Enrichment of the Phenotypic and Genotypic Data Warehouse analysis using Question Answering systems to facilitate the decision making process in cereal breeding programs

Currently there are an overwhelming number of scientific publications in Life Sciences, especially in Genetics and Biotechnology. This huge amount of information is structured in corporate Data Warehouses (DW) or in Biological Databases (e.g. UniProt, RCSB Protein Data Bank, CEREALAB or GenBank), whose main drawback is its cost of updating that makes it obsolete easily. However, these Databases are the main tool for enterprises when they want to update their internal information, for example when a plant breeder enterprise needs to enrich its genetic information (internal structured Database) with recently discovered genes related to specific phenotypic traits (external unstructured data) in order to choose the desired parentals for breeding programs. In this paper, we propose to complement the internal information with external data from the Web using Question Answering (QA) techniques. We go a step further by providing a complete framework for integrating unstructured and structured information by combining traditional Databases and DW architectures with QA systems. The great advantage of our framework is that decision makers can compare instantaneously internal data with external data from competitors, thereby allowing taking quick strategic decisions based on richer data.This paper has been partially supported by the MESOLAP (TIN2010-14860) and GEODAS-BI (TIN2012-37493-C03-03) projects from the Spanish Ministry of Education and Competitivity. Alejandro Maté is funded by the Generalitat Valenciana under an ACIF grant (ACIF/2010/298)

A framework for enriching Data Warehouse analysis with Question Answering systems

Business Intelligence (BI) applications allow their users to query, understand, and analyze existing data within their organizations in order to acquire useful knowledge, thus making better strategic decisions. The core of BI applications is a Data Warehouse (DW), which integrates several heterogeneous structured data sources in a common repository of data. However, there is a common agreement in that the next generation of BI applications should consider data not only from their internal data sources, but also data from different external sources (e.g. Big Data, blogs, social networks, etc.), where relevant update information from competitors may provide crucial information in order to take the right decisions. This external data is usually obtained through traditional Web search engines, with a significant effort from users in analyzing the returned information and in incorporating this information into the BI application. In this paper, we propose to integrate the DW internal structured data, with the external unstructured data obtained with Question Answering (QA) techniques. The integration is achieved seamlessly through the presentation of the data returned by the DW and the QA systems into dashboards that allow the user to handle both types of data. Moreover, the QA results are stored in a persistent way through a new DW repository in order to facilitate comparison of the obtained results with different questions or even the same question with different dates.This paper has been partially supported by the MESOLAP (TIN2010-14860), GEODASBI (TIN2012-37493-C03-03), LEGOLANG-UAGE (TIN2012-31224) and DIIM2.0 (PROMETEOII/2014/001) projects from the Spanish Ministry of Education and Competitivity. Alejandro Maté is funded by the Generalitat Valenciana under an ACIF grant (ACIF/2010/298)

The integration of refugees into the education system in rural Ireland an analysis of policy and practice in relation to the lived experience of refugees in one county

The purpose of this thesis is to explore the experience of a range of individuals and groups involved in trying to integrate refugees into the education system in rural Ireland. It investigates the Government’s moral position towards refugees and whether or not a gap exists between the current government policies and the reality of the lived experience of refugees and those working closely with them. The proposals focusing on education detailed in the Migrant Integration Strategy (2107) are embedded in the framework of this research as it examines language, culture, integration, employment opportunities and diversity. The stark variations in the Syrian refugee community and the local communities in Co. Donegal are highlighted. The impact of Lockdown due to the Covid pandemic (which occurred during this research) on education is also addressed. Quantitative data from surveys of refugees and qualitative data from interviews were gathered and analysed to get an in-depth view of the refugees’ journey from fleeing Syrian to settling in Co. Donegal. Interviews with headteachers, teachers, integration officer, interpreters, volunteers, befrienders, and others working directly with the refugees yielded rich data which engenders the voice of all stakeholders, ensuring the evidence was not divorced from the social context. This thesis, whilst acknowledging the positive contribution of the Irish government,contests the notion that sufficient infrastructures are in place to fully integrate refugees into society and address the education gap that exists. Findings further demonstrate that recent proposals to eradicate Direct Provision are not on track, wasting funding and resources which could be deployed more productively

Creating language resources for under-resourced languages: methodologies, and experiments with Arabic

Language resources are important for those working on computational methods to analyse and study languages. These resources are needed to help advancing the research in fields such as natural language processing, machine learning, information retrieval and text analysis in general. We describe the creation of useful resources for languages that currently lack them, taking resources for Arabic summarisation as a case study. We illustrate three different paradigms for creating language resources, namely: (1) using crowdsourcing to produce a small resource rapidly and relatively cheaply; (2) translating an existing gold-standard dataset, which is relatively easy but potentially of lower quality; and (3) using manual effort with appropriately skilled human participants to create a resource that is more expensive but of high quality. The last of these was used as a test collection for TAC-2011. An evaluation of the resources is also presented

