An ontological approach for recovering legacy business content

Legacy Information Systems (LIS) pose a challenge for many organizations. On one hand, LIS are viewed as aging systems needing replacement; on the other hand, years of accumulated business knowledge have made these systems mission-critical. Current approaches however are often criticized for being overtly dependent on technology and ignoring the business knowledge which resides within LIS. In this light, this paper proposes a means of capturing the business knowledge in a technology agnostic manner and transforming it in a way that reaps the benefits of clear semantic expression - this transformation is achieved via the careful use of ontology. The approach called Content Sophistication (CS) aims to provide a model of the business that more closely adheres to the semantics and relationships of objects existing in the real world. The approach is illustrated via an example taken from a case study concerning the renovation of a large financial system and the outcome of the approach results in technology agnostic models that show improvements along several dimensions

Evolving concepts of lunar architecture: The potential of subselene development

In view of the superior environmental and operational conditions that are thought to exist in lava tubes, popular visions of permanent settlements built upon the lunar surface may prove to be entirely romantic. The factors that will ultimately come together to determine the design of a lunar base are complex and interrelated, and they call for a radical architectural solution. Whether lunar surface-deployed superstructures can answer these issues is called into question. One particularly troublesome concern in any lunar base design is the need for vast amounts of space, and the ability of man-made structures to provide such volumes in a reliable pressurized habitat is doubtful. An examination of several key environmental design issues suggests that the alternative mode of subselene development may offer the best opportunity for an enduring and humane settlement

Machine vibration monitoring for diagnostics through hypothesis testing

Nowadays, the subject of machine diagnostics is gathering growing interest in the research field as switching from a programmed to a preventive maintenance regime based on the real health conditions (i.e., condition-based maintenance) can lead to great advantages both in terms of safety and costs. Nondestructive tests monitoring the state of health are fundamental for this purpose. An effective form of condition monitoring is that based on vibration (vibration monitoring), which exploits inexpensive accelerometers to perform machine diagnostics. In this work, statistics and hypothesis testing will be used to build a solid foundation for damage detection by recognition of patterns in a multivariate dataset which collects simple time features extracted from accelerometric measurements. In this regard, data from high-speed aeronautical bearings were analyzed. These were acquired on a test rig built by the Dynamic and Identification Research Group (DIRG) of the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Politecnico di Torino. The proposed strategy was to reduce the multivariate dataset to a single index which the health conditions can be determined. This dimensionality reduction was initially performed using Principal Component Analysis, which proved to be a lossy compression. Improvement was obtained via Fisher’s Linear Discriminant Analysis, which finds the direction with maximum distance between the damaged and healthy indices. This method is still ineffective in highlighting phenomena that develop in directions orthogonal to the discriminant. Finally, a lossless compression was achieved using the Mahalanobis distance-based Novelty Indices, which was also able to compensate for possible latent confounding factors. Further, considerations about the confidence, the sensitivity, the curse of dimensionality, and the minimum number of samples were also tackled for ensuring statistical significance. The results obtained here were very good not only in terms of reduced amounts of missed and false alarms, but also considering the speed of the algorithms, their simplicity, and the full independence from human interaction, which make them suitable for real time implementation and integration in condition-based maintenance (CBM) regimes

Pengembangan Modul Berbasis Problem Based Learning (PBL) Materi Sistem Ekskresi Manusia

The teacher has a very important role in the development of education, namely as a teacher and as an educator. One of the ways to develop education is in the development of the learning process. Module development is part of the development of the learning process. The module developed in this study with the Problem Based Learning (PBL). This study aims to determine the feasibility of developing a Problem Based Learning (PBL) module on Human Excretion System Material for class XI students. This type of research used in this research is development. The development model used is ADDIE development which consists of 5 stages, namely Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, Evaluation. Based on observations at Taman Madya Senior High School, the modules used have not been able to improve student intelligence and have not shown the integration of biological concepts. This study aims to see, the feasibility and effectiveness of the inner module can be used as an understanding of students in class XII SMA Taman Madya, on the subject matter of the Excretion System in humans. The design of this research is ADDIE. Based on the research results, it shows that the PBL-based process has been developed and is declared feasible to be tested. The quality of the module based on the results of material expert validation is Very Good (B) with a proportion of 66%, media expert is Very Good (SB) with a proportion of 76%

Wayfinding and Glaucoma: A Virtual Reality Experiment.

