O4OA Specification

This document is the reference ontology specification for the Ontology for Ontological Analysis (O4OA) version 2.6.This work has been developed under the project Digital Knowledge Graph – Adaptable Analytics API with the financial support of Accenture LTD, the Generalitat Valenciana through the CoMoDiD project (CIPROM/2021/023), the Spanish State Research Agency through the DELFOS (PDC2021-121243-I00) and SREC (PID2021-123824OB-I00) projects, MICIN/AEI/10.13039/501 100011033 and co-financed with ERDF and the European Union Next Generation EU/PRTR.Franco Martins Souza, B.; Guizzardi, R.; Pastor López, O. (2023). O4OA Specification. http://hdl.handle.net/10251/19672

Comparing traditional conceptual modeling with ontology-driven conceptual modeling: An empirical study

[EN] This paper conducts an empirical study that explores the differences between adopting a traditional conceptual modeling (TCM) technique and an ontology-driven conceptual modeling (ODCM) technique with the objective to understand and identify in which modeling situations an ODCM technique can prove beneficial compared to a TCM technique. More specifically, we asked ourselves if there exist any meaningful differences in the resulting conceptual model and the effort spent to create such model between novice modelers trained in an ontology-driven conceptual modeling technique and novice modelers trained in a traditional conceptual modeling technique. To answer this question, we discuss previous empirical research efforts and distill these efforts into two hypotheses. Next, these hypotheses are tested in a rigorously developed experiment, where a total of 100 students from two different Universities participated. The findings of our empirical study confirm that there do exist meaningful differences between adopting the two techniques. We observed that novice modelers applying the ODCM technique arrived at higher quality models compared to novice modelers applying the TCM technique. More specifically, the results of the empirical study demonstrated that it is advantageous to apply an ODCM technique over an TCM when having to model the more challenging and advanced facets of a certain domain or scenario. Moreover, we also did not find any significant difference in effort between applying these two techniques. Finally, we specified our results in three findings that aim to clarify the obtained results. (C) 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.This research has been funded by the Ghent University Special Research Fund (BOF 01N02014) and the National Bank of Belgium.Verdonck, M.; Gailly, F.; Pergl, R.; Guizzardi, G.; Franco Martins, B.; Pastor López, O. (2019). Comparing traditional conceptual modeling with ontology-driven conceptual modeling: An empirical study. Information Systems. 81:92-103. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.is.2018.11.009S921038

Towards the Consolidation of Cybersecurity Standardized Definitions

[ES] La ciberseguridad es un dominio vasto y complejo, por lo que las empresas están buscando activamente soluciones eficientes en este área. Los Knowledge Graphs (KG) son uno de los mecanismos que utilizan las organizaciones para explorar la seguridad entre activos y posibles ataques. Sin embargo, la gran cantidad de información puede generar una mala interpretación de los conceptos representados en estos modelos conceptuales. Como un Knowledge Graph puede considerarse una implementación de una conceptualización, la base de los conceptos es fundamental. De ahí, el apoyo de las mejores prácticas de Modelado Conceptual, especialmente de la rama de Ontologías. En este informe se lleva a cabo un estudio piloto para descubrir el estado del arte en ”Ontologías de Ciberseguridad”. A partir de este estudio, proponemos una encuesta para ampliar nuestro enfoque terminológico. La encuesta produjo una gran cantidad de datos, por lo que desarrollamos una API REST para la manipulación de datos y una base de datos NoSQL para almacenarlos, que es la principal contribución de este documento. Nuestro objetivo es proporcionar una herramienta de análisis ontológico para ayudar a las partes interesadas a evitar malas interpretaciones durante el desarrollo y la implementación de los KG.[EN] Cybersecurity is a vast and complex domain, therefore enterprises are actively seeking efficient solutions in this matter. Knowledge Graphs (KG) are one of the mechanisms that organizations use to explore the security among assets and possible attacks. However, the great amount of information can create misinterpretation of concepts represented in these structures of conceptualizations. As a KG may be considered an implementation of a conceptualization, the grounding of concepts is fundamental. Therefore, the support of Conceptual Modeling best-practices, especially regarding the branch of Ontologies. We made a pilot study that finds out the state-of-art in ”Cybersecurity Ontologies”. From this study, we propose a survey to extend our terminological approach. The survey produced a huge amount of data, thus we develop a REST API for data manipulation and a NoSQL database to store them which is the main contribution of this document. Our goal is to provide an ontological analysis tool to help stakeholders avoid misinterpretations during KGs development and implementation.This work has been developed under the project Digital Knowledge Graph – Adaptable Analytics API with the financial support of Accenture LTD.Franco Martins Souza, B.; Serrano Gil, LJ.; Reyes Román, JF.; Panach Navarrete, JI.; Pastor López, O. (2021). Towards the Consolidation of Cybersecurity Standardized Definitions. Universitat Politècnica de València. http://hdl.handle.net/10251/16389