ANNUAL REPORT ON MIGRATION AND ASYLUM 2016: IRELAND. ESRI SURVEY AND STATISTICAL REPORT SERIES, November 2017

The purpose of this report is to provide an overview of trends, policy developments and significant debates in the area of asylum and migration during 2016 in Ireland

ANNUAL REPORT ON MIGRATION AND ASYLUM 2018: IRELAND. SURVEY AND STATISTICAL REPORT SERIES NUMBER 84 November 2019

The purpose of this report is to provide an overview of trends, policy developments and significant debates in the area of asylum and migration during 2018 in Ireland

Beyond Hijrah (هِجْرَة ): perspectives on resettlement, health and quality of life for Afghan and Kurdish refugees in Christchurch and Perth

Worldwide, conflict situations and the resultant number of refugees continue to increase, with over 43 million recorded at the end of 2009. Nearly half of those currently under the protection of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) originally came from Iraq or Afghanistan. Although less than 1% will eventually be resettled in new host nations, their long term health and settlement prospects are a matter of continuing relevance. Since 2000, Australia alone has accepted over 58,000 Afghan refugees, with more than 5000 resettled in New Zealand. Although refugees accepted under humanitarian programs receive state support frequently denied to asylum seekers, they are still vulnerable to acculturative stress. Public attitudes and government policies to immigration in receiving countries inevitably play an important role in resettlement outcomes.The overall aim of this research project was to examine the resettlement experiences of refugees settled in Australia and New Zealand, taking into consideration the different policy and social setting in each location. A mixed methods approach was adopted for this exploratory study, utilising both qualitative and quantitative methods to investigate the social and political environment surrounding refugee issues in the public sphere, as well as assessing the health and wellbeing of former refugee participants.A comparative study of newspaper reporting of refugee issues was conducted to monitor trends in reporting over time, to assess public attitudes in each location, and provide background context to the main study findings. This media study provided insights into the politics of the refugee debate and policy environment in New Zealand and Australia, revealing significant differences in the way refugee issues are portrayed by the media in each location. Compared to New Zealand, newspaper articles in Australia were more politicised, and less likely to portray refugees in a positive manner. Since 2001, political attitudes to asylum seekers hardened, as revealed in Australian coverage, reflecting increasing negativity towards refugees overall. In particular, reporting suggests public attitudes towards refugees and those who are visibly different may be shifting over time.This was followed up by a survey of former refugees from Afghanistan and the Kurdish regions of Iraq and Iran, who were living in Perth, Western Australia and Christchurch, New Zealand at the time of data collection in 2008. A mixed methods approach was used to evaluate the perceived effectiveness of resettlement programs in addressing the psychosocial and health care needs of these groups. For the purposes of the study, it was necessary to define what was meant by ‘successful resettlement’. Based on the availability of suitable quantitative instruments this was primarily conceptualised by measuring subjective well being and psychological distress. An additional instrument was also included to assess general self efficacy, as this can influence motivation and attitudes to change. Translated and culturally validated Instruments were provided in Farsi (Persian), Arabic and English for self completion during interview.Participants were recruited by a snowball sampling technique, using multiple initial contacts with short chains of contacts within each of the refugee groups to improve representativeness and reduce selection bias. Comparison with census data and community profile maps provided reassurance that this had been achieved. Ascending methods help to overcome some of the sampling challenges encountered with difficult to access and vulnerable populations such as these, accepting that achieving an indicative sample provides valuable information even if not truly representative.Quantitative data collected using individual, questionnaire-based interviews was obtained from 193 participants settled up to 20 years. This assessed key outcome variables using the Kessler-10 Psychological Distress Scale (K10), the Personal Well Being Index (for subjective well being) and the General Perceived Self Efficacy scale. In combination with demographic data, this allowed comparisons across domains based on ethnic group, gender, temporal variables and country of settlement. Qualitative material from open ended questions, presenting the personal perspectives of 124 participants, offered valuable insights into their overall resettlement experiences, quality of life, sources of stress and coping responses.Psychological distress was revealed to be a chronic problem, with 60% of those settled more than 8 years still above the K10 threshold. Despite this, many people were reluctant to seek professional help despite considerable morbidity. Introspection and depression were the main sources of concern for participants at all stages of resettlement, closely followed by separation from family and friends, feeling overwhelmed by the challenges facing them and relationship issues. Unemployment was significantly associated with poor mental health, especially as it often resulted in people sitting at home ‘thinking too much’. In addition, the impact of political events and the situation of significant others in their home countries, as reinforced by media reporting of conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, was also influential. Women in particular, struggled due to a lack of family support, changing roles and expectations, and social isolation. The perception that public attitudes towards Muslims changed as a result of political events elsewhere, resulted in some people believing that they would never really fit in. This may be linked with the cultural and religious concerns expressed by some participants and reflect wider societal attitudes to refugees in general, or Muslims in particular, especially in Australia. Reality often fell short of expectation as refugees experienced difficulties forming relationships within the host society and were concerned around discrimination and employment challenges.The study findings contribute to the current literature on refugee resettlement in a number of ways. Firstly, both the media and refugee components of the study provide unique comparative data between Australia and New Zealand in this area, and the ability to disaggregate the refugee survey findings by ethnic origin is also distinctive. The inclusion of participants settled up to twenty years, which highlighted continuing concerns around unemployment and possible discrimination, has also contributed to the discussion on long-term settlement outcomes. Taken together, the findings of the study suggest possible links between public attitudes to refugees as portrayed by media reports, and wider societal attitudes towards certain groups which impact on the mental health and well being of former refugees. Although the research confirmed the prevalence of chronic psychological distress for some participants, identified risk factors related to ongoing settlement concerns and revealed a number of chronic long term stressors, a number of positive aspects of their lives were also described.The research has highlighted the need to understand differences between refugee groups, especially those with a wide cultural distance from the host community, recommending tailored programs to most effectively target areas of greatest need for each group and ensuring that access to support is still available long term if needed. One key finding has been to highlight the importance of suitable employment or other form of daily activity for former refugees, to provide them with a sense of meaningful achievement and respectable social position. As obtaining suitable employment is a primary means of accomplishing this, it is recommended that more support be given to encourage employers to take on former refugee workers, to acknowledge their experience and transferable skills and to build on the resilience and initiative many people have developed during their time as refugees. Doing this will assist with refugees more rapidly and successfully integrating into their new societies and moving towards a post-resettlement sense of identity and belonging

