User interfaces supporting entity search for linked data

One of the main goals of semantic search is to retrieve and connect information related to queries, offering users rich structured information about a topic instead of a set of documents relevant to the topic. Previous work reports that searching for information about individual entities such as persons, places and organisations is the most common form of Web search. Since the Semantic Web was first proposed, the amount of structured data on the Web has increased dramatically. This is particularly the case for what is known as Linked Data, information that has been published using Semantic Web standards such as RDF and OWL. Such structured data opens up new possibilities for improving entity search on the Web, integrating facts from independent sources, and presenting users with contextually-rich information about entities. This research focuses on entity search of Linked Data in terms of three different forms of search: structured queries, where users can use the SPARQL query language for manipulating data sources; exploratory search, where users can browse from one entity to another; and focused search, where users can input an entity query as a free text keyword search. We undertake a comparative study between two distinct information architectures for structured querying to manipulate Linked Data over the Web. Specifically, we evaluate some of the main operators in SPARQL using several datasets of Linked Data. We introduce a framework of five criteria to evaluate 15 current state-of-the-art semantic tools available for exploratory search of Linked Data, in order to establish how well these browsers make available the benefits of Linked Data and entity search for human users. We also use the criteria to determine the browsers that are best suited to entity exploration. Further, we propose a new model, the Attribute Importance Model, for entity-aggregated search, with the purpose of improving user experience when finding information about entities. The model develops three techniques: (1) presenting entity type-based query suggestions; (2) clustering aggregated attributes; and (3) ranking attributes based on their importance to a given query. Together these constitute a model for developing more informative views and enhancing users’ understanding of entity descriptions on the Web. We then use our model to provide an interactive approach, with the Information Visualisation toolkit InfoVis, that enables users to visualise entity clusters generated by our Attribute Importance Model. Thus this thesis addresses two challenges of searching Linked Data. The first challenge concerns the specific issue of information resolution during the search: the reduction of query ambiguity and redundant results that contain irrelevant descriptions when searching for information about an entity. The second challenge concerns the more general problem of technical complexity, and addresses to the limited adoption of Linked Data that we ascribe to the lack of understanding of Semantic Web technologies and data structures among general users. These technologies pose new design problems for human interaction such as overloading data, navigation styles, and browsing mechanisms. The Attribute Importance Model addresses both these challenges

Social Marketing in Action

This book was written for those interested in creating social change for the greater good. In this book, we provide a wide selection of social marketing cases from which we can learn and teach. The book is intended for both academic and practitioner use. Part I of this book offers a brief yet comprehensive review of social marketing. This provides the reader with the background in social change and marketing necessary to read and analyze the subsequent cases. Parts II, III, IV, and V of this book offer a total of 24 social marketing cases, from a variety of countries, addressing many different issues. For classroom use, this book is written to serve as a stand-alone tool, with Part I providing a concise introduction to social marketing principles and theory. Chapter appendices provide links to further readings on social marketing principles for those wishing to delve deeper. If still further detail on social marketing principles and theory are desired, this book can easily be paired with another social marketing textbook as well. We have aimed the book to be accessible to undergraduate students but also offer sufficient material to challenge students at the graduate level. Advanced students should be encouraged to further explore the references and links provided, to critique the case approaches, and to offer alternative strategies for the cases provided. A separate teaching guide collection is available for the book as well. This collection contains answers to the discussion questions in the cases, as well as suggested activities for inside and outside of the classroom. Additionally, the teaching guides for many cases offer suggestions for further reading and other helpful resources. For practitioner use, Part I offers a refresher on basic social marketing principles. In addition, a variety of references are offered, allowing for further personal study. Parts II through V offer detailed information about a wide variety of actual social marketing programs. You can compare and contrast these cases with your own situation, hopefully gaining insights that will be helpful in your own social marketing efforts

Promoting Statistical Practice and Collaboration in Developing Countries

"Rarely, but just often enough to rebuild hope, something happens to confound my pessimism about the recent unprecedented happenings in the world. This book is the most recent instance, and I think that all its readers will join me in rejoicing at the good it seeks to do. It is an example of the kind of international comity and collaboration that we could and should undertake to solve various societal problems. This book is a beautiful example of the power of the possible. [It] provides a blueprint for how the LISA 2020 model can be replicated in other fields. Civil engineers, or accountants, or nurses, or any other profession could follow this outline to share expertise and build capacity and promote progress in other countries. It also contains some tutorials for statistical literacy across several fields. The details would change, of course, but ideas are durable, and the generalizations seem pretty straightforward. This book shows every other profession where and how to stand in order to move the world. I urge every researcher to get a copy!" —David Banks from the Foreword Promoting Statistical Practice and Collaboration in Developing Countries provides new insights into the current issues and opportunities in international statistics education, statistical consulting, and collaboration, particularly in developing countries around the world. The book addresses the topics discussed in individual chapters from the perspectives of the historical context, the present state, and future directions of statistical training and practice, so that readers may fully understand the challenges and opportunities in the field of statistics and data science, especially in developing countries. Features • Reference point on statistical practice in developing countries for researchers, scholars, students, and practitioners • Comprehensive source of state-of-the-art knowledge on creating statistical collaboration laboratories within the field of data science and statistics • Collection of innovative statistical teaching and learning techniques in developing countries Each chapter consists of independent case study contributions on a particular theme that are developed with a common structure and format. The common goal across the chapters is to enhance the exchange of diverse educational and action-oriented information among our intended audiences, which include practitioners, researchers, students, and statistics educators in developing countries

