceptance, use, and effectiveness of DSS. Decision-making models offer a theoretical basis for the inclusion of various personal differences (including personal value preferences) in decision-making. Research in the field of psychology has long recognized the importance of values in both motivation and choice behavior. Other research has also found personal values to be relevant in decision-making. We posit that since personal values are important in the decision-making process, they should also be important in the support of decision-making and thus in decision support systems

    Aspects of dealing with imperfect data in temporal databases

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    In reality, some objects or concepts have properties with a time-variant or time-related nature. Modelling these kinds of objects or concepts in a (relational) database schema is possible, but time-variant and time-related attributes have an impact on the consistency of the entire database. Therefore, temporal database models have been proposed to deal with this. Time itself can be at the source of imprecision, vagueness and uncertainty, since existing time measuring devices are inherently imperfect. Accordingly, human beings manage time using temporal indications and temporal notions, which may contain imprecision, vagueness and uncertainty. However, the imperfection in human-used temporal indications is supported by human interpretation, whereas information systems need extraordinary support for this. Several proposals for dealing with such imperfections when modelling temporal aspects exist. Some of these proposals consider the basis of the system to be the conversion of the specificity of temporal notions between used temporal expressions. Other proposals consider the temporal indications in the used temporal expressions to be the source of imperfection. In this chapter, an overview is given, concerning the basic concepts and issues related to the modelling of time as such or in (relational) database models and the imperfections that may arise during or as a result of this modelling. Next to this, a novel and currently researched technique for handling some of these imperfections is presented

    Soft computing agents for e-health applied to the research and control of unknown diseases

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    This paper presents an Ontology-based Holonic Diagnostic System (OHDS) that combines the advantages of the holonic paradigm with multi-agent system technology and ontology design, for the organization of unstructured biomedical research into structured disease information. We use ontologies as 'brain' for the holonic diagnostic system to enhance its ability to structure information in a meaningful way and share information fast. To integrate dispersed heterogeneous knowledge available on the web we use a fuzzy mechanism ruled by intelligent agents, which automatically structures the information in the adequate ontology template. Our vision of how this system implementation should be backed by a solid security shield that ensures the privacy and safety of medical information concludes the paper

    Music information retrieval: conceptuel framework, annotation and user behaviour

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    Understanding music is a process both based on and influenced by the knowledge and experience of the listener. Although content-based music retrieval has been given increasing attention in recent years, much of the research still focuses on bottom-up retrieval techniques. In order to make a music information retrieval system appealing and useful to the user, more effort should be spent on constructing systems that both operate directly on the encoding of the physical energy of music and are flexible with respect to users’ experiences. This thesis is based on a user-centred approach, taking into account the mutual relationship between music as an acoustic phenomenon and as an expressive phenomenon. The issues it addresses are: the lack of a conceptual framework, the shortage of annotated musical audio databases, the lack of understanding of the behaviour of system users and shortage of user-dependent knowledge with respect to high-level features of music. In the theoretical part of this thesis, a conceptual framework for content-based music information retrieval is defined. The proposed conceptual framework - the first of its kind - is conceived as a coordinating structure between the automatic description of low-level music content, and the description of high-level content by the system users. A general framework for the manual annotation of musical audio is outlined as well. A new methodology for the manual annotation of musical audio is introduced and tested in case studies. The results from these studies show that manually annotated music files can be of great help in the development of accurate analysis tools for music information retrieval. Empirical investigation is the foundation on which the aforementioned theoretical framework is built. Two elaborate studies involving different experimental issues are presented. In the first study, elements of signification related to spontaneous user behaviour are clarified. In the second study, a global profile of music information retrieval system users is given and their description of high-level content is discussed. This study has uncovered relationships between the users’ demographical background and their perception of expressive and structural features of music. Such a multi-level approach is exceptional as it included a large sample of the population of real users of interactive music systems. Tests have shown that the findings of this study are representative of the targeted population. Finally, the multi-purpose material provided by the theoretical background and the results from empirical investigations are put into practice in three music information retrieval applications: a prototype of a user interface based on a taxonomy, an annotated database of experimental findings and a prototype semantic user recommender system. Results are presented and discussed for all methods used. They show that, if reliably generated, the use of knowledge on users can significantly improve the quality of music content analysis. This thesis demonstrates that an informed knowledge of human approaches to music information retrieval provides valuable insights, which may be of particular assistance in the development of user-friendly, content-based access to digital music collections

    Case-based reasoning and system design: An integrated approach based on ontology and preference modeling

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    This paper addresses the fulfillment of requirements related to case-based reasoning (CBR) processes for system design. Considering that CBR processes are well suited for problem solving, the proposed method concerns the definition of an integrated CBR process in line with system engineering principles. After the definition of the requirements that the approach has to fulfill, an ontology is defined to capitalize knowledge about the design within concepts. Based on the ontology, models are provided for requirements and solutions representation. Next, a recursive CBR process, suitable for system design, is provided. Uncertainty and designer preferences as well as ontological guidelines are considered during the requirements definition, the compatible cases retrieval, and the solution definition steps. This approach is designed to give flexibility within the CBR process as well as to provide guidelines to the designer. Such questions as the following are conjointly treated: how to guide the designer to be sure that the requirements are correctly defined and suitable for the retrieval step, how to retrieve cases when there are no available similarity measures, and how to enlarge the research scope during the retrieval step to obtain a sufficient panel of solutions. Finally, an example of system engineering in the aeronautic domain illustrates the proposed method. A testbed has been developed and carried out to evaluate the performance of the retrieval algorithm and a software prototype has been developed in order to test the approach. The outcome of this work is a recursive CBR process suitable to engineering design and compatible with standards. Requirements are modeled by means of flexible constraints, where the designer preferences are used to express the flexibility. Similar solutions can be retrieved even if similarity measures between features are not available. Simultaneously, ontological guidelines are used to guide the process and to aid the designer to express her/his preferences

