Die Europäisierung der Berufsbildung und ihre Auswirkungen auf die deutsche Trägerlandschaft

Der Autor stellt zunächst einige allgemeine Überlegungen zum Thema „Mobilität und berufliche Bildung“ sowie zur Europäisierung und Internationalisierung der Berufsbildung an. Dabei nennt er insbesondere den EQF (den Europäischen Qualifikationsrahmen) und das ECVET (das Europäische Credit-System für die Berufsbildung) als Instrumente und Maßnahmen, mehr Transparenz und Vergleichbarkeit, mehr Mobilität und mehr Durchlässigkeit in den und zwischen den Bildungssystemen durchzusetzen. Anschließend geht er zu den Folgerungen über, die sich daraus für Anbieter beruflicher Bildung in Deutschland ergeben. Exemplarisch zeigt er dabei an einigen Aktivitäten der bbw Group auf, was das für den Bereich der beruflichen Bildung konkret bedeuten kann. (DIPF/ ssch

Variability in Global Top-of-Atmosphere Shortwave Radiation Between 2000 and 2005

Measurements from various instruments and analysis techniques are used to directly compare changes in Earth-atmosphere shortwave (SW) top-of-atmosphere (TOA) radiation between 2000 and 2005. Included in the comparison are estimates of TOA reflectance variability from published ground-based Earthshine observations and from new satellite-based CERES, MODIS and ISCCP results. The ground-based Earthshine data show an order-of-magnitude more variability in annual mean SW TOA flux than either CERES or ISCCP, while ISCCP and CERES SW TOA flux variability is consistent to 40%. Most of the variability in CERES TOA flux is shown to be dominated by variations global cloud fraction, as observed using coincident CERES and MODIS data. Idealized Earthshine simulations of TOA SW radiation variability for a lunar-based observer show far less variability than the ground-based Earthshine observations, but are still a factor of 4-5 times more variable than global CERES SW TOA flux results. Furthermore, while CERES global albedos exhibit a well-defined seasonal cycle each year, the seasonal cycle in the lunar Earthshine reflectance simulations is highly variable and out-of-phase from one year to the next. Radiative transfer model (RTM) approaches that use imager cloud and aerosol retrievals reproduce most of the change in SW TOA radiation observed in broadband CERES data. However, assumptions used to represent the spectral properties of the atmosphere, clouds, aerosols and surface in the RTM calculations can introduce significant uncertainties in annual mean changes in regional and global SW TOA flux

Towards Improving Phenotype Representation in OWL

BACKGROUND: Phenotype ontologies are used in species-specific databases for the annotation of mutagenesis experiments and to characterize human diseases. The Entity-Quality (EQ) formalism is a means to describe complex phenotypes based on one or more affected entities and a quality. EQ-based definitions have been developed for many phenotype ontologies, including the Human and Mammalian Phenotype ontologies. METHODS: We analyze formalizations of complex phenotype descriptions in the Web Ontology Language (OWL) that are based on the EQ model, identify several representational challenges and analyze potential solutions to address these challenges. RESULTS: In particular, we suggest a novel, role-based approach to represent relational qualities such as concentration of iron in spleen, discuss its ontological foundation in the General Formal Ontology (GFO) and evaluate its representation in OWL and the benefits it can bring to the representation of phenotype annotations. CONCLUSION: Our analysis of OWL-based representations of phenotypes can contribute to improving consistency and expressiveness of formal phenotype descriptions

Die Europäisierung der Berufsbildung und ihre Auswirkungen auf die deutsche Trägerlandschaft

Der Autor stellt zunächst einige allgemeine Überlegungen zum Thema "Mobilität und berufliche Bildung" sowie zur Europäisierung und Internationalisierung der Berufsbildung an. Dabei nennt er insbesondere den EQF (den Europäischen Qualifikationsrahmen) und das ECVET (das Europäische Credit-System für die Berufsbildung) als Instrumente und Maßnahmen, mehr Transparenz und Vergleichbarkeit, mehr Mobilität und mehr Durchlässigkeit in den und zwischen den Bildungssystemen durchzusetzen. Anschließend geht er zu den Folgerungen über, die sich daraus für Anbieter beruflicher Bildung in Deutschland ergeben. Exemplarisch zeigt er dabei an einigen Aktivitäten der bbw Group auf, was das für den Bereich der beruflichen Bildung konkret bedeuten kann

