A unified framework for building ontological theories with application and testing in the field of clinical trials

The objective of this research programme is to contribute to the establishment of the emerging science of Formal Ontology in Information Systems via a collaborative project involving researchers from a range of disciplines including philosophy, logic, computer science, linguistics, and the medical sciences. The re­searchers will work together on the construction of a unified formal ontology, which means: a general framework for the construction of ontological theories in specific domains. The framework will be constructed using the axiomatic-deductive method of modern formal ontology. It will be tested via a series of applications relating to on-going work in Leipzig on medical taxonomies and data dictionaries in the context of clinical trials. This will lead to the production of a domain-specific ontology which is designed to serve as a basis for applications in the medical field

Psychological contract breaches and organizational cynicism at hotels

The purpose of the present study is to investigate the impacts of psychological contract breaches experienced at hotels on the formation of organizational cynicism. Within this framework, the study is towards employees working at different departments and levels. 222 employees have participated in the research, and the data are analyzed with a MannWhitney U Test, Kruskal Wallis Test and Spearman correlations test. In the study, employees have a perception of psychological contract breach and have developed some cynical attitudes towards the hotel. Also it is found that the cognitive dimension of cynicism has an almost strong relationship with the perception of a psychological contract breach. It was determined that the affective dimension of cynicism had a weak relationship with the behavioral dimension and again an almost strong relationship with the perception of a psychological contract breach. Finally, a weak relationship is seen between the behavioral dimension of cynicism and the perception of a psychological contract breach. The present study states the relationship between the former concepts at hotels and provides a starting point for further research in organizational behavior not only at hotels but also at other service sectors. An important point emphasizing the need for the study is that the study is the first study to put forward the relationship between the concepts of psychological contract breach and cynicism within the national scope

Affective Medicine: a review of Affective Computing efforts in Medical Informatics

Background: Affective computing (AC) is concerned with emotional interactions performed with and through computers. It is defined as “computing that relates to, arises from, or deliberately influences emotions”. AC enables investigation and understanding of the relation between human emotions and health as well as application of assistive and useful technologies in the medical domain. Objectives: 1) To review the general state of the art in AC and its applications in medicine, and 2) to establish synergies between the research communities of AC and medical informatics. Methods: Aspects related to the human affective state as a determinant of the human health are discussed, coupled with an illustration of significant AC research and related literature output. Moreover, affective communication channels are described and their range of application fields is explored through illustrative examples. Results: The presented conferences, European research projects and research publications illustrate the recent increase of interest in the AC area by the medical community. Tele-home healthcare, AmI, ubiquitous monitoring, e-learning and virtual communities with emotionally expressive characters for elderly or impaired people are few areas where the potential of AC has been realized and applications have emerged. Conclusions: A number of gaps can potentially be overcome through the synergy of AC and medical informatics. The application of AC technologies parallels the advancement of the existing state of the art and the introduction of new methods. The amount of work and projects reviewed in this paper witness an ambitious and optimistic synergetic future of the affective medicine field

Authoring with Retudisauth adaptive dialogues for text comprehension

AbstractIn this work is presented the process of authoring adaptive dialogues for informatics text comprehension using the authoring tool of ReTuDiS (Reflective Tutorial Dialogue System), which is based on text comprehension theories. Previous study resulted in student's profiles depending on their prior knowledge and students were given the appropriate text with text activities according to their profiles. Students organized text representations with different structure: relational, transformational and teleological. The purpose of this study is to design and test educational material of personalized dialogue activities for text comprehension appropriate for each student, depending on student's text representation. Dialogues are tested by groups of participating students before the authoring tool is used to incorporate the material in ReTuDiS. Feedback provided by the system, in the form of personalized dialogues, promotes reflection and is expected to help students improve their text comprehension skills. The system is accessible throughout the web and can be tested in real classroom conditions

Systematic Unfoldment of Differential Ontology from Qualitative Concept of Information

A certain philosophical ontology is presented as developed from a qualitative concept of information, leading to conclusive points of possible far-reaching relevance for philosophy and science

The International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health: Contemporary Literature Overview

This article reviews the literature from the 3 years since the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health\u27s (ICF\u27s) endorsement, focusing on those articles that discuss (a) what the ICF means and how it can be used; (b) the general utility of the ICF for specific fields, such as nursing, occupational therapy, speech-language pathology, and audiology; (c) examples of applications for classification in particular disorders, such as chronic health conditions, neuromusculoskeletal conditions, cognitive disorders, mental disorders, sensory disorders, and primary and secondary conditions in children; (d) uses of the ICF to recode prior work across multiple surveys and across country coding schemes on disability-related national survey items; and (e) governmental uses of the ICF in the United States and selected countries abroad. Future directions needed to effectively implement the ICF across rehabilitation policy, research, and practice are discussed. Our review suggests that the actual application of the ICF is as yet somewhat limited because the World Health Organization (WHO) endorsement is so recent; the earliest references using the ICF correspond with the WHO\u27s 2001 endorsement. Standardized application of the ICF in North America has yet to be realized in anticipation of the release of the clinical implementation manual (see Reed et al., 2005); thus, it is not surprising to find limited research on clinical implementation of the ICF. From our review of the literature and of unpublished reports, it seems clear that the ICF is being used in a preliminary fashion to inform conceptual frameworks in research and for recoding data from other health classifications. Recently completed and ongoing research has undoubtedly not yet been published

A technology park with a triple helix trajectory: Tecnosinos- São Leopoldo’s technology park (Brazil)

This paper analyses, through a case study method, the genesis and management of a laureate, private, and university-linked technology park. The analysis is under the lens of the ten Cabral-Dahab criteria paradigm and the Triple Helix paradigm. In addition to confirming the park’s triple helix trajectory (University - Organized Private Sector – Government) and the combination of both paradigms as an appropriate model for a developing country, specific situations were also found in the areas of park management as well as the university’s curriculum in relation to electronics and information technology, that contribute to the development of the São Leopoldo region (Brazil) based on the knowledge economy. Further aspects of knowledge related to the Cabral-Dahab paradigm criteria are mentioned.ITESO, A.C