435 research outputs found
Evaluation and cross-comparison of lexical entities of biological interest (LexEBI)
MOTIVATION:
Biomedical entities, their identifiers and names, are essential in the representation of biomedical facts and knowledge. In the same way, the complete set of biomedical and chemical terms, i.e. the biomedical "term space" (the "Lexeome"), forms a key resource to achieve the full integration of the scientific literature with biomedical data resources: any identified named entity can immediately be normalized to the correct database entry. This goal does not only require that we are aware of all existing terms, but would also profit from knowing all their senses and their semantic interpretation (ambiguities, nestedness).
RESULT:
This study compiles a resource for lexical terms of biomedical interest in a standard format (called "LexEBI"), determines the overall number of terms, their reuse in different resources and the nestedness of terms. LexEBI comprises references for protein and gene entries and their term variants and chemical entities amongst other terms. In addition, disease terms have been identified from Medline and PubmedCentral and added to LexEBI. Our analysis demonstrates that the baseforms of terms from the different semantic types show only little polysemous use. Nonetheless, the term variants of protein and gene names (PGNs) frequently contain species mentions, which should have been avoided according to protein annotation guidelines. Furthermore, the protein and gene entities as well as the chemical entities, both do comprise enzymes leading to hierarchical polysemy, and a large portion of PGNs make reference to a chemical entity. Altogether, according to our analysis based on the Medline distribution, 401,869 unique PGNs in the documents contain a reference to 25,022 chemical entities, 3,125 disease terms or 1,576 species mentions.
CONCLUSION:
LexEBI delivers the complete biomedical and chemical Lexeome in a standardized representation (http://www.ebi.ac.uk/Rebholz-srv/LexEBI/). The resource provides the disease terms as open source content, and fully interlinks terms across resources
Organising the socio-economic relevance of university research: the case of nanomaterials research in Taiwan
This thesis is concerned with academicsâ behaviour when organising research aimed at being relevant. More specifically, this study combines a sociological approach and an extensive bibliometric analysis, investigating the relationships between scientistsâ perceptions of relevance, their research behaviours and their publishing activities in terms of organising nanomaterials research in Taiwan. By introducing a resource-based concept of the notion of relevance from a scientistâs perspective, it contributes to intellectual debates on changes to knowledge production and the relationship between scientific excellence and socio-economic relevance.
The study finds that the ways nanomaterials scientists perceive and organise their research, specifically in terms of research orientation, industry involvement and
interdisciplinary collaboration, are not entirely oriented towards socio-economic concerns. Scientists tend to adapt to the demand for relevance by demonstrating potential research applications and forming interdisciplinary collaborations. Nevertheless, they are more persistent in terms of not having industry involved in the research process. Balancing adaptation and persistence reflects scientistsâ concerns with securing financial, intellectual and symbolic resources in order to establish their academic credibility.
The bibliometric analysis broadly confirms the qualitative results findings, showing an increasing trend towards publishing in applied and targeted basic journals, and towards interdisciplinary collaboration. Yet, the proportion of university-industry papers has been rather stable over time. While our interviews suggest that senior scientists tend to consider interdisciplinary collaboration as a way to facilitate application, the bibliometric analysis shows that interdisciplinary co-authored papers tend to be more basic and receive more citations. The analysis also finds that junior scientists tend to feel more pressure to achieve a strong academic performance, thereby pushing them away from activities concerning achieving the envisioned socio-economic relevance of their research. Given the ambiguous notion of relevance and the inconsistency of policy practices, this thesis suggests that the real pressure is more to do with the demand for excellence than for relevance
The Value of New Scientific Communication Models for Chemistry
This paper is intended as a starting point for discussion on the possible future of scientific communication in chemistry, the value of new models of scientific communication enabled by web based technologies, and the necessary future steps to achieve the benefits of those new models. It is informed by a NSF sponsored workshop that was held on October 23-24, 2008 in Washington D.C. It provides an overview on the chemical communication system in chemistry and describes efforts to enhance scientific communication by introducing new web-based models of scientific communication. It observes that such innovations are still embryonic and have not yet found broad adoption and acceptance by the chemical community. The paper proceeds to analyze the reasons for this by identifying specific characteristics of the chemistry domain that relate to its research practices and socio-economic organization. It hypothesizes how these may influence communication practices, and produce resistance to changes of the current system similar to those that have been successfully deployed in other sciences and which have been proposed by pioneers within chemistry.National Science Foundation, Microsof
Universities' academic research and knowledge-transfer activities in a catch-up country: the case of Korea
The main research topic of this study is universitiesâ academic research and knowledge-transfer activities in a catch-up country, particularly the relationship between the two activities, which has been rarely examined in previous research. In order to understand this issue against existing literature, a critical review of previous studies has been attempted, considering the idiosyncratic characteristics of the Korean national innovation system. As a result, at the three analysis levels (i.e. national, organisational and individual levels), we propose three conceptual elements respectively: a tentative historical path of universities in catch-up countries; critical factors influencing knowledge transfer activities of universities in catch-up countries; and academics operating in synergy mode. Thereafter, based on the methodology integrating not only the three analysis levels but also qualitative and quantitative approaches, we analyse the data collected from the interviews with Korean academics, survey responses from Korean academics and government White Papers on the activities of Korean universities. The results show a close and positive relationship between Korean universitiesâ academic research and knowledge-transfer activities across the three levels. Firstly, during the last several decades, the Korean government has strongly encouraged the development of teaching, academic research and knowledge-transfer activities of Korean universities in harmony with the different developmental stages of Korean industry. This has resulted in selective patterns of the universitiesâ three activities (e.g. concentration of scientific activities in certain fields). Secondly, organisational factors such as scientific capacity and industry funding are important for universitiesâ knowledge-transfer activities in a catch-up country, which corroborates the positive relationship between the two activities. Finally, in terms of the factors influencing the synergy mode (i.e. a positive relationship between academic research and knowledge-transfer activities), academicsâ career stage and disciplines are important. This is related to the rapid expansion of the Korean academic system and the selectivity found in its activities. Based on these findings, it is tempting to conclude that universities in East Asian catch-up countries have developed their own academic system different from those in developed countries, which can be characterised as having strong government control and a high level of interaction with other actors in the national innovation system. Therefore, the application of the controversy over the direct economic contribution of universities in western countries to the context of catch-up countries is quite limited
Inventor Business Card: Prof. Naila Rabbani
The launch of "Qatar University Research Magazine" marks the university's numerous achievements in the field of scientific research. It will also serve as a platform to highlight all our research related initiatives and activities carried out by the various research centers and colleges within the university
Status Report of the DPHEP Study Group: Towards a Global Effort for Sustainable Data Preservation in High Energy Physics
Data from high-energy physics (HEP) experiments are collected with
significant financial and human effort and are mostly unique. An
inter-experimental study group on HEP data preservation and long-term analysis
was convened as a panel of the International Committee for Future Accelerators
(ICFA). The group was formed by large collider-based experiments and
investigated the technical and organisational aspects of HEP data preservation.
