"The European Community and Japan: Bi(tri)lateral Trade in World Context"

This paper first examines the institutional context of EC trade policy and assesses the real level of protection that policy has afforded. It then examines the question of how "common" the policy has in fact been and how it has related to competition policy, devoting a special section to the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). The next two sections discuss crucial issues in the trilateral relationship between the EC, Japan, and the US by focusing on the manufacturing sectors of electronics and cars. In shifting the perspective towards the future this paper focuses first on the concept of "strategic trade policy" and then at the special issues raised by the reform process that "1992 has brought, if it has, in Eastern Europe. The paper ends by posing two fundamental and interrelated questions. Has "1992" brought the European Community closer to the rest of the world? And what is the future position of Europe in the international division of labor

A Multi-Aspect Evaluation Framework for Comments on the Social Web

Users' reviews, comments and votes on the Social Web form the modern version of word-of-mouth communication, which has a huge impact on people’s habits and businesses. Nonetheless, there are only few attempts to formally model and analyze them using Computational Models of Argument, which achieved a first significant step in bringing these two fields closer. In this paper, we attempt their further integration by formalizing standard features of the Social Web, such as commentary and social voting, and by proposing methods for the evaluation of the comments' quality and acceptance

Provenance for SPARQL queries

Determining trust of data available in the Semantic Web is fundamental for applications and users, in particular for linked open data obtained from SPARQL endpoints. There exist several proposals in the literature to annotate SPARQL query results with values from abstract models, adapting the seminal works on provenance for annotated relational databases. We provide an approach capable of providing provenance information for a large and significant fragment of SPARQL 1.1, including for the first time the major non-monotonic constructs under multiset semantics. The approach is based on the translation of SPARQL into relational queries over annotated relations with values of the most general m-semiring, and in this way also refuting a claim in the literature that the OPTIONAL construct of SPARQL cannot be captured appropriately with the known abstract models.Comment: 22 pages, extended version of the ISWC 2012 paper including proof

Understanding the physiological and biological response to ambient heat exposure in pregnancy: protocol for a systematic review and meta-analysis

Introduction: Climate change increases not only the frequency, intensity and duration of extreme heat events but also annual temperatures globally, resulting in many negative health effects, including harmful effects on pregnancy and pregnancy outcomes. As temperatures continue to increase precipitously, there is a growing need to understand the underlying biological pathways of this association. This systematic review will focus on maternal, placental and fetal changes that occur in pregnancy due to environmental heat stress exposure, in order to identify the evidence-based pathways that play a role in this association. Methods and analysis: We will follow the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines. We will search PubMed and Ovid Embase databases from inception using tested and validated search algorithms. Inclusion of any studies that involve pregnant women and have measured environmental heat stress exposure and either maternal, placental or fetal physiological or biochemical changes and are available in English. Modelling studies or those with only animals will be excluded. The risk of bias will be assessed using the Office of Health Assessment and Translation tool. Abstract screening, data extraction and risk of bias assessment will be conducted by two independent reviewers. Environmental parameters will be reported for each study and where possible these will be combined to calculate a heat stress indicator to allow comparison of exposure between studies. A narrative synthesis will be presented following standard guidelines. Where outcome measures have at least two levels of exposure, we will conduct a dose–response meta-analysis should there be at least three studies with the same outcome. A random effects meta-analysis will be conducted where at least three studies give the same outcome. Ethics and dissemination: This systematic review and meta-analysis does not require ethical approval. Dissemination will be through peer-reviewed journal publication and presentation at international conferences/interest groups. PROSPERO registration number: CRD42024511153

Updating DL-Lite ontologies through first-order queries

In this paper we study instance-level update in DL-LiteA, the description logic underlying the OWL 2 QL standard. In particular we focus on formula-based approaches to ABox insertion and deletion. We show that DL-LiteA, which is well-known for enjoying first-order rewritability of query answering, enjoys a first-order rewritability property also for updates. That is, every update can be reformulated into a set of insertion and deletion instructions computable through a nonrecursive datalog program. Such a program is readily translatable into a first-order query over the ABox considered as a database, and hence into SQL. By exploiting this result, we implement an update component for DLLiteA-based systems and perform some experiments showing that the approach works in practice.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