    JURI SAYS:An Automatic Judgement Prediction System for the European Court of Human Rights

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    In this paper we present the web platform JURI SAYS that automatically predicts decisions of the European Court of Human Rights based on communicated cases, which are published by the court early in the proceedings and are often available many years before the final decision is made. Our system therefore predicts future judgements of the court. The platform is available at jurisays.com and shows the predictions compared to the actual decisions of the court. It is automatically updated every month by including the prediction for the new cases. Additionally, the system highlights the sentences and paragraphs that are most important for the prediction (i.e. violation vs. no violation of human rights)

    Evaluation of Mobile Telephone Text Message Reminders for People with Antipsychotic Medication

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    Nonadherence to treatment is a worldwide problem among people with severe mental disorders. Patient treatment adherence may be supported with simple reminding methods e.g. text message reminders. However, there is limited evidence of its benefits. Intervention evaluation is essential in mHealth research. Therefore, this evaluative study was conducted. This study aimed to evaluate text message reminder use in encouraging patients’treatment adherence among people with antipsychotic medication. The data were collected between September 2011 and December 2013. First, a systematic literature review revealed that text message reminders were widely used in healthcare. However, its impacts were conflicting. Second, a sub-sample (n = 562) analysis showed that patients preferred humorous text message reminders and preferred to receive them in the morning, at the beginning of the week. Age, gender and marital status seemed to have different effects on the preferred amount and timing of the selected reminders. Third, a cross-sectional survey revealed that people with antipsychotic medication (n = 408) expressed overall satisfaction towards the reminder system. Finally, the evaluative design showed that patient recruitment for a randomized controlled trial concerning people with antipsychotic medication was challenging due to low rates of eligible participants. Follow-up drop-out rates varied depending on the data collection method. Participants’ demographic characteristics were associated with the risk of dropping out from the trial. This study suggests that text messages are a potential reminder system in healthcare services among people with antipsychotic medication. More research is needed to gain a comprehensive picture of the impacts and effectiveness of text message reminders.Tekstiviestimuistutusten arviointi psykoosilääkitystä käyttävillä potilailla Huono hoitoon sitoutuminen on maailmanlaajuinen ongelma ihmisillä, joilla on vakava mielenterveyshäiriö. Hoitoon sitoutumista voidaan kuitenkin tukea yksinkertaisilla muistutusmenetelmillä, kuten tekstiviesteillä. Tekstiviestimuistutusten hyödyistä antipsykoosilääkitystä käyttävän potilaan hoitoon sitoutumisen tukemisessa tiedetään kuitenkin vain vähän. Interventioiden arviointi on olennainen osa mobiiliterveyden tutkimusta. Tästä syystä tämä arviointitutkimus toteutettiin. Tutkimuksen tarkoituksena oli arvioida tekstiviestimuistutusten käyttöä antipsykoosilääkitystä käyttävän potilaan hoitoon sitoutumisen tukemisessa. Aineisto kerättiin syyskuun 2011 ja joulukuun 2013 välillä. Ensiksi, systemaattinen kirjallisuuskatsaus osoitti, että tekstiviestimuistutuksia käytetään laajasti terveydenhuollossa. Tulokset tekstiviestimuistutusten hyödyistä olivat kuitenkin ristiriitaiset. Toiseksi, osajoukon (n = 562) analyysi osoitti, että osallistujat pitivät humoristisista tekstiviestimuistutuksista ja halusivat vastaanottaa ne aamuisin alkuviikosta. Osallistujien iällä, sukupuolella ja siviilisäädyllä näytti olevan yhteys potilaiden valitsemien tekstiviestien määrään ja siihen, mihin aikaan osallistujat halusivat vastaanottaa viestejä. Kolmanneksi, kyselytutkimus toi esille, että antipsykoosilääkitystä käyttävät potilaat (n = 408) olivat yleisesti tyytyväisiä saamaansa tekstiviestipalveluun. Lopuksi, arviointitutkimuksen mukaan antipsykoosilääkityksen omaavien potilaiden rekrytoiminen randomoituun kontrolloituun tutkimukseen oli haasteellista johtuen muun muassa sisäänottokriteerit täyttävien potilaiden vähäisestä määrästä. Tutkimuksen keskeyttäneiden osallistujien määrä vaihteli riippuen seuranta-aineiston keruuseen käytetystä menetelmästä. Osallistujien taustatekijät olivat yhteydessä riskiin keskeyttää tutkimus. Tutkimuksen mukaan tekstiviestit ovat mahdollinen muistutusjärjestelmä terveydenhuollossa antipsykoosilääkitystä käyttävien potilaiden keskuudessa. Lisää tutkimusta tarvitaan luomaan yhtenäinen käsitys tekstiviestimuistutusten hyödyistä ja vaikuttavuudesta.Siirretty Doriast
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