An intermediate report was released in November 2009 addressing the general
issues of data preservation in HEP. This paper includes and extends the
intermediate report. It provides an analysis of the research case for data
preservation and a detailed description of the various projects at experiment,
laboratory and international levels. In addition, the paper provides a concrete
proposal for an international organisation in charge of the data management and
policies in high-energy physics
Serviços de integração de dados para aplicaçÔes biomédicas
Doutoramento em InformĂĄtica (MAP-i)In the last decades, the field of biomedical science has fostered
unprecedented scientific advances. Research is stimulated by the
constant evolution of information technology, delivering novel and
diverse bioinformatics tools. Nevertheless, the proliferation of new and
disconnected solutions has resulted in massive amounts of resources
spread over heterogeneous and distributed platforms. Distinct
data types and formats are generated and stored in miscellaneous
repositories posing data interoperability challenges and delays in
discoveries. Data sharing and integrated access to these resources
are key features for successful knowledge extraction.
In this context, this thesis makes contributions towards accelerating
the semantic integration, linkage and reuse of biomedical resources.
The first contribution addresses the connection of distributed and
heterogeneous registries. The proposed methodology creates a
holistic view over the different registries, supporting semantic
data representation, integrated access and querying. The second
contribution addresses the integration of heterogeneous information
across scientific research, aiming to enable adequate data-sharing
services. The third contribution presents a modular architecture to
support the extraction and integration of textual information, enabling
the full exploitation of curated data. The last contribution lies
in providing a platform to accelerate the deployment of enhanced
semantic information systems. All the proposed solutions were
deployed and validated in the scope of rare diseases.Nas Ășltimas dĂ©cadas, o campo das ciĂȘncias biomĂ©dicas proporcionou
grandes avanços cientĂficos estimulados pela constante evolução das
tecnologias de informação. A criação de diversas ferramentas na
årea da bioinformåtica e a falta de integração entre novas soluçÔes
resultou em enormes quantidades de dados distribuĂdos por diferentes
plataformas. Dados de diferentes tipos e formatos sĂŁo gerados
e armazenados em vĂĄrios repositĂłrios, o que origina problemas de
interoperabilidade e atrasa a investigação. A partilha de informação
e o acesso integrado a esses recursos sĂŁo caracterĂsticas fundamentais
para a extração bem sucedida do conhecimento cientĂfico.
Nesta medida, esta tese fornece contribuiçÔes para acelerar a
integração, ligação e reutilização semùntica de dados biomédicos. A
primeira contribuição aborda a interconexĂŁo de registos distribuĂdos e
heterogĂ©neos. A metodologia proposta cria uma visĂŁo holĂstica sobre
os diferentes registos, suportando a representação semùntica de dados
e o acesso integrado. A segunda contribuição aborda a integração
de diversos dados para investigaçÔes cientĂficas, com o objetivo de
suportar serviços interoperåveis para a partilha de informação. O
terceiro contributo apresenta uma arquitetura modular que apoia a
extração e integração de informaçÔes textuais, permitindo a exploração
destes dados. A Ășltima contribuição consiste numa plataforma web
para acelerar a criação de sistemas de informação semùnticos. Todas
as soluçÔes propostas foram validadas no ùmbito das doenças raras
Lateral Strategies for Scientists and Those Who Study Them
The thesis Adapting in the Knowledge Economy investigates the strategies
deployed by academic scientists when trying to adapt and maneuver within an
increasingly complex mixture of scientific, industrial and governmental agendas.
Chapter one âFrom insights to invoiceâ summarizes the last decade of Danish research
policy as a tendency towards intensified focus on interaction between the university and
âoutsideâ actors. Looking at Danish policy documents and interview data the chapter
shows how policy changes responded to an idea of âivory towerâ researchers isolating
themselves in Danish universities. Furthermore, the interaction agenda was motivated
by the perception that knowledge was produced but not sufficiently used. Strongly
influenced by the concept of the knowledge economy and that of mode 2 knowledge
production, policy changes were directed at bridging a gap between the producers and
the consumers of knowledge. A series of reforms and initiatives were launched to
facilitate more interaction between science and industry as well as more responsiveness
towards societiesâ problems on behalf of the universities. This interaction agenda was
coupled with an increase in the economic investment in research and an increased focus
on competition between researchers in order to ensure high quality in knowledge
production...
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