Knowledge Modeling for Developing Program Planning Agents

This paper describes a method of domain knowledge modeling for program planning and scheduling in intelligent e-Learning advising systems, focusing on the modeling and representation of precedence relations among course learning objects encoded in model curricular and the representation of domain experts’ knowledge using Petri nets formalism and a XML-based markup language. We developed a Web-based program model editor

The Intellectual Training Environment for Prolog Programming Language

In this work is described a new complex training system, named SPprolog, intended for training and self-training in logic programming language - Prolog. This system includes elements related to Prolog and logic programming, and the elements of independent, complex, self-sufficient training system which is capable considerably to increase the quality of self-training, and to be effective assistant in training. The most useful application of the system can be in distance education and self-training. The main elements of SPprolog system are: Functionally expanded (in comparison with existing systems) Prolog development environment, with the multipurpose code editor, the automated organization system of the personal tools, automated advice mode "Expert Advice", based on the incorporated expert system for cultivated, effective and optimized programming; Link to foreign Prolog programs compiler which allow to compile the program to independent executable; Built in intellectual, interactive, multimedia Prolog interpreter integrated with expert system and the elements of the intellectuality, allowing to lead detailed program interpretation, with popular and evident, explanation of the theory and mechanisms used in it, applying audiovisual effects to increase the level of naturalness of process of explanation; Full digital training course of Prolog programming language presented in the form of the matrix of knowledge and supplied system of consecutive knowledge reproduction for self-training and evaluation; an intensive course of training to the Prolog language and Spprolog system, based on the programmed, consecutive set of actions, allowing using the previous two mechanisms of sys-tem for popular and evident explanation of the main principles of work of system and Prolog language.training, prolog, environment, Spprolog

Using Prolog techniques to guide program composition

It is possible to build complex programs by repeated combination of pairs of simpler programs. However, naive combination often produces programs that are far too inefficient. We would like to have a system that would produce the optimal combination of two programs, and also work with minimal supervision by the user. In this thesis we make a significant step towards such an ideal, with the presentation of an interactive system based on program transformation complemented with knowledge of the program development. No single method is known that will combine all programs efficiently and so a variety of different combination methods must be used. However, to get good results it is necessary that the methods have access to knowledge about the program structure. To provide this knowledge we have decided to require that the initial programs be constructed in a spe¬ cialised editor which embodies knowledge of certain standard Prolog practices (techniques) to aid the program construction, but more importantly can record pertinent parts of the program development into a structure called the program history. This program history contains the initial control flow (skeleton) and the techniques that the user applied in the construction of the program. Hence it carries knowledge about the program that would otherwise be very difficult to extract from just the program itself. The first contribution of this thesis is to recognise that knowledge contained in the program history can be used in program transformation, reducing the need for user interaction. The interactive composition system presented can automatically take major decisions, such as the selection of which subgoal should be unfolded or the laws to be applied in order to get a more efficient combined program. Furthermore, a component of our system called the selection procedure can decide automatically which is the most suitable combination method by analysing the characteristics of the initial pair of programs as given by their program histories. Approaches that do not use the program history suffer from the problem that it is not always practical to extract the required information about the structure of the program. Our second contribution is to provide a range of new methods which exploit the program history in order to produce more efficient programs, and to deal with a wider range of combination problems. The new methods not only combine programs with the same control flow, but can also deal with some cases in which the control flows are different. All of these methods are completely automatic with the exception of our "mutant" method in which the combined clause needs to be approved by the user. The third contribution is to present relevant properties in our composition system. These properties fall into the following three groups: (i) properties which hold after applying each combination method, (ii) properties about the type of program which is obtained after the combination, (iii) properties of the join specification which defines the characteristics of the combined program

Software for Better Documentation of Other Software

The Literate Programming Extraction Engine is a Practical Extraction and Reporting Language- (PERL-)based computer program that facilitates and simplifies the implementation of a concept of self-documented literate programming in a fashion tailored to the typical needs of scientists. The advantage for the programmer is that documentation and source code are written side-by-side in the same file, reducing the likelihood that the documentation will be inconsistent with the code and improving the verification that the code performs its intended functions. The advantage for the user is the knowledge that the documentation matches the software because they come from the same file. This program unifies the documentation process for a variety of programming languages, including C, C++, and several versions of FORTRAN. This program can process the documentation in any markup language, and incorporates the LaTeX typesetting software. The program includes sample Makefile scripts for automating both the code-compilation (when appropriate) and documentation-generation processes into a single command-line statement. Also included are macro instructions for the Emacs display-editor software, making it easy for a programmer to toggle between editing in a code or a documentation mode

