Integrating heterogeneous web service styles with flexible semantic web services groundings

Semantic web services are touted as a means to integrate web services inside and outside the enterprise, but while current semantic web service frameworks— including OWL-S [1], SA-WSDL, and WSMO 1 [2]—assume a homogeneous ecosystem of SOAP services and XML serialisations, growing numbers of real services are implemented using XML-RPC and RESTful interfaces, and non-XML serialisations like JSON. 2 Semantic services platforms based on OWL-S and WSMO use XML mapping languages to translate between an XML serialisation of the ontology data and the on-the-wire messages exchanged with the web service, a process referred to as grounding. This XML mapping approach suffers from two problems: it cannot address the growing number of non-SOAP, non-XML services being deployed on the Web, and it requires the modeller creating the semantic web service descriptions to work with the serialisation of the service ontology and a syntactic mapping language, in addition to the knowledge representation language used for representing the semantic service ontologies and descriptions. Our approach draws the service’s interface into the ontology: we defin

Petroglyphs of the Kansas Smoky Hills

Review of: Petroglyphs of the Kansas Smoky Hills, by Rex C. Buchanan, Burke W. Griggs, and Joshua L. Svaty

Hidden Thunder: Rock Art of the Upper Midwest

Review of: Hidden Thunder: Rock Art of the Upper Midwest, by Geri Schrab and Robert F. Boszhard

Hidden symmetry in the presence of fluxes

We derive the most general first order symmetry operator for the Dirac equation coupled to arbitrary fluxes. Such an operator is given in terms of an inhomogenous form omega which is a solution to a coupled system of first order partial differential equations which we call the generalized conformal Killing-Yano system. Except trivial fluxes, solutions of this system are subject to additional constraints. We discuss various special cases of physical interest. In particular, we demonstrate that in the case of a Dirac operator coupled to the skew symmetric torsion and U(1) field, the system of generalized conformal Killing-Yano equations decouples into the homogenous conformal Killing-Yano equations with torsion introduced in [arXiv:0905.0722] and the symmetry operator is essentially the one derived in [arXiv:1002.3616]. We also discuss the Dirac field coupled to a scalar potential and in the presence of 5-form and 7-form fluxes.Comment: 13 pages, no figure

Does Management Matter? Evidence from India

A long-standing question in social science is to what extent differences in management cause differences in firm performance. To investigate this we ran a management field experiment on large Indian textile firms. We provided free consulting on modern management practices to a randomly chosen set of treatment plants and compared their performance to the control plants. We find that adopting these management practices had three main effects. First, it raised average productivity by 11% through improved quality and efficiency and reduced inventory. Second, it increased decentralization of decision making, as better information flow enabled owners to delegate more decisions to middle managers. Third, it increased the use of computers, necessitated by the data collection and analysis involved in modern management. Since these practices were profitable this raises the question of why firms had not adopted these before. Our results suggest that informational barriers were a primary factor in explaining this lack of adoption. Modern management is a technology that diffuses slowly between firms, with many Indian firms initially unaware of its existence or impact. Since competition was limited by constraints on firm entry and growth, badly managed firms were not rapidly driven from the market.management, organization, IT, productivity and India

Legal capacities required for prevention and control of noncommunicable diseases

Law lies at the centre of successful national strategies for prevention and control of noncommunicable diseases. By law we mean international agreements, national and subnational legislation, regulations and other executive instruments, and decisions of courts and tribunals. However, the vital role of law in global health development is often poorly understood, and eclipsed by other disciplines such as medicine, public health and economics. This paper identifies key areas of intersection between law and noncommunicable diseases, beginning with the role of law as a tool for implementing policies for prevention and control of leading risk factors. We identify actions that the World Health Organization and its partners could take to mobilize the legal workforce, strengthen legal capacity and support effective use of law at the national level. Legal and regulatory actions must move to the centre of national noncommunicable disease action plans. This requires high-level leadership from global and national leaders, enacting evidence-based legislation and building legal capacities

