Enriching Metadata for a University Repository by Modelling and Infrastructure: A New Vocabulary Server for Phaidra

Dieser Beitrag erörtert einen der ersten Schritte im Zusammenhang mit der „semantischen Anreicherung“ des Phaidra-Repositoriums der Universität Wien  Zunächst wird in einem technischen Report auf die in einem lokalen Kontext getroffene Auswahl hingewiesen, d.h. auf die Bereitstellung des Vocabularyservers iQvoc anstelle des zuvor verwendeten SKOSMOS, und erläutert die für die Implementierung erforderlichen Entscheidungen hinsichtlich des Designs des aktuellen Tools sowie zusätzliche Funktionen. Anschließend werden einige Modellierungsmerkmale des lokalen LOD-gesteuerten Vokabulars gemäß der SKOS-Dokumentation und den -Best Practices beschrieben, wobei aufgezeigt wird, welche Ansätze zur Bereitstellung eines LOD-KOS im Web verfolgt werden und welche Probleme dabei möglicherweise auftreten können.This paper illustrates an initial step towards the ‘semantic enrichment’ of University of Vienna’s Phaidra repository as one of the valuable and up-to-date strategies able to enhance its role and usage. Firstly, a technical report points out the choice made in a local context, i.e. the deployment of the vocabulary server iQvoc instead of the formerly used SKOSMOS, explaining design decisions behind the current tool and additional features that the implementation required. Afterwards, some modelling characteristics of the local LOD controlled vocabulary are described according to SKOS documentation and best practices, highlighting which approaches can be pursued for rendering a LOD KOS available in the Web as well as issues that can be possibly encountered

Simple ions control the elasticity of calcite gels via interparticle forces

Suspensions of calcite in water are employed in many industrial fields such as paper filling, pharmaceutics, heritage conservation or building construction, where the rheological properties of the paste need to be controlled. We measure the impact of simple ions such as calcium, sodium or hydroxide on the elasticity of a nanocalcite paste, which behaves as a colloidal gel. We confront our macroscopic measurements to DLVO interaction potentials, based on chemical speciations and measurements of the zeta potential. By changing the ion type and concentration, we go beyond the small repulsion regime and span two orders of magnitude in shear modulus. Upon addition of calcium hydroxide, we observe a minimum in shear modulus, correlated to a maximum in the DLVO energy barrier, due to two competing effects: Calcium adsorption onto calcite surface rises the zeta potential and consequently the electrostatic repulsion, while increasing salt concentration induces stronger electrostatic screening. We also demonstrate that the addition of sodium hydroxide completely screens the surface charge and leads to a more rigid paste. A second important result is that carbonation of the calcite suspensions by the atmospheric CO 2 leads to a convergent high elasticity of the colloidal gels, whatever their initial value, also well rationalized by DLVO theory and resulting from a decrease in zeta potential and in surface charge density

Pedestrian Models for Autonomous Driving Part II: High-Level Models of Human Behavior

Abstract—Autonomous vehicles (AVs) must share space with pedestrians, both in carriageway cases such as cars at pedestrian crossings and off-carriageway cases such as delivery vehicles navigating through crowds on pedestrianized high-streets. Unlike static obstacles, pedestrians are active agents with complex, inter- active motions. Planning AV actions in the presence of pedestrians thus requires modelling of their probable future behaviour as well as detecting and tracking them. This narrative review article is Part II of a pair, together surveying the current technology stack involved in this process, organising recent research into a hierarchical taxonomy ranging from low-level image detection to high-level psychological models, from the perspective of an AV designer. This self-contained Part II covers the higher levels of this stack, consisting of models of pedestrian behaviour, from prediction of individual pedestrians’ likely destinations and paths, to game-theoretic models of interactions between pedestrians and autonomous vehicles. This survey clearly shows that, although there are good models for optimal walking behaviour, high-level psychological and social modelling of pedestrian behaviour still remains an open research question that requires many conceptual issues to be clarified. Early work has been done on descriptive and qualitative models of behaviour, but much work is still needed to translate them into quantitative algorithms for practical AV control

The fingerprinting of Sedivitax, a commercial botanical dietary supplement: The classical LC-MS approach vs direct metabolite mapping.

The use of phytochemical preparations has shown a massive growth and consequently the related quality control is an important topic. Considering the possible interactions of the active molecules, arising to synergic phenomena, the use of the classical approach, based on the evaluation of the level of one ormore active compounds can be limitative.Recently a method, based on the direct infusion of commercial botanical dietary supplements in an ESI source operating in positive and negative ion modes has been proposed. The results so obtained were highly promising, allowing the presence of specific plant extracts in commercial products to be determined. In order to evaluate its validity, the data so obtained have been compared with those achievable by a more consolidated technique, as LCMS is. For this aim Sedivitax gocce (a commercial product composed by extracts of Passiflora incarnata, Eschscholtzia californica, Melissa officinalis and Valeriana officinalis) has been considered. Either the plant extracts or Sedivitax samples produced in different years have been analyzed by ESI (\ub1) with direct infusion and LC-MS. The data obtained were elaborated with different statistical methods. The results suggest that mass spectrometry linked to statistical methods can be a quick method to assess the overall stability of a botanical dietary supplement, and can be proposed as a promising perspective in quality control

An SPR investigation into the therapeutic drug monitoring of the anticancer drug imatinib with selective aptamers operating in human plasma

The anticancer drug imatinib is often involved in therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) studies aimed at improving the treatment of several forms of leukemia and gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GIST). To further implement the TDM of imatinib in clinical practice, we developed a detection assay by using an ssDNA aptamer, which demonstrated excellent selectivity and was not affected by interference from the components of human plasma samples. The efficient binding of imatinib to the aptamer was demonstrated by means of surface plasmon resonance (SPR) analysis, which allowed the development of a quantitative assay in the concentration range between 400 and 6000 ng mL 121 (0.7\u201310 \u3bcM), where a lower limit of quantification (LLOQ) of 400 ng mL 121 was achieved. The precision of the assay was found to be within 12.0%, whereas the accuracy was in a range between 97.1 and 101.5%. The sample preparation procedure displayed a recovery in the range of 48.8\u201352.8%. Solid validation data were collected according to the regulatory guidelines and the method was compared with standard analytical techniques, leading to the development of a feasible aptasensor for the TDM of patients administered with imatinib

A metabolite fingerprinting for the characterization of commercial botanical dietary supplements

Phytopharmaceuticals, phytomedicines and botanical dietary supplements are products of wide interest considering the increase of their use. The development of fast and effective analytical methods able to give a fingerprinting of the product, on the basis of the plant extracts declared to be contained in it, is surely of high interest. In a previous investigation electrospray mass spectrometry was proved to be effective for the characterization of plant extracts. The direct infusion of the samples and the analyses in both positive and negative ion mode lead to a clear differentiation of the different samples. To verify if the same approach can be effective also for mixtures of plant extracts, five different commercial dietary supplements [Sedivitax gocce (1), Finocarbo Plus opercoli (2), Sollievo Bio tavolette (3), MiniMas opercoli (4) and Ruscoven gocce (5), all products from Aboca S.p.A., Sansepolcro, Italy] were analyzed by ESI. In order to evaluate possible changes in the metabolic profile with respect to different years of production, ten different batches of the commercial dietary supplements were considered. The mass spectral data were evaluated by multivariate analysis and the obtained results suggest that the method allows a satisfactory and rapid characterization of complex mixtures of commercial dietary supplements