Using Ontologies for the Design of Data Warehouses

Obtaining an implementation of a data warehouse is a complex task that forces designers to acquire wide knowledge of the domain, thus requiring a high level of expertise and becoming it a prone-to-fail task. Based on our experience, we have detected a set of situations we have faced up with in real-world projects in which we believe that the use of ontologies will improve several aspects of the design of data warehouses. The aim of this article is to describe several shortcomings of current data warehouse design approaches and discuss the benefit of using ontologies to overcome them. This work is a starting point for discussing the convenience of using ontologies in data warehouse design.Comment: 15 pages, 2 figure

Requirements of the SALTY project

This document is the first external deliverable of the SALTY project (Self-Adaptive very Large disTributed sYstems), funded by the ANR under contract ANR-09-SEGI-012. It is the result of task 1.1 of the Work Package (WP) 1 : Requirements and Architecture. Its objective is to identify and collect requirements from use cases that are going to be developed in WP 4 (Use cases and Validation). Based on the study and classification of the use cases, requirements against the envisaged framework are then determined and organized in features. These features will aim at guide and control the advances in all work packages of the project. As a start, features are classified, briefly described and related scenarios in the defined use cases are pinpointed. In the following tasks and deliverables, these features will facilitate design by assigning priorities to them and defining success criteria at a finer grain as the project progresses. This report, as the first external document, has no dependency to any other external documents and serves as a reference to future external documents. As it has been built from the use cases studies that have been synthesized in two internal documents of the project, extracts from the two documents are made available as appendices (cf. appen- dices B and C)

Developing a semantic web-based distributed model management system: Experiences and lessons learned

Distributed model management systems (DMMSs) are decision support systems with a focus on managing decision models throughout the modeling lifecycle and across the extended enterprise. The advent and proliferation of web services and semantic web technologies offers the possibilities of sharing and reusing models in a distributed setting. This paper presents the design and implementation of a semantic web-based DMMS. Key lessons learned, technical and organizational issues encountered are summarized and directions for future research have been outlined. From a technical perspective, future research will need to explore the viability of tools specifically designed to facilitate the semantic annotation of models, specify and validate SA-SMML, and extend the white-box approach presented in this paper to other model types not amenable to structured modeling. From an organizational perspective, further research is needed in the areas of adoption issues and business models that would ensure the sustainable support for of such systems in the service enterprise

Recent advances in pharmaceutical sciences IV

Reproducció del llibre publicat a: http://www.trnres.com/ebookcontents.php?id=234Like in the three previous editions, this E-book compiles a series of contributions in the multidisciplinary research arena of Pharmaceutical Sciences. The E-book has been organized in 12 chapters, whose main topics belong to the fields of pharmacology, physical chemistry, plant physiology, microbiology, physiology, preventive medicine and public health, food science, botany, clinical pharmacy and pharmacotherapy, organic chemistry, biochemistry and molecular biology, and parasitology..

The genetic bases of ecological specialization and the effects of hybridization in a complex of incipient yeast species