Aportes desde la colaboración organizacional al éxito de las soluciones de inteligencia de negocios

Las investigaciones en Inteligencia de Negocios muestran que aún hay altas tasas de fracaso, falla, subutilización y abandono en su implementación. Factores asociados a la Colaboración Organizacional podrían contribuir al éxito de soluciones de este tipo. A partir de una lectura sistemática de literatura, la aplicación de entrevistas a siete expertos y la aplicación de encuestas a personas que han participado en proyectos de investigación y/o implementación en Inteligencia de Negocios, se presentan catorce factores de colaboración organizacional, agrupados en cinco dimensiones, que aportan en el éxito de las soluciones en inteligencia de negocios.Abstract. Research shows that there are still high rates of failure, faulty implementation, underutilization and abandonment in the use of Business Intelligence. Factors associated with organizational collaboration could contribute to successfully implementing such solutions. Through a systematic reading of literature, interviews of seven experts, and conducting surveys of people who have participated in research projects and / or have experience implementing Business Intelligence, fourteen factors of business collaboration are presented. These factors are presented in five dimensions, each contributing to the success of business intelligence solutions.Maestrí

Diseño y generación semi-automática de patrones adaptables para el reconocimiento de entidades

La tarea de Reconocimiento de Entidades Nombradas (NER) facilita la gestión de información y tiene utilidad en otras áreas, como Anotación Semántica, Sistemas de Búsqueda de Respuesta, Población de Ontologías y Minería de Opiniones. Pero de acuerdo a los resultados de algunos foros, el área de NER podría considerarse resuelta. La tesis profundiza en la evaluación del área y muestra que parece haberse estancado en el reconocimiento de entidades típicas, para las que habitualmente existen recursos anotados. Esto contrasta con la diversidad de tipos de entidad y dominios de aplicación actuales. Este trabajo contribuye con el diseño de un método para el reconocimiento de entidades más consecuente con el problema de no disponer de corpus anotados para cualquier tipo de entidad requerida y sobre cualquier dominio. El método diseñado integra los siguientes aspectos: Transparencia: patrones legibles y con alto grado de estandarización. Flexibilidad: posibilidad de incorporar diferentes tipos de atributos capaces de describir las entidades o su contexto. Potencia: reconocimiento de diferentes estructuras del lenguaje en los documentos. Coste: uso de un pequeño conjunto de entidades como semillas iniciales y técnicas de aprendizaje activo para guiar al usuario en el proceso de anotación. Efectividad: tasas de efectividad competitivas en relación al estado del arte, medidas en términos de precisión y exhaustividad. Los resultados obtenidos son evaluados mediante el uso de corpus públicos anotados con diferentes tipos de entidades, y comparados con otros trabajos relacionados en la literatura científica.The task of Named Entity Recognition (NER) facilitates information management and is useful in other areas like Semantic Annotation, Question Answering, Ontology Population and Opinion Mining. According to the results from some evaluation forums though, NER may be considered a solved task. This dissertation digs into these evaluations and shows that they seemed stuck to the recognition of typical entities for which annotated resources are usually available. This contrasts with the current diversity of entity types and domains of application. The main contribution of this work is the design of a method to recognize entities that is more consistent with the lack of annotated corpora for any required type of entity and in any domain. The designed method integrates the following aspects: Transparency: readable patterns with a high level of standardization. Flexibility: possibility to incorporate different types of features capable of describing entities or their context. Power: recognition of different language structures within documents. Cost: use of a small set of entities as initial seeds and active learning techniques to guide the user through the annotation process. Effectiveness: competitive effectiveness rates compared to the state of the art in terms of precision and recall. The method is evaluated with two public annotated corpora with different types of entities, and compared with related works found in the scientific literature