Does management matter ? evidence from India

A long-standing question in social science is to what extent differences in management cause differences in firm performance. To investigate this, the authors ran a management field experiment on large Indian textile firms, providing free consulting on modern management practices to a randomly chosen set of treatment plants and compared their performance to the control plants. They find that adopting these management practices had three main effects. First, it raised average productivity by 11 percent through improved quality and efficiency and reduced inventory. Second, it increased decentralization of decision making, as better information flow enabled owners to delegate more decisions to middle managers. Third, it increased the use of computers, necessitated by the data collection and analysis involved in modern management. Since these practices were profitable this raises the question of why firms had not adopted these before. Their results suggest that informational barriers were a primary factor in explaining this lack of adoption. Modern management is a technology that diffuses slowly between firms, with many Indian firms initially unaware of its existence or impact. Since competition was limited by constraints on firm entry and growth, badly managed firms were not rapidly driven from the market.Labor Policies,E-Business,Agricultural Knowledge&Information Systems,Rural Development Knowledge&Information Systems,Labor Markets

The Measurement of Information Systems Effectiveness: Evaluating a Measuring Instrument

Information system effectiveness is an important phenomenon for both researchers and practitioners. Despite widespread interest, and the importance of the uses, there have been no efforts to validate CompufemorM’sPremier 100 rankings of information system effectiveness. This paper uses structural equation modeling in an attempt to validate the measuring instrument usee to derive the Computerworld rankings. Alternative models for the measuring insrrument are proposed. TJsing a .reflective model, the findings raise doubts as to the reliability of the rankings, and both conteni validity 2nd construct validity are also suspect. The reliability and validity are problematic because multiple indicators of the same consvict must be homogeneous for it to make sense to combine them into a conposite index. A solution to this problem is to represent information system effectiveness as a multidimensional construct that is part of a causal model. Based on previous research in the area, suggestions are offered to improve the measuring instrument

White Micas as a tool for tracking pegmatite evolution and its use in Li exploration. A case study of Wekusko Lake, Manitoba, Canada.

The Wekusko Lake pegmatite field is part of the Green Bay Group of pegmatites located near Snow Lake, Manitoba, Canada. Within this field, there are at least 13 spodumene-bearing pegmatites of varying degrees of mineralization. The abundance of white micas and the chemical affinity to incorporate Li and other trace elements into its crystalline structure makes white micas an ideal indicator mineral. The evolution of a melt can be tracked using trace elements in white mica. The K/Rb ratio vs Cs is used to determine a link between increasing evolution and increased Li contents of both the white mica and the pegmatite. White mica compositions were examined using portable Raman and LIBS to evaluate whether Li contents can be determined in the field. The LIBS was able to identify the pegmatites dikes with the highest Li contents, which can be applied to real-time decision-making during exploration

Commuting symmetry operators of the Dirac equation, Killing-Yano and Schouten-Nijenhuis brackets

In this paper we derive the most general first-order symmetry operator commuting with the Dirac operator in all dimensions and signatures. Such an operator splits into Clifford even and Clifford odd parts which are given in terms of odd Killing-Yano and even closed conformal Killing-Yano inhomogeneous forms respectively. We study commutators of these symmetry operators and give necessary and sufficient conditions under which they remain of the first-order. In this specific setting we can introduce a Killing-Yano bracket, a bilinear operation acting on odd Killing-Yano and even closed conformal Killing-Yano forms, and demonstrate that it is closely related to the Schouten-Nijenhuis bracket. An important non-trivial example of vanishing Killing-Yano brackets is given by Dirac symmetry operators generated from the principal conformal Killing-Yano tensor [hep-th/0612029]. We show that among these operators one can find a complete subset of mutually commuting operators. These operators underlie separability of the Dirac equation in Kerr-NUT-(A)dS spacetimes in all dimensions [arXiv:0711.0078].Comment: 37 pages, no figure