Il existe des millions d'espèces différentes dans le monde qui ont évolué grâce à des interactions complexes avec leur environnement. La biologie évolutive contemporaine connaît une révolution grâce au séquençage de génomes ainsi qu’au criblage et la manipulation génétique, mais l'objectif reste le même qu'il y a 160 ans: comprendre les mécanismes sous-jacents impliqués dans la spéciation. Cela peut être réalisé en étudiant les mécanismes génétiques impliqués dans l'adaptation locale et la spécialisation écologique lors des premiers événements de spéciation. L'objectif principal de cette thèse est d'étudier les mécanismes moléculaires qui sous-tendent l'adaptation et la différenciation des populations dans un complexe de jeunes espèces de la levure Saccharomyces paradoxus, naturellement présentes dans les forêts de feuillus d'Amérique du Nord. En utilisant diverses approches, telles que la génomique des populations, la biologie expérimentale, la transcriptomique et le phénotypage à haut débit, nous (1) disséquons les bases génétiques de la spécialisation écologique et (2) étudions les effets de l’hybridation sur la divergence rapide et la spéciation. Nous documentons d’abord que la spécialisation écologique à différentes températures (un phénotype reconnu pour jouer un rôle important dans la divergence de deux principales lignées de S. paradoxus) est en partie causée par une sélection assouplie avec des compromis. Les travaux portant sur deux événements d'hybridation inter-espèces démontrent, quant à eux, un croisement entre une espèce hybride et son espèce parentale, ce qui indique que l'hybridation est probablement plus fréquente dans l'évolution des espèces qu'on ne le pensait auparavant. Nos travaux soulignent l’importance de la différenciation écologique par une sélection relaxée plutôt que par une divergence adaptative de la fixation de mutations bénéfiques. En outre, nos travaux montrent que l'hybridation dans la nature joue probablement un rôle important dans la création d'une nouvelle diversité par le biais de la ségrégation transgressive et que cela peut se répéter par des croisements incluant des espèces hybrides. Des études à venir sur des espèces jeunes et des complexes hybrides permettront de comprendre davantage les bases génétiques de la différenciation des populations, les conséquences de l'hybridation inter-espèces et de sa récurrence dans l'origine des espèces.Millions of different species inhabiting the world have evolved through complex interactions with their environment. Contemporary evolutionary biology is experiencing a revolution in genome sequencing, screening and genetic manipulation technologies. Its aim, however, remains the same as 160 years ago when pioneers like Darwin and Wallace published the first articles about the evolutionary theory: to understand the underlying mechanisms involved in speciation, because such knowledge is key to shed light into species diversification. This can be achieved by studying the genetic mechanisms involved in local adaptation and ecological specialization during early speciation events. The main objective of this work is to investigate the molecular mechanisms underlying adaptation and population differentiation in a young species complex of the budding yeast Saccharomyces paradoxus, naturally found in the North American deciduous forests. Using different approaches, such as population genomics, experimental biology, transcriptomics and high-throughput phenotyping we (1) dissect the genetic bases for ecological specialization and (2) investigate the effect of hybridization in facilitating rapid divergence and speciation. First, we document that the ecological specialization to different temperatures, a phenotype that has been previously shown to play an important role in the divergence of two main S. paradoxus lineages, is partially driven by relaxed selection with trade-offs. Second, with the work on two inter-species hybridization events, we document a back-cross between a hybrid taxa and its parental species, which highlights that hybridization is likely more common in the evolution of species than previously thought. Our work underlines the importance of ecological differentiation through relaxed selection, rather than adaptive divergence from the fixation of beneficial mutations. Additionally, our findings show that hybridization in nature likely plays an important role in creating new diversity through transgressive segregation, and that this can reiterate through crosses that include hybrid species. Studies on young species and hybrid complexes will enable to further understand the genetic bases of population differentiation and the consequences of inter-species hybridization and its recurrence in the origin of species

UWOMJ Volume 6, No 4, April 1936

Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistryhttps://ir.lib.uwo.ca/uwomj/1104/thumbnail.jp

Technological and Organizational Designs for Realizing Economies of Substitution

Today's industrial landscape is characterized by rapid change and systemic technologies. Rapid change results in ever shorter product life cycles that demand continual innovation from firms. The systemic nature of technologies makes it difficult, if not impossible, for any one firm to manufacture all components of a technological system. We propose that these challenges be met by designing technological systems that have the potential to yield economies of substitution. Additionally, we propose that these economies be realized by adopting the network mode of governance. We examine the network mode at three levels-intrafirm, interfirm, and institutional-to illuminate the inherent tension between cooperation and competition at each level, and to explore the implications of this tension for industrial dynamics.Information Systems Working Papers Serie

Does IT Knowledge Relatedness Differentiate Performance of Multi-Business Firms?

This study develops and validates the IT knowledge relatedness construct to measure the extent to which a multi-business firm leverages related IT knowledge across its business units. It hypothesizes that synergies arising from IT knowledge relatedness differentiate performance of multi-business firms. This hypothesis is tested with primary data from senior IT executives of 315 Fortune 1000 firms. The findings support the hypothesis: IT knowledge relatedness has a positive and significant association with firm performance