Promoting Statistical Practice and Collaboration in Developing Countries

"Rarely, but just often enough to rebuild hope, something happens to confound my pessimism about the recent unprecedented happenings in the world. This book is the most recent instance, and I think that all its readers will join me in rejoicing at the good it seeks to do. It is an example of the kind of international comity and collaboration that we could and should undertake to solve various societal problems. This book is a beautiful example of the power of the possible. [It] provides a blueprint for how the LISA 2020 model can be replicated in other fields. Civil engineers, or accountants, or nurses, or any other profession could follow this outline to share expertise and build capacity and promote progress in other countries. It also contains some tutorials for statistical literacy across several fields. The details would change, of course, but ideas are durable, and the generalizations seem pretty straightforward. This book shows every other profession where and how to stand in order to move the world. I urge every researcher to get a copy!" —David Banks from the Foreword Promoting Statistical Practice and Collaboration in Developing Countries provides new insights into the current issues and opportunities in international statistics education, statistical consulting, and collaboration, particularly in developing countries around the world. The book addresses the topics discussed in individual chapters from the perspectives of the historical context, the present state, and future directions of statistical training and practice, so that readers may fully understand the challenges and opportunities in the field of statistics and data science, especially in developing countries. Features • Reference point on statistical practice in developing countries for researchers, scholars, students, and practitioners • Comprehensive source of state-of-the-art knowledge on creating statistical collaboration laboratories within the field of data science and statistics • Collection of innovative statistical teaching and learning techniques in developing countries Each chapter consists of independent case study contributions on a particular theme that are developed with a common structure and format. The common goal across the chapters is to enhance the exchange of diverse educational and action-oriented information among our intended audiences, which include practitioners, researchers, students, and statistics educators in developing countries

2009 Annual Progress Report: DOE Hydrogen Program

This report summarizes the hydrogen and fuel cell R&D activities and accomplishments of the DOE Hydrogen Program for FY2009. It covers the program areas of hydrogen production and delivery; fuel cells; manufacturing; technology validation; safety, codes and standards; education; and systems analysis

Evaluation of the ingestive behaviour of the dairy cow under two systems of rotation with slope

The ingestive behaviour of grazing animals is modulated by the vegetation characteristics, topography and the type of stocking method. This research was carried out in 2019, at the Rumipamba CADER-UCE. It aimed to evaluate the impact of two contrasting stocking methods of dairy cows grazing a pasture with an average of slope >8.5%. Four dairy cows were set to graze a 0.4 ha paddock for 5 days for continuous stocking methods, while for the electric fence methods the dairy cows were restricted to 0.2 ha and the fence was moved uphill every 3 hours, repeating this process four times a day. Cow were equipped with activity sensors for 12 h per day. The whole procedure was repeated 2 times after realizing an equalization cuts and both paddocks, a rest time of 30 days and a random reassignment of paddocks to one of the treatments. The cows showed a difference in terms of the percentage of grazing P=0.0072, being higher with the electric fence (55% of the measurement time). From rising-plate-meter estimates of available biomass along the grazing periods, we calculated despite similar forage allowances (electric fence = 48.06 kg DM/cow/d and continuous = 48.21 DM/cow/d) a higher forage intake was obtained in the electric fence treatment (17.5 kg DM/cow/d) compared the continuous stocking (15.7 kg DM/cow/d) (P=0.006). In terms of milk production animals grazing under the differences electrical fence stocking method tended (P=0.0985) to produce more milk (17.39 kg/d) than those grazing in the continuous system (15.16 kg/d) due to the influence of the slope (P=0.05), while for milk quality the protein content was higher for the electric fence (33.7 g/l) than the continuous method (30.5 g/l) (P=0.039). None of the other milk properties differed between methods (P>0.05)

Standards to facilitate optimal experiences of short-term study abroad nursing students at a higher education institution

