Applying semantic web technologies to knowledge sharing in aerospace engineering

This paper details an integrated methodology to optimise Knowledge reuse and sharing, illustrated with a use case in the aeronautics domain. It uses Ontologies as a central modelling strategy for the Capture of Knowledge from legacy docu-ments via automated means, or directly in systems interfacing with Knowledge workers, via user-defined, web-based forms. The domain ontologies used for Knowledge Capture also guide the retrieval of the Knowledge extracted from the data using a Semantic Search System that provides support for multiple modalities during search. This approach has been applied and evaluated successfully within the aerospace domain, and is currently being extended for use in other domains on an increasingly large scale

A framework for deriving semantic web services

Web service-based development represents an emerging approach for the development of distributed information systems. Web services have been mainly applied by software practitioners as a means to modularize system functionality that can be offered across a network (e.g., intranet and/or the Internet). Although web services have been predominantly developed as a technical solution for integrating software systems, there is a more business-oriented aspect that developers and enterprises need to deal with in order to benefit from the full potential of web services in an electronic market. This ‘ignored’ aspect is the representation of the semantics underlying the services themselves as well as the ‘things’ that the services manage. Currently languages like the Web Services Description Language (WSDL) provide the syntactic means to describe web services, but lack in providing a semantic underpinning. In order to harvest all the benefits of web services technology, a framework has been developed for deriving business semantics from syntactic descriptions of web services. The benefits of such a framework are two-fold. Firstly, the framework provides a way to gradually construct domain ontologies from previously defined technical services. Secondly, the framework enables the migration of syntactically defined web services toward semantic web services. The study follows a design research approach which (1) identifies the problem area and its relevance from an industrial case study and previous research, (2) develops the framework as a design artifact and (3) evaluates the application of the framework through a relevant scenario

Cognitive Flexibility Predicts PTSD Symptoms: Observational and Interventional Studies

Introduction: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a prevalent, severe and tenacious psychopathological consequence of traumatic events. Neurobehavioral mechanisms underlying PTSD pathogenesis have been identified, and may serve as risk-resilience factors during the early aftermath of trauma exposure. Longitudinally documenting the neurobehavioral dimensions of early responses to trauma may help characterize survivors at risk and inform mechanism-based interventions. We present two independent longitudinal studies that repeatedly probed clinical symptoms and neurocognitive domains in recent trauma survivors. We hypothesized that better neurocognitive functioning shortly after trauma will be associated with less severe PTSD symptoms a year later, and that an early neurocognitive intervention will improve cognitive functioning and reduce PTSD symptoms.Methods: Participants in both studies were adult survivors of traumatic events admitted to two general hospitals’ emergency departments (EDs) in Israel. The studies used identical clinical and neurocognitive tools, which included assessment of PTSD symptoms and diagnosis, and a battery of neurocognitive tests. The first study evaluated 181 trauma-exposed individuals one-, six-, and 14 months following trauma exposure. The second study evaluated 97 trauma survivors 1 month after trauma exposure, randomly allocated to 30 days of web-based neurocognitive intervention (n = 50) or control tasks (n = 47), and re-evaluated all subjects three- and 6 months after trauma exposure.Results: In the first study, individuals with better cognitive flexibility at 1 month post-trauma showed significantly less severe PTSD symptoms after 13 months (p = 0.002). In the second study, the neurocognitive training group showed more improvement in cognitive flexibility post-intervention (p = 0.019), and lower PTSD symptoms 6 months post-trauma (p = 0.017), compared with controls. Intervention- induced improvement in cognitive flexibility positively correlated with clinical improvement (p = 0.002).Discussion: Cognitive flexibility, shortly after trauma exposure, emerged as a significant predictor of PTSD symptom severity. It was also ameliorated by a neurocognitive intervention and associated with a better treatment outcome. These findings support further research into the implementation of mechanism-driven neurocognitive preventive interventions for PTSD

Mathematical practice, crowdsourcing, and social machines

The highest level of mathematics has traditionally been seen as a solitary endeavour, to produce a proof for review and acceptance by research peers. Mathematics is now at a remarkable inflexion point, with new technology radically extending the power and limits of individuals. Crowdsourcing pulls together diverse experts to solve problems; symbolic computation tackles huge routine calculations; and computers check proofs too long and complicated for humans to comprehend. Mathematical practice is an emerging interdisciplinary field which draws on philosophy and social science to understand how mathematics is produced. Online mathematical activity provides a novel and rich source of data for empirical investigation of mathematical practice - for example the community question answering system {\it mathoverflow} contains around 40,000 mathematical conversations, and {\it polymath} collaborations provide transcripts of the process of discovering proofs. Our preliminary investigations have demonstrated the importance of "soft" aspects such as analogy and creativity, alongside deduction and proof, in the production of mathematics, and have given us new ways to think about the roles of people and machines in creating new mathematical knowledge. We discuss further investigation of these resources and what it might reveal. Crowdsourced mathematical activity is an example of a "social machine", a new paradigm, identified by Berners-Lee, for viewing a combination of people and computers as a single problem-solving entity, and the subject of major international research endeavours. We outline a future research agenda for mathematics social machines, a combination of people, computers, and mathematical archives to create and apply mathematics, with the potential to change the way people do mathematics, and to transform the reach, pace, and impact of mathematics research.Comment: To appear, Springer LNCS, Proceedings of Conferences on Intelligent Computer Mathematics, CICM 2013, July 2013 Bath, U