OBML - Ontologies in Biomedicine and Life Sciences

The OBML 2010 workshop, held at the University of Mannheim on September 9-10, 2010, is the 2(nd) in a series of meetings organized by the Working Group “Ontologies in Biomedicine and Life Sciences” of the German Society of Computer Science (GI) and the German Society of Medical Informatics, Biometry and Epidemiology (GMDS). Integrating, processing and applying the rapidly expanding information generated in the life sciences — from public health to clinical care and molecular biology — is one of the most challenging problems that research in these fields is facing today. As the amounts of experimental data, clinical information and scientific knowledge increase, there is a growing need to promote interoperability of these resources, support formal analyses, and to pre-process knowledge for further use in problem solving and hypothesis formulation. The OBML workshop series pursues the aim of gathering scientists who research topics related to life science ontologies, to exchange ideas, discuss new results and establish relationships. The OBML group promotes the collaboration between ontologists, computer scientists, bio-informaticians and applied logicians, as well as the cooperation with physicians, biologists, biochemists and biometricians, and supports the establishment of this new discipline in research and teaching. Research topics of OBML 2010 included medical informatics, Semantic Web applications, formal ontology, bio-ontologies, knowledge representation as well as the wide range of applications of biomedical ontologies to science and medicine. A total of 14 papers were presented, and from these we selected four manuscripts for inclusion in this special issue. An interdisciplinary audience from all areas related to biomedical ontologies attended OBML 2010. In the future, OBML will continue as an annual meeting that aims to bridge the gap between theory and application of ontologies in the life sciences. The next event emphasizes the special topic of the ontology of phenotypes, in Berlin, Germany on October 6-7, 2011

Ontologically Founded Design Patterns for Situation Modeling

Situation modeling is a common challenge in modeling systems in non-trivial domains. The General Formal Ontology (GFO) is a top-level ontological theory that includes various notions for representing complex temporally extended situations. It has been used for situation modeling in diverse biomedical domains. We have analyzed and compared such GFO-based application cases. In accordance with this study, we present derived ontology-based design patterns as a conceptual toolset for situation modeling

A UML Profile for Functional Modeling Applied to the Molecular Function Ontology

ABSTRACT Gene Ontology (GO) is the largest, and steadily growing, resource for cataloging gene products. Naturally, its growth raises issues regarding its structure. Modeling and refactoring big ontologies such as GO is far from being simple. It seems that human-friendly graphical modeling languages, such as the Unified Modeling Language (UML) could be helpful for that task. In the current paper we investigate if UML can be utilized for making the structural organization of the Molecular Function Ontology (MFO), a sub-ontology of GO, more explicit. In addition, we examine if and how using UML can support the refactoring of MFO. We utilize UML and its extension mechanism for the definition of a UML dialect, which is suited for modeling functions and is called Function Modeling Language (FuML). Next, we use FuML for capturing the structure of molecular functions. Finally, we propose and demonstrate some refactoring options for MFO

A platform for collaborative management of semantic grid metadata

Grid environments, providing distributed infrastructures, computing resources and data storage, usually show a high degree of heterogeneity in their metadata. We propose a platform for collaborative management and maintenance of common metadata for grids. As the conceptual foundation of this platform, a meta model is presented which distinguishes structured descriptions and classification structures. On this basis, the system allows for the user-friendly creation and editing of grid relevant metadata and provides various search and navigation facilities for grid participants. We applied the platform to the German D-Grid initiative by establishing the D-Grid Ontology (DGO)

BOWiki: an ontology-based wiki for annotation of data and integration of knowledge in biology.

MOTIVATION: Ontology development and the annotation of biological data using ontologies are time-consuming exercises that currently require input from expert curators. Open, collaborative platforms for biological data annotation enable the wider scientific community to become involved in developing and maintaining such resources. However, this openness raises concerns regarding the quality and correctness of the information added to these knowledge bases. The combination of a collaborative web-based platform with logic-based approaches and Semantic Web technology can be used to address some of these challenges and concerns. RESULTS: We have developed the BOWiki, a web-based system that includes a biological core ontology. The core ontology provides background knowledge about biological types and relations. Against this background, an automated reasoner assesses the consistency of new information added to the knowledge base. The system provides a platform for research communities to integrate information and annotate data collaboratively. AVAILABILITY: The BOWiki and supplementary material is available at . The source code is available under the GNU GPL from