Pain Perception Before Endodontic Treatment: from Primary Care to Specialized Care

Objective: To analyze patients’ pain perception requiring endodontic treatment referred to a Dental Specialties Center. Material and Methods: Data was collected through a self-administered questionnaire for patients about their experience of pain and another for endodontists about the treatment performed. The results were analyzed descriptively using Pearson’s Chi-square test and Fisher’s Exact test, with Bonferroni correction (p≤0.05). Results: The median age of the patients was 39 years, and 71.1% were female. The median waiting time for treatment was five months. Pain was reported by 75.2% of patients, occurred more than one month earlier (63.6%), with moderate/severe intensity (66.9%), and most patients sought emergency treatment more than once (79.1%). In addition, pain was associated with sex (female; p=0.008); moderate/severe intensity (p<0.001); the number of times that patient had to go to the dentist because of the tooth treatment (twice or more; p=0.002); and type of tooth treated (posterior tooth; p=0.002). Conclusion: Severe pain episodes resulted in a repeated search for emergency services, which may overload the primary care service, especially if the waiting time for endodontic treatment is long

Associations of SARS-CoV-2 cycle threshold values with age, gender, sample collection setting, and pandemic period

Cycle threshold (Ct) values in COVID-19 reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) tests estimate the viral load in biological samples. Studies have investigated variables associated with SARS-CoV-2 viral load, aiming to identify factors associated with higher transmissibility. Using the results from tests performed between May/2020-July/2022 obtained from the database of a referent hospital in Sao Paulo, Brazil, we investigated associations between Ct values and patient’s age, gender, sample collection setting and pandemic period according to the predominant SARS-CoV-2 variant locally. We also examined variations in Ct values, COVID-19 incidence, mortality, and vaccination coverage over time. The study sample included 42,741 tests. Gender was not significantly associated with Ct values. Age, sample collection setting and the pandemic period were significantly associated with Ct values even after adjustment to the multivariable model. Results showed lower Ct values in older groups, during the Gamma and Delta periods, and in samples collected in emergency units; and higher Ct values in children under 10 years old, home-based tests, during the Omicron period. We found evidence of a linear trend in the association between age and Ct values, with Ct values decreasing as age increases. We found no clear temporal associations between Ct values and local indicators of COVID-19 incidence, mortality, or vaccination between February/2020-November/2022. Our findings suggest that SARS-CoV-2 Ct values, a proxy for viral load and transmissibility, can be influenced by demographic and epidemiological variables

Reticulocyte count: comparison among methods

Introduction: The automated counting of reticulocytes has some advantages over the manual method routinely used in clinical laboratories. Technological innovations provide more statistically reliable results, while optimizing the time to perform this test. However, the cost for implementing the automated procedure in laboratory routines still constitutes a barrier to its use in small- and medium-size Brazilian laboratories. Objective: This study evaluated the performance of a new laboratory protocol for reticulocyte counting by flow cytometry using acridine orange (FC/AO), compared with the manual method and with another automated one by flow cytometry using the commercial kit BD Retic-Count (FC/RC) Conclusion: The results showed that, besides being comparable to the manual method, still considered standard, the evaluated new protocol is economically more advantageous than the automated methods currently available, and its cost is comparable to that of the manual method for laboratories that already have appropriate equipment and infrastructure

Incorporating biodiversity responses to land use change scenarios for preventing emerging zoonotic diseases in areas of unknown host-pathogen interactions

The need to reconcile food production, the safeguarding of nature, and the protection of public health is imperative in a world of continuing global change, particularly in the context of risks of emerging zoonotic disease (EZD). In this paper, we explored potential land use strategies to reduce EZD risks using a landscape approach. We focused on strategies for cases where the dynamics of pathogen transmission among species were poorly known and the ideas of “land-use induced spillover” and “landscape immunity” could be used very broadly. We first modeled three different land-use change scenarios in a region of transition between the Cerrado and the Atlantic Forest biodiversity hotspots. The land-use strategies used to build our scenarios reflected different proportions of native vegetation cover, as a proxy of habitat availability. We then evaluated the effects of the proportion of native vegetation cover on the occupancy probability of a group of mammal species and analyzed how the different land-use scenarios might affect the distribution of species in the landscape and thus the risk of EZD. We demonstrate that these approaches can help identify potential future EZD risks, and can thus be used as decision-making tools by stakeholders, with direct implications for improving both environmental and socio-economic outcomes