PurposeWayfinding, the process of determining and following a route between an origin and a destination, is an integral part of everyday tasks. The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of glaucomatous visual field loss on wayfinding behavior using an immersive virtual reality (VR) environment.MethodsThis cross-sectional study included 31 glaucomatous patients and 20 healthy subjects without evidence of overall cognitive impairment. Wayfinding experiments were modeled after the Morris water maze navigation task and conducted in an immersive VR environment. Two rooms were built varying only in the complexity of the visual scene in order to promote allocentric-based (room A, with multiple visual cues) versus egocentric-based (room B, with single visual cue) spatial representations of the environment. Wayfinding tasks in each room consisted of revisiting previously visible targets that subsequently became invisible.ResultsFor room A, glaucoma patients spent on average 35.0 seconds to perform the wayfinding task, whereas healthy subjects spent an average of 24.4 seconds (P = 0.001). For room B, no statistically significant difference was seen on average time to complete the task (26.2 seconds versus 23.4 seconds, respectively; P = 0.514). For room A, each 1-dB worse binocular mean sensitivity was associated with 3.4% (P = 0.001) increase in time to complete the task.ConclusionsGlaucoma patients performed significantly worse on allocentric-based wayfinding tasks conducted in a VR environment, suggesting visual field loss may affect the construction of spatial cognitive maps relevant to successful wayfinding. VR environments may represent a useful approach for assessing functional vision endpoints for clinical trials of emerging therapies in ophthalmology

Macular Pigment and Visual Function in Patients With Glaucoma: The San Diego Macular Pigment Study.

PurposeAlthough recent studies have shown that macular pigment (MP) is significantly lower in glaucoma patients, this relationship merits further investigation.MethodsThis cross-sectional study included 85 glaucoma patients and 22 controls. All subjects had standard automated perimetry (SAP) and retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL) thickness measurements. Intake of lutein (L) and zeaxanthin (Z) was estimated using a novel dietary screener. The Heidelberg Spectralis dual-wavelength autofluorescence (AF) technology was employed to study the relationship between MP and glaucoma. The association between MP volume and glaucoma was investigated using linear regression models accounting for potential confounding factors.ResultsGlaucoma patients had significantly worse SAP mean deviation (MD) and lower RNFL thickness in the study eye compared to control subjects (P < 0.001 for both). MP (volume) was comparable between groups (P = 0.436). In the univariable model, diagnosis of glaucoma was not associated with MP volume (R2 = 1.22%; P = 0.257). Dietary intake of L and Z was positively and significantly related to MP in the univariable (P = 0.022) and multivariable (P = 0.020) models.ConclusionsThese results challenge previous studies that reported that glaucoma is associated with low MP. Dietary habits were found to be the main predictor of MP in this sample. Further research is merited to better understand the relationship between glaucoma, MP, and visual performance in these patients

Wind turbine drive-train condition monitoring through tower vibrations measurement and processing

A new method for wind turbine drive-train condition monitoring is proposed: the innovative idea is that vibrations are measured at the tower. The critical point is extracting knowledge about the drive-train from tower measurements: this is achieved by measuring simultaneously at the highest possible number of nearby wind turbines. One wind turbine is selected as target and the others are used as reference. The data are analyzed in the time domain basing on statistical features (root mean square, peak, crest factor, skewness, kurtosis). The data set in the feature space reduces to a matrix, from which the observations at the target wind turbine should be distinguishable. The application of this algorithm is supported by univariate statistical tests and by Principal Component Analysis. A novelty index based on the Mahalanobis distance is finally used to detect the statistical novelty of the damaged wind turbine. This work is based on field measurement campaigns, performed by the authors in 2018 and 2019 at wind farms owned by the Renvico company