Metadata Editor

Research Data Management (RDM) revolves around structured data following specific schema definitions, e.g. metadata, Application Programming Interfaces (API), etc. The direct use of these data is impractical for scientists as some formats are non-human-readable. Moreover, its integration into existing user interfaces, e.g. websites, portals, etc is very time-consuming and represents a recurrent task as well as it requires a deep knowledge of various technologies. Thus, a generic user interface, which allows the metadata management or to address research data services, will provide a simple access point to scientists. In addition to that, the validation of metadata before sending a REST request to a service represents a very fundamental quality . For these purposes, the Metadata Editor has been developed at the “Data Exploitation Methods” (DEM) department, that is part of the computing center “Steinbuch Centre for Computing” (SCC) of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). The editor is realized as a JavaScript library allowing the generation of web forms as well as the management of JSON metadata in an intuitive and generic way. This metadata is produced by other services and presented to the library as JSON resources. Moreover, the editor enables the validation of JSON metadata based on a developer-provided JSON schemas. In order to fulfill these functionalities, the JSON Form Library is used. In addition to that, the editor allows the user to perform CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete) operations and additional operations in case further requirements need to be fulfilled. The Collection Registry, which implements the Collection API recommended by the RDA Research Data Collections Working Group and has been developed at the DEM department, has been adopted as a use case to test the different functionalities of the editor. The editor has been successfully integrated in the Collection Registry ensuring that the different REST requests can be executed through the provided Graphical User Interface (GUI). Moreover, the JSON inputs can be given through the generated web forms and validated against a defined JSON schema. Thus, the service become more intuitive and easier-to-use for scientists and the validation enables the user to provide correct inputs. This work has been supported by the research program ‘Engineering Digital Futures’ of the Helmholtz Association of German Research Centers and the Helmholtz Metadata Collaboration Platform

Inward-outward connections and their impact on firm growth

Firms can internationalize via two types of operations: inward (related to international supply operations) and outward (related to serving or selling in foreign markets). This paper analyzes variations in growth for firms that adopt different international strategies: those that perform only one type of international operation, and those that undertake both types simultaneously. The study starts from the premise that connections exist between inward and outward operations, connections that give access to related and diverse knowledge. Based on a sample of European SMEs from-different sectors, the empirical findings indicate that undertaking inward and outward operations simultaneously exerts a greater positive effect on turnover growth than performing just one type of international operation. This simultaneous effect is significantly higher when these operations take place in the same foreign country. The findings provide support for the idea that the acquisition-of country-specific knowledge allows firms to boost sales growth.The authors would like to thank the editor and the referees of this paper for their truthful comments and suggestions. This study has been partially supported by financial aid from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, with the Project ECO2012-36160, and Education, with the FPU program scholarship AP2010-1092

Analysis of PLEs’ implementation under OER design as a productive teaching-learning strategy in Higher Education. A case study at Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia

This paper shows some research which analysed the didactic functionality of Personal Learning Environments (PLEs) and Open Educational Resources (OERs). They were created by students from the Master’s Degree in Information and Communication Technologies applied to language teaching and processing, at Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED, Spain). A thorough analysis has been carried out based on a virtual ethnography methodological framework, with a twofold qualitative dimension: on the one hand, by using the Atlas-Ti program and on the other hand by following a reticular, category-based social network analysis with UCINET and yED Graph Editor. Results show that the joint use of PLEs and OERs designed by students improves their digital competence, mainly in capabilities such as: accessing and searching for online information; articulating information needs; finding relevant information; selecting resources effectively; navigating between online sources; and creating personal information strategies. Furthermore, the scrutiny of the forums using the reticular social network analysis shows how the main benefits of the implementation of PLEs and OERs are: a student-centric approach, the development of personal knowledge management strategies and the formation of a self-regulated learning model