REWARD : ontology for reward schemes

Rewarding people is common in several contexts, such as human resource management and crowdsourcing applications. However, designing a reward strategy is not straightforward, as it requires considering different parameters. These parameters include, for example, management of rewarding tasks and identifying critical features, such as the type of rewards and possibilities such as gamification. Moreover, the lack of a common terminology introduces the problem of communication among experts and prevents integration among different reward strategies. An ontology can offer a common understanding among domain experts and flexible management of rewarding parameters. Apart from that, an ontology can also help in the interrelationship and integration between different reward schemes employed by different service providers. In this paper, we present REWARD, a general-purpose ontology for capturing various common features of diverse reward schemes. This ontology is a result of the CAP-A European project and its application to the crowdsourcing domain, but it is designed to cover different needs and domains

Influence of Core Temperature Changes During Whole-Body Warming and Cooling on Cutaneous Vascular Reactivity

Objective: Endothelial function, the ability of cells of the vascular endothelial wall to secrete compounds, is linked with metabolic and cardiovascular disease risks. One of the most well-known noninvasive tests used to assess skin vascular reactivity as a measure of endothelial function is the reactive hyperemic response test (RHRT). However, there is lack of consensus regarding the impact of thermoregulation on endothelial (dys)function and the results from the RHRT. Thus, the aim of the present study was to investigate the impact of core temperature on cutaneous vascular reactivity, as assessed via the finger RHRT. Approach: Following a 15-minute baseline period, seven adults entered a water tank maintained at 42°C and passively rested in a semi-supine position. Thereafter, they entered a water tank maintained at 12°C. They were immersed until their rectal temperature (Tre) increased or decreased about 0.5°C above and below the baseline Tre respectively. This procedure was repeated twice and an occlusion was conducted during the baseline period and at the second repetition of water immersions. Main results: During the post-occlusion phase, skin blood flow (SkBF) was greater, comparing to pre- and occlusion phases, across all Tre levels (five levels: baseline, mild hyperthermia 1, mild hypothermia 1, mild hyperthermia 2, mild hypothermia 2). Also, SkBF throughout pre-occlusion, occlusion, and post-occlusion was greater during mild hyperthermia 2. Significance: We found a significant impact of core temperature on SkBF and cutaneous vascular reactivity which affects the diagnostic indicators obtained from the RHRT and can impact the final outcome

Psychophysical Load During the Multistage Marathon des Sables: A Case Study

Introduction: This study investigated the impact of the multistage ultra-marathon event ‘‘Marathon des Sables’’ (MdS) performed in the Sahara Desert on the psychophysical capacity of an athlete. Methods: We collected and analyzed environmental, physiological, and behavioral data from a 39-year-old athlete who participated in the MdS. Specifically, we collected environmental temperature (Tenv), upper inguinal skin temperature (Tsk), heart rate, and running speed data. Also, we recorded blood glucose and lactate, thermal comfort, total body water, perceived exertion, and cognitive function at the start, middle, and the end of each race stage. Results: We found significant detrimental impacts on the health and wellbeing of the monitored athlete. The monitored athlete suffered a multi-toe injury during the 3rd stage of MdS. Furthermore, the Tsk (32.6 ¡ 2.6°C) fluctuated considerably between day and night, as the lowest value presented was 29.8°C while the highest was 40.4°C. The Tsk tended to be higher both when the Tenv was higher and when daily running distance was longer. Finally, the athlete’s cognitive and athletic performances tended to be higher when his blood glucose (118.33 ± 19.20mg/dl) levels were higher. Conclusion: The health and wellbeing parameters of the monitored athlete were significantly impacted during the MdS

A Multi Attack Argumentation Framework

This paper presents a novel abstract argumentation framework, called Multi-Attack Argumentation Framework (MAAF), which supports different types of attacks. The introduction of types gives rise to a new family of non-standard semantics which can support applications that classical approaches cannot, while also allowing classical semantics as a special case. The main novelty of the proposed semantics is the discrimination among two different roles that attacks play, namely an attack as a generator of conflicts, and an attack as a means to defend an argument. These two roles have traditionally been considered together in the argumentation literature. Allowing some attack types to serve one of those roles only, gives rise to the different semantics presented here