On Correctness of Data Structures under Reads-Write Concurrency

Abstract. We study the correctness of shared data structures under reads-write concurrency. A popular approach to ensuring correctness of read-only operations in the presence of concurrent update, is read-set validation, which checks that all read variables have not changed since they were first read. In practice, this approach is often too conserva-tive, which adversely affects performance. In this paper, we introduce a new framework for reasoning about correctness of data structures under reads-write concurrency, which replaces validation of the entire read-set with more general criteria. Namely, instead of verifying that all read conditions over the shared variables, which we call base conditions. We show that reading values that satisfy some base condition at every point in time implies correctness of read-only operations executing in parallel with updates. Somewhat surprisingly, the resulting correctness guarantee is not equivalent to linearizability, and is instead captured through two new conditions: validity and regularity. Roughly speaking, the former re-quires that a read-only operation never reaches a state unreachable in a sequential execution; the latter generalizes Lamport’s notion of regular-ity for arbitrary data structures, and is weaker than linearizability. We further extend our framework to capture also linearizability. We illus-trate how our framework can be applied for reasoning about correctness of a variety of implementations of data structures such as linked lists.

Global Diversity of Brittle Stars (Echinodermata: Ophiuroidea)

This review presents a comprehensive overview of the current status regarding the global diversity of the echinoderm class Ophiuroidea, focussing on taxonomy and distribution patterns, with brief introduction to their anatomy, biology, phylogeny, and palaeontological history. A glossary of terms is provided. Species names and taxonomic decisions have been extracted from the literature and compiled in The World Ophiuroidea Database, part of the World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS). Ophiuroidea, with 2064 known species, are the largest class of Echinodermata. A table presents 16 families with numbers of genera and species. The largest are Amphiuridae (467), Ophiuridae (344 species) and Ophiacanthidae (319 species). A biogeographic analysis for all world oceans and all accepted species was performed, based on published distribution records. Approximately similar numbers of species were recorded from the shelf (n = 1313) and bathyal depth strata (1297). The Indo-Pacific region had the highest species richness overall (825 species) and at all depths. Adjacent regions were also relatively species rich, including the North Pacific (398), South Pacific (355) and Indian (316) due to the presence of many Indo-Pacific species that partially extended into these regions. A secondary region of enhanced species richness was found in the West Atlantic (335). Regions of relatively low species richness include the Arctic (73 species), East Atlantic (118), South America (124) and Antarctic (126)

Coherently aligned nanoparticles within a biogenic single crystal: A biological prestressing strategy

In contrast to synthetic materials, materials produced by organisms are formed in ambient conditions and with a limited selection of elements. Nevertheless, living organisms reveal elegant strategies for achieving specific functions, ranging from skeletal support to mastication, from sensors and defensive tools to optical function. Using state-of-the-art characterization techniques, we present a biostrategy for strengthening and toughening the otherwise brittle calcite optical lenses found in the brittlestar Ophiocoma wendtii This intriguing process uses coherent nanoprecipitates to induce compressive stresses on the host matrix, functionally resembling the Guinier-Preston zones known in classical metallurgy. We believe that these calcitic nanoparticles, being rich in magnesium, segregate during or just after transformation from amorphous to crystalline phase, similarly to segregation behavior from a supersaturated quenched alloy

AGUIA: autonomous graphical user interface assembly for clinical trials semantic data services

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>AGUIA is a front-end web application originally developed to manage clinical, demographic and biomolecular patient data collected during clinical trials at MD Anderson Cancer Center. The diversity of methods involved in patient screening and sample processing generates a variety of data types that require a resource-oriented architecture to capture the associations between the heterogeneous data elements. AGUIA uses a semantic web formalism, resource description framework (RDF), and a bottom-up design of knowledge bases that employ the S3DB tool as the starting point for the client's interface assembly.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The data web service, S3DB, meets the necessary requirements of generating the RDF and of explicitly distinguishing the description of the domain from its instantiation, while allowing for continuous editing of both. Furthermore, it uses an HTTP-REST protocol, has a SPARQL endpoint, and has open source availability in the public domain, which facilitates the development and dissemination of this application. However, S3DB alone does not address the issue of representing content in a form that makes sense for domain experts.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We identified an autonomous set of descriptors, the GBox, that provides user and domain specifications for the graphical user interface. This was achieved by identifying a formalism that makes use of an RDF schema to enable the automatic assembly of graphical user interfaces in a meaningful manner while using only resources native to the client web browser (JavaScript interpreter, document object model). We defined a generalized RDF model such that changes in the graphic descriptors are automatically and immediately (locally) reflected into the configuration of the client's interface application.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The design patterns identified for the GBox benefit from and reflect the specific requirements of interacting with data generated by clinical trials, and they contain clues for a general purpose solution to the challenge of having interfaces automatically assembled for multiple and volatile views of a domain. By coding AGUIA in JavaScript, for which all browsers include a native interpreter, a solution was found that assembles interfaces that are meaningful to the particular user, and which are also ubiquitous and lightweight, allowing the computational load to be carried by the client's machine.</p

Isothermal folding of G-quadruplexes

Thermodynamic studies of G-quadruplex stability are an essential complement to structures obtained by NMR or x-ray crystallography. An understanding of the energetics of quadruplex folding provides a necessary foundation for the physical interpretation of quadruplex formation and reactivity. While thermal denaturation methods are most commonly used to evaluate quadruplex stability, it is also possible to study folding using isothermal titration methods. G-quadruplex folding is tightly coupled to specific cation binding. We describe here protocols for monitoring the cation-driven quadruplex folding transition using circular dichroism or absorbance, and for determination of the distribution of free and bound cation using a fluorescence indicator. Together these approaches provide insight into quadruplex folding at constant temperature, and characterize the linkage between cation binding and folding