Sharing e-Health information through ontological layering

e-Health information, including patient clinical and demographic data, is very often dispersed across various environments, which either generate them or retrieve them from different sources. Healthcare professionals often need related e-health information in order to obtain a more comprehensive picture of a patient's health status. There are many obstacles to retrieving information and data from heterogeneous sources. In this paper we show that our ontological layering helps in (a) classifying requests imposed by healthcare professionals when retrieving e-health information from heterogeneous sources and (b) resolving semantic heterogeneities across repositories and composing an adequate answer to issued requests. We use a layered software architectural model based on Generic ontology for Context-aware, Interoperable and Data sharing (Go- CID) software applications, applicable to e-Health environments. Ontological layering and reasoning have been demonstrated with semantic web technologies

CHORUS Deliverable 2.1: State of the Art on Multimedia Search Engines

Based on the information provided by European projects and national initiatives related to multimedia search as well as domains experts that participated in the CHORUS Think-thanks and workshops, this document reports on the state of the art related to multimedia content search from, a technical, and socio-economic perspective. The technical perspective includes an up to date view on content based indexing and retrieval technologies, multimedia search in the context of mobile devices and peer-to-peer networks, and an overview of current evaluation and benchmark inititiatives to measure the performance of multimedia search engines. From a socio-economic perspective we inventorize the impact and legal consequences of these technical advances and point out future directions of research

CACDA: A knowledge graph for a context-aware cognitive design assistant

The design of complex engineered systems highly relies on a laborious zigzagging between computer-aided design (CAD) software and design rules prescribed by design manuals. Despite the emergence ofknowledge management techniques (ontology, expert system, text mining, etc.), companies continue tostore design rules in large and unstructured documents. To facilitate the integration of design rules andCAD software, we propose a knowledge graph that structures a large set of design rules in a computableformat. The knowledge graph organises entities of design rules (nodes), relationships among design rules(edges), as well as contextual information. The categorisation of entities and relationships in four sub-contexts: semantic, social, engineering, and IT – facilitates the development of the data model, especiallythe definition of the “design context” concept. The knowledge graph paves the way to a context-awarecognitive design assistant. Indeed, connected to or embedded in a CAD software, a context-aware cog-nitive design assistant will capture the design context in near real time and run reasoning operationson the knowledge graph to extend traditional CAD capabilities, such as the recommendation of designrules, the verification of design solutions, or the automation of design routines. Our validation experi-ment shows that the current version of the context-aware cognitive design assistant is more efficientthan the traditional document-based design. On average, participants using an unstructured design rulesdocument have a precision of 0.36 whereas participants using our demonstrator obtain a 0.61 precisionscore. Finally, designers supported by the design assistant spend more time designing than searching forapplicable design rules compared to the traditional design approach.Capgemini DEM

Modelling discourse in contested domains: A semiotic and cognitive framework

This paper examines the representational requirements for interactive, collaborative systems intended to support sensemaking and argumentation over contested issues. We argue that a perspective supported by semiotic and cognitively oriented discourse analyses offers both theoretical insights and motivates representational requirements for the semantics of tools for contesting meaning. We introduce our semiotic approach, highlighting its implications for discourse representation, before describing a research system (ClaiMaker) designed to support the construction of scholarly argumentation by allowing analysts to publish and contest 'claims' about scientific contributions. We show how ClaiMaker's representational scheme is grounded in specific assumptions concerning the nature of explicit modelling, and the evolution of meaning within a discourse community. These characteristics allow the system to represent scholarly discourse as a dynamic process, in the form of continuously evolving structures. A cognitively oriented discourse analysis then shows how the use of a small set of cognitive relational primitives in the underlying ontology opens possibilities for offering users advanced forms of computational service for analysing collectively constructed argumentation networks

Towards the adoption of automated regulatory compliance checking in the built environment

Automated compliance checking brings advantages to the built environment but, currently, there has been no meaningful adoption, despite the increasing maturity of asset information models. This paper addresses this by ascertaining the blockers/obstacles to adoption and develops a road-map to overcome them. This work has been conducted in the UK and a road-map has been produced to drive forward adoption. More specifically this paper has assessed the current state of the art in the field and engaged with industry to examine the attitudes to the digitisation of regulatory compliance processes. The results showed that industry believes that adoption of automation was both feasible and desirable, with the caveat that human oversight be maintained. Our road-map’s methodical list of steps was judged to have the potential to bring the construction industry to the verge of mass industrialisation of auto mated compliance checking by 2025

Towards a system redesign for better performance and customer satisfaction : a case study of the ICTS helpdesk at the University of Cape Town

Includes bibliographical references.This paper presents the findings from a study, which was carried out to investigate how the design of knowledge management systems could be improved for enhanced performance and greater customer satisfaction. The ICTS Department's helpdesk at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, was the venue for this case study. The study set out to meet the following objectives: - undertaking a knowledge acquisition strategy by carrying out a systems evaluation and analysis of the existing web-based user support system, - suggesting a knowledge representation model for an adaptive web-based user support system, and - developing and testing an online troubleshooter prototype for an improved knowledge use support system. To achieve the objectives of the study, knowledge engineering techniques were deployed on top of a qualitative research design. Questionnaires, which were supplemented by interview guides and observations, were the research tools used in gathering the data. In addition to this, a representative sample of the ICTS clientele and management was interviewed. It was discovered that poorly designed knowledge management systems cause frustration among the clientele who interact with the system. Specifically, it was found that the language used for knowledge representation plays a vital role in determining how best users can interpret knowledge items in a given knowledge domain. In other words, knowledge modelling and representation can improve knowledge representation if knowledge engineering techniques are appropriately followed in designing knowledge based systems. It was concluded that knowledge representation can be improved significantly if, firstly, the ontology technique is embraced as a mechanism of knowledge representation. Secondly, using hierarchies and taxonomies improves navigability in the knowledge structure. Thirdly, visual knowledge representation that supplements textual knowledge adds more meaning to the user, and is such a major and important technique that it can even cater for novice users

Pairing-based cryptosystems and key agreement protocols.

For a long time, pairings on elliptic curves have been considered to be destructive in elliptic curve cryptography. Only recently after some pioneering works, particularly the well-known Boneh-Franklin identity-based encryption (IBE), pairings have quickly become an important tool to construct novel cryptographic schemes. In this thesis, several new cryptographic schemes with pairings are proposed, which are both efficient and secure with respect to a properly defined security model, and some relevant previous schemes are revisited. IBE provides a public key encryption mechanism where a public key can be an arbitrary string such as an entity identifier and unwieldy certificates are unnecessary. Based on the Sakai-Kasahara key construction, an IBE scheme which is secure in the Boneh-Franklin IBE model is constructed, and two identity-based key encapsulation mechanisms are proposed. These schemes achieve the best efficiency among the existing schemes to date. Recently Al-Riyami and Paterson introduced the certificateless public key encryption (CL-PKE) paradigm, which eliminates the need of certificates and at the same time retains the desirable properties of IBE without the key escrow problem. The security formulation of CL-PKE is revisited and a strong security model for this type of mechanism is defined. Following a heuristic approach, three efficient CL-PKE schemes which are secure in the defined strong security model are proposed. Identity-based two-party key agreement protocols from pairings are also investigated. The Bellare-Rogaway key agreement model is enhanced and within the model several previously unproven protocols in the literature are formally analysed. In considering that the user identity may be sensitive information in many environments, an identity-based key agreement protocol with unilateral identity privacy is proposed