Advances in technology have made globalization and internationalization a reality in the world. National borders are becoming more permeable and migration of goods, services, and health care workers takes place more readily. Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) have become competitors and vendors in the global knowledge economy and are expected to develop job seekers that are responsible and engaged global citizens and employees. Offering study abroad programmes is one of the ways that HEIs achieve this goal. It is estimated that in 2010, 4.7 million people studied abroad (OECD, 2012:360), and it is anticipated that this number will grow to 15 million by the year 2025 (Altbach & Knight, 2006:9). South Africa is emerging as a regional hub for study and research in sub-Saharan Africa (UNESCO: 2012b). Many organizations that train nurses are internationalizing their curriculum which effectively means that Schools of Nursing are seeking placement for students to study, gain insight into other cultures and practices, and to gain clinical experience in other countries. Students, the customers of the Higher Education Institutions, often pay large sums of money to undertake these study abroad programmes and therefore expect good quality learning experiences in return. The aim of this qualitative, contextual, exploratory, and descriptive study was to explore and describe the expectations and experiences of international nursing students and faculty members at a Higher Educational Institution in South Africa in order to develop standards that will enable HEIs to optimize the experiences of short-term study abroad nursing students. An in-depth contextual investigation was conducted on globalization and internationalization, as well as the higher education and health systems of three countries to understand the context of the study abroad programmes. Qualitative data was gathered from students and faculty members using focus groups and individual interviews to establish their expectations and experiences of the programme. Thematic synthesis was carried out on the contextual data and the qualitative data. Thereafter, thematic synthesis analysis was conducted using both sets of results to develop standards that can be used to optimize the experience of short-term study abroad nursing students at a HEI. A total of 35 standards were developed around the following main themes: the objectives of study abroad programmes should be stated clearly before arrival and include the expectations of the global, national, and local communities, the higher education institution and the staff and students; study abroad programmes should be managed in an ethical manner and in an enabling environment, as part of their strategic goals and plans of a HEI; students should be exposed to a variety of experiences and differences between the sending and hosting countries during their study abroad programmes; Standards to Facilitate Optimal Experiences of Short-term Study Abroad Nursing Students at a HEI; study abroad programmes should be evaluated at different intervals and levels to ensure quality of the programmes and to ensure that the objectives/outcomes are met. A limitation of the study was the sampling of the clinical mentors which did not include representatives from the overseas universities. It is recommended that the standards that were developed in this study be introduced and tested in HEIs and that more research be conducted on different levels and groups with regard to study abroad programmes in future

Physics at BES_III

There has recently been a dramatic renewal of interest in the subjects of hadron spectroscopy and charm physics. This renaissance has been driven in part by experimental reports of D-0(D) over bar (0) mixing and the discovery of narrow D-sJ states and a plethora of charmonium-like XY Z states at the B factories, and the observation of an intriguing proton-antiproton threshold enhancement and the possibly related X(1835) meson state at BESII. At the same time, lattice QCD is now coming of age, and we are entering a new era when precise, quantitative predictions from lattice QCD can be tested against experimental measurements. For example, the High Precision QCD (HPQCD) and United Kingdom QCD (UKQCD) collaboration's recent high-precision, unquenched calculation of f(D+) = 208 +/- 4 MeV has been found to agree with the CLEO-c collaboration measurement of f(D+) = 223 +/- 17 +/- 8 MeV - a precision level of similar to 8%. Intriguingly, this agreement does not extend to f(Ds), where the HPQCD + UKQCD result f(Ds) = 241 +/- 3 MeV is more than three standard deviations below the current world average experimental value f(Ds) = 276 +/- 9 MeV. Precision improvements, especially on the experimental measurements, are called for and will be of extreme interest. The BES-III experiment at BEPCII in Beijing, which will start operation in summer 2008, will accumulate huge data samples of 10 x 10(9) J/psi, 3 x 10(9) psi(2S), 30 million D (D) over bar or 2 million DS+DS--pairs per running year, respectively, running in the tau-charm theshold region. Coupled with currently available results from CLEO-c, BES-III will make it possible to study in detail, and with unprecedentedly high precision, light hadron spectroscopy in the decays of charmonium states and charmed mesons. In addition, about 90 million D (D) over bar pairs will be collected at BES-III in a three-year run at the psi(3770) peak. Many high precision measurements, including CKM matrix elements related to charm weak decays, decay constants f(D+) and f(Ds), Dalitz decays of three-body D meson decays, searches for CP violation in the charmed-quark sector, and absolute decay branching fractions, will be accomplished. BES-III analyses are likely to be essential in deciding if recently observed signs of mixing in the D-0(D) over bar (0) meson system are actually due to new physics or not. BES-III measurements of f(D+) and f(Ds) at the similar to 1% precision level will match the precision of lattice QCD calculations and provide the opportunity to probe the charged Higgs sector in some mass ranges that will be inaccessible to the LHC. With modern techniques and huge data samples, searches for rare, lepton-number violating, flavor violating and/or invisible decays of D-mesons, charmonium resonances, and tau-leptons will be possible. Studies of tau-charm physics could reveal or indicate the possible presence of new physics in the low energy region. This physics book provides detailed discussions on important topics in tau-charm physics that will be explored during the next few years at BES-III. Both theoretical and experimental issues are covered, including extensive reviews of recent theoretical developments and experimental techniques. Among the subjects covered are: innovations in Partial Wave Analysis (PWA), theoretical and experimental techniques for Dalitz-plot analyses, analysis tools to extract absolute branching fractions and measurements of decay constants, form factors, and CP-violation and D-0(D) over bar (0)-oscillation parameters. Programs of QCD studies and near-threshold tau-lepton physics measurements are also discussed