Improving the efficiency of ILP systems

Inductive Logic Programming (ILP) is a promising technol-ogy for knowledge extraction applications. ILP has produced intelligiblesolutions for a wide variety of domains where it has been applied. TheILP lack of eciency is, however, a major impediment for its scalabilityto applications requiring large amounts of data. In this paper we pro-pose a set of techniques that improve ILP systems eciency and makethen more likely to scale up to applications of knowledge extraction fromlarge datasets. We propose and evaluate the lazy evaluation of examples,to improve the eciency of ILP systems. Lazy evaluation is essentiallya way to avoid or postpone the evaluation of the generated hypotheses(coverage tests).The techniques were evaluated using the IndLog system on ILP datasetsreferenced in the literature. The proposals lead to substantial eficiencyimprovements and are generally applicable to any ILP system

[Photograph 2012.201.B1400.0058]

Photograph used for a newspaper owned by the Oklahoma Publishing Company. Caption: "Ernie Webb O.C.U. Football player

Bacille-Calmette-Guerin vaccination and the development of allergic disease in children: a randomized, prospective, single-blind study

Background The increase in the prevalence of allergic diseases in countries with a so-called western lifestyle may be due to a decrease in exposure to infectious agents in early life. Objective To establish the effect of Bacille-Calmette-Guerin (BCG) vaccination in 6-week-old high-risk infants in a prospective single-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial on the prevalence of allergic disease at the age of 4 and 18 months. Methods Subjects were 121 predominantly Caucasian high-risk newborns, having either a mother, or both a father and at least one sibling with past or present allergic disease. BCG or placebo was administered at the age of 6 weeks, and repeated once when both a post-vaccination-scar and a positive TB skin test were absent at the age of 4 months. Results At the age of 18 months, the prevalence of allergic disease was not significantly different between the two groups. A trend towards less eczema (P = 0.07) and significantly less use of medication for eczema was shown in the BCG group compared with the placebo group (P = 0.04). Conclusion A single (or once repeated) BCG vaccination in 6-week-old high-risk Caucasian infants was not associated with a 50% reduction in the prevalence of allergic disease. However, there could be a smaller beneficial effect of BCG, especially because a trend towards less eczema and significantly less use of medication for eczema was shown. For definite proof, a larger study should be carried ou

Key issues in European food science research: a review of the European Food Science Day 2009

This paper is a report on the European Food Science Day (Brussels, 18 November 2009, organized by the CommNet network of food science communicators) and its outcomes. The article presents FP 7 as a key funding mechanism in European food and nutrition research and it puts research in this sector in a socio-economic context. The article then reviews the specific activities of several EU-funded projects in the field of risk, safety, and health, discussing key issues and research questions in these fields