Engaging Nurses in Public Policy

Background: Nurses have been engaged in public policy since the inception of the profession. Academicians and thought leaders recognize the importance of nurses engaging in public policy to improve health and healthcare. Nurses are also the largest healthcare group and the most trusted profession for twenty years, yet they are minimally represented in the state and federal legislature. Nurses possess a skill set that is directly transferable to the policy arena such as listening and communicating effectively, leading by inspiring a shared vision, applying evidence-based research, and collaborating and building relationships to achieve a common goal. Locally, the New Hampshire Nurses Association has been successful in recruiting volunteers, and generating enthusiasm to engage nurses in public policy work with limited success measured by nurses giving testimony, calling legislators, and writing letters to the editor. The purpose of the project was to design and test several interventions to establish a sustainable, repeatable, evidence-based process to increase engagement of nurses in public policy. Methods: A literature search was conducted to develop best practice competencies for nurses to engage in public policy. Data collection was conducted through a needs assessment tool (survey) based on the competencies pre and post interventions to assess gaps in three areas: knowledge, skills and attributes needed for nurses to engage in public policy. A Clinical Learning Program consisting of three voice-over PowerPoint® education modules was developed based on the competencies and offered to participants as well as 1:1 mentoring sessions provided by the principal investigator. Interventions: A convenience sample of nurses were invited to participate in three interventions: needs assessment tool (survey), clinical learning program, and or mentoring sessions. Results: The project developed a needs assessment tool (survey) of the knowledge, skills and attributes based on best practices of competencies needed for nurses to engage in public policy. This assessment tool has broad generalizability to any group of nurse leaders interested in understanding the baseline of the knowledge, skills, and attributes and building capacity needed for nurses to engage in public policy. The extent to which the clinical learning program and mentoring can increase engagement of nurses in public policy cannot be established due to the small sample size of participants who engaged in these three interventions. Conclusions: The nursing process is the essential core of nursing practice which is directly applicable to increasing engagement of nurses in public policy. The needs assessment tool (survey) based on competencies recognized by multiple nurse leaders, authors, and policy experts, identifies gaps in knowledge, skills and attributes nurses need to engage in public policy. Nurse leaders, authors and policy experts also agree that nursing skills are directly transferrable to the policy arena. The clinical learning program and mentoring interventions will require further study with larger samples to demonstrate internal validity to increase engagement of nurses in public policy. Nurses have an opportunity to transform health and healthcare if they can grow a critical mass of nurses who are competent to engage in public policy as part of their professional role

Contributions of implicit memory strategies to the rehabilitation of an amnesic patient: case report

Even severe amnesic patients usually are able to learn new information using implicit memory strategies. In the present study we describe our experience in the rehabilitation of an amnesic patient who had suffered cerebral anoxia. He was taught to use a computer text editor, enabling him to sheltered work. The training program lasted 14 weeks and was based on errorless learning and drilling practice techniques. The patient succeeded in all tasks, even though he could not remember accurately the training sessions. These results meet previous studies which point out that interaction between implicit and residual explicit memory can provide a basis new learning in amnesic patients. The domain-specific knowledge acquisition is demonstrating effectiveness in neuropsychological rehabilitation of brain injured patients.Mesmo pacientes severamente amnésticos são capazes de aprender informações novas, apoiados em estratégias de memória implícita. No presente estudo descrevemos uma experiência de reabilitação neuropsicológica, em que um paciente amnéstico, portador de lesão cerebral por anóxia, foi submetido a treino para uso de computador, visando sua capacitação semi-profissional. O treinamento teve duração de 14 semanas, e as técnicas de ensino utilizadas foram a prática repetitiva e a aprendizagem sem erros. O paciente obteve sucesso na realização das tarefas propostas, aprendendo a operar um editor de textos e mantendo o aprendizado após a passagem do tempo. Apesar disso, lembrava-se apenas vagamente da situação de aprendizagem. O presente estudo corrobora trabalhos anteriores que observam a interação entre mecanismos de memória implícita e resíduos de memória explícita operando na aquisição de conhecimentos em pacientes amnésticos. A aprendizagem de conhecimentos específicos vem se mostrando eficiente para a reabilitação de pacientes que sofreram lesões cerebrais.Universidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP) Escola Paulista de Medicina Departamento de PsicobiologiaUNIFESP, EPM, Depto. de PsicobiologiaSciEL

Architecture of a Web-based Predictive Editor for Controlled Natural Language Processing

In this paper, we describe the architecture of a web-based predictive text editor being developed for the controlled natural language PENG^{ASP). This controlled language can be used to write non-monotonic specifications that have the same expressive power as Answer Set Programs. In order to support the writing process of these specifications, the predictive text editor communicates asynchronously with the controlled natural language processor that generates lookahead categories and additional auxiliary information for the author of a specification text. The text editor can display multiple sets of lookahead categories simultaneously for different possible sentence completions, anaphoric expressions, and supports the addition of new content words to the lexicon