DC Proposal: Evaluating trustworthiness of web content using semantic web technologies

Trust plays an important part in people's decision processes for using information. This is especially true on the Web, which has less quality control for publishing information. Untrustworthy data may lead users to make wrong decisions or result in the misunderstanding of concepts. Therefore, it is important for users to have a mechanism for assessing the trustworthiness of the information they consume. Prior research focuses on policy-based and reputation-based trust. It does not take the information itself into account. In this PhD research, we focus on evaluating the trustworthiness of Web content based on available and inferred metadata that can be obtained using Semantic Web technologies. This paper discusses the vision of our PhD work and presents an approach to solve that problem

Biodiversity into your hands - A call for a virtual global natural history 'metacollection'

10.1186/1742-9994-10-55Frontiers in Zoology101

Incremental loading in the persistent C++ language E

"February 1994." "To appear in Journal of object-oriented programming."Includes bibliographical references (p. 18).Supported by the Productivity From Information Technology (PROFIT) Research Initiative at MIT.Murali Vemulapati, D. Sriram, Amar Gupta

Animal Health and Disease Monitoring in the Abattoir

All slaughter animals are examined before and after slaughter by an Official Veterinarian. Findings of diseases and conditions that could affect public health or animal health have to be reported to the management of the abattoir and the private veterinarian as well as the farmer of the farm of origin. The abattoir provides a vast amount of information on zoonotic and notifiable diseases, as well as diseases relevant for animal husbandry or on-farm animal health. Notifiable diseases can be identified through clinical signs (e.g. foot-and-mouth disease), but in specific cases samples are taken for serological surveillance (e.g. Aujeszky's disease). Surveillance and monitoring schemes are generally based on the Terrestrial Animal Health Code of the World Organisation for Animal Health. Bovine tuberculosis is another example of a disease for which monitoring and surveillance is often entirely based on abattoir detection. For transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs) abattoir sampling constitutes an important proportion of all samples taken. Monitoring of public health threats, including diseases such as trichinellosis and cysticercosis, remains an important element of the inspection practices in the abattoir. Monitoring of trichinellosis can be risk based: only pigs expected to be at a higher risk of infection are included in the testing regimen. Abattoir sampling is also used for assessment of compliance with legislation on residues of antimicrobial drugs in meat. The number of samples is small, but the sampling itself has a preventive effect. An important category of diseases are those relevant for the performance on farm. Some examples are lung and heart lesions, as well as several parasitic diseases such as liver fluke. Indicators for welfare problems on-farm may also appear at slaughter. Foot lesions in poultry and tail biting in pigs are some examples. Abattoir information is easy and cheap to come by and is underutilised at the moment, particularly to feed into animal health management on farm. It would be advisable to design a feedback system in which post-mortem findings are described with the interest of the farmer and her/his veterinary surgeon in min

The contribution of horticulture to the conservation of critically endangered Wollemia nobilis

After the critically endangered conifer Wollemia nobilis (Wollemi pine) was discovered in late 1994, an urgent task was to determine its cultivation requirements so that an ex situ population could be established. Propagation from extremely limited material was the first challenge, followed by development of a genetically representative ex situ conservation population. While the ex situ population was developed for insurance against loss of diversity in the wild population, it has also been used for research, and as the source of material for translocations, dispersed garden plantings and a botanic garden metacollection. Here, we report how these challenges were approached, based on nascent understanding of W. nobilis – as an Araucarian and as a rainforest emergent. As studies into the morphology and biology of the species progressed, these findings were used to refine propagation techniques. The establishment of this species in gardens around the world has expanded our knowledge of its biology and ecology. Insights concerning its behaviour in cultivation include its intolerance of extreme heat, extreme cold, high light and drought, and a preference for free-draining and acid soils – conditions approximating to its temperate rainforest origin. Now that these garden plants have begun to produce seeds, there is the opportunity for deeper research into factors influencing seed viability and plant establishment from seeds. This paper reviews many of the published studies aimed at understanding various aspects of W. nobilis biology, particularly those relevant to informing its requirements in cultivation. We also present data and conclusions drawn from unpublished studies which cumulatively aid efforts to conserve the species ex situ

Using pedigree tracking of the ex situ metacollection of Amorphophallus titanum (Araceae) to identify challenges to maintaining genetic diversity in the botanical community

Background and Aims Rapid global biodiversity loss emphasizes the need to employ strategies that conserve the long-term viability of ex situ plant collections. A pedigree-based management approach is an effective strategy to track genetic diversity of living collections; however, its implementation requires accession-level data for all individuals across all botanic garden collections. Here, we use historic accession records to construct a pedigree and test how effective current protocols have been in managing ex situ diversity. Methods We selected the titan arum, Amorphophallus titanum (Araceae), for this study, as it is exceptional, endangered, and has been globally held in collections for nearly 150 years. A pedigree-based data management approach would benefit the ex situ conservation of many similar species. Using accession data from nearly 1200 individual plants from 111 institutions worldwide, we constructed a pedigree to track the history of this species in collections and evaluate how well genetic diversity has been maintained in the metacollection. Key Results We found that data and records for the ex situ metacollection of Amorphophallus titanum are severely lacking and are not standardized within the botanical community. Using the available data, we found that the metacollection is derived from few founders, material is rarely exchanged between institutions on different continents, and nearly a quarter of known crosses are between related individuals. Conclusions Our work highlights the need for consistent, detailed record-keeping for effective implementation of an informed pedigree-based management approach and long-term maintenance of collections of endangered plant species in botanic gardens

SIERA-ex (Single-Island Endemic Representativeness Analysis for ex situ Collections): a Kauaʻi-based plant conservation model

M.L.I.Sc

Aligning Our Books to Our Patrons

Three universities (Santa Clara University, University of San Francisco, Loyola Marymount University) have engaged in a multi-year project to leverage patron-initiated inter-library borrowing data to inform collection development. We now have three years of analyzing data for inter-library borrowing, spending, and circulation of local collections. In addition to establishing what a “normal” level of borrowing looks like, we have used this data to identify and fix gaps in our local collections; we also now have data on subsequent circulations of titles purchased as a result of this project. One original goal of the project was to strengthen the meta-collection of our consortium (LINK+) through the intentional and coordinated diversification of approval plan profiles, however, massive change in our consortium membership is also requiring us to evaluate the impact on our libraries of issues like increased inter-library lending, demonstrating the risks as well as the rewards of shared collection decision making. We will discuss methodology and findings to date: how data is being gathered, analyzed, and then used on our campuses to inform collection development decisions

The Books We Didn\u27t Buy: Assessing What We Don\u27t Have

Santa Clara University and the University of San Francisco are leveraging patron-initiated borrowing data to create a deeper and more browse-able collection in certain subject areas where patrons have shown interest. This same ILL data has also been used to strengthen the meta-collection of our consortium (LINK+) through the intentional and coordinated diversification of approval plan profiles. When we began looking at our patron-initiated borrowing data, we could see that there are call number ranges where one or both universities borrow frequently. We will discuss both methodology and preliminary findings: how this data is being gathered, analyzed, and then used on our campuses to inform collection development decisions. How can one library (or a few libraries) strengthen the meta-collection of a consortium – especially without needing the consensus of all member libraries