Supporting the Everyday Work of Scientists: Automating Scientific Workflows

This paper describes an action research project that we undertook with National Research Council Canada (NRC) scientists. Based on discussions about their \ud difficulties in using software to collect data and manage processes, we identified three requirements for increasing research productivity: ease of use for end- \ud users; managing scientific workflows; and facilitating software interoperability. Based on these requirements, we developed a software framework, Sweet, to \ud assist in the automation of scientific workflows. \ud \ud Throughout the iterative development process, and through a series of structured interviews, we evaluated how the framework was used in practice, and identified \ud increases in productivity and effectiveness and their causes. While the framework provides resources for writing application wrappers, it was easier to code the applications’ functionality directly into the framework using OSS components. Ease of use for the end-user and flexible and fully parameterized workflow representations were key elements of the framework’s success. \u

Teenagers Problems: An Examination of Youth and Adult Perceptions

It has been pointed out by the Task Force on Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (1976) that too often programs have been planned and implemented on the basis of uninformed speculation. In order to determine the major concerns of youths for purposes of delinquency prevention and resources allocation, a study was conducted in the Cleveland area of Ohio. This study was designed to compare the perspectives of youths and adults toward teenage problems. While the exact ranking of problems were not identical, the eleven problem statements ranked highest by both populations were highly similar. The problems that are drawing the most concern and attention include alcohol and drug abuse as well as unemployment. As a result of this concordance, it may be asserted that program planners, administrators and direct service workers are able to reflect accurately the needs and perceptions of youths. It must be recognized, however, that the findings of this effort may vary over time and across geographic locations

Discovering Beaten Paths in Collaborative Ontology-Engineering Projects using Markov Chains

Biomedical taxonomies, thesauri and ontologies in the form of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) as a taxonomy or the National Cancer Institute Thesaurus as an OWL-based ontology, play a critical role in acquiring, representing and processing information about human health. With increasing adoption and relevance, biomedical ontologies have also significantly increased in size. For example, the 11th revision of the ICD, which is currently under active development by the WHO contains nearly 50,000 classes representing a vast variety of different diseases and causes of death. This evolution in terms of size was accompanied by an evolution in the way ontologies are engineered. Because no single individual has the expertise to develop such large-scale ontologies, ontology-engineering projects have evolved from small-scale efforts involving just a few domain experts to large-scale projects that require effective collaboration between dozens or even hundreds of experts, practitioners and other stakeholders. Understanding how these stakeholders collaborate will enable us to improve editing environments that support such collaborations. We uncover how large ontology-engineering projects, such as the ICD in its 11th revision, unfold by analyzing usage logs of five different biomedical ontology-engineering projects of varying sizes and scopes using Markov chains. We discover intriguing interaction patterns (e.g., which properties users subsequently change) that suggest that large collaborative ontology-engineering projects are governed by a few general principles that determine and drive development. From our analysis, we identify commonalities and differences between different projects that have implications for project managers, ontology editors, developers and contributors working on collaborative ontology-engineering projects and tools in the biomedical domain.Comment: Published in the Journal of Biomedical Informatic

Holding the border: power, identity, and the conversion of Mercia

The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file.Title from title screen of research.pdf file viewed on (February 23, 2007)Includes bibliographical references.Thesis (M.A.) University of Missouri-Columbia 2006.Dissertations, Academic -- University of Missouri--Columbia -- History.Recent scholarship, particularly that of Nicholas Higham, proposes that the seventh-century conversion of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms to Christianity occurred because Christianity offered methods for accessing and using power that Anglo-Saxon kings had previously lacked. A nuanced evaluation that looks at more than just political necessity is needed to account for those kingdoms that resisted conversion. Examining the conversion of the kingdom of Mercia from the perspective of its origin and development shows that what concerned Mercia's rulers - especially Penda, Mercia's last pagan king - was not the "overlordship" or sacral kingship identified by Higham and others as the Anglo-Saxon kings' primary concerns. Instead, Penda's resistance to Christianity arose from Mercia's identity as a "border" kingdom and its status among the other kingdoms of England. Penda may have resisted conversion in order to maintain and defend that Mercian identity

Abiding in the fields : pastoral care and society in late antiquity and Anglo-Saxon England

Title from PDF of title page (University of Missouri--Columbia, viewed on May 15, 2013).The entire thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file; a non-technical public abstract appears in the public.pdf file.Dissertation advisor: Dr. Lois L. HuneycuttIncludes bibliographical references.Vita.Ph. D. University of Missouri--Columbia 2012."May 2012"The adoption of Christianity among the Anglo-Saxon peoples of England in the seventh century began with evangelization by Irish and Roman missionaries and continued through the instruction and correction provided by English clergy. As had their fellows since the first century of Christianity, those clergy in England interacted with lay persons in the context of their society according to established pastoral roles that encompassed community leadership, religious instruction, and divinely ordained power and authority and whose primary mandates were to convert, to instruct, and to correct. This dissertation uses a broad range of textual and material evidence to trace the development of this Christian pastoral role within the house churches of the first and second centuries, the urban churches of the Roman Empire in the third and fourth centuries, and the settlements and monasteria of Ireland and England in the sixth and seventh centuries. It explores how pastors made a place for themselves in Northern European and Insular societies as Christianity was carried into new areas and to new peoples and how texts produced and used in England in the seventh through the mid-ninth centuries reflect pastoral concerns and interactions. Its conclusions include that, though clerical authority was based on established religious belief and ecclesiastical organization, the expression of that authority nevertheless remained flexible and responsive to social needs and circumstances in large part because it was based on pastoral interaction.Includes bibliographical reference

A HEV-restricted sulfotransferase is expressed in rheumatoid arthritis synovium and is induced by lymphotoxin-alpha/beta and TNF-alpha in cultured endothelial cells.

BackgroundThe recruitment of lymphocytes to secondary lymphoid organs relies on interactions of circulating cells with high endothelial venules (HEV). HEV are exclusive to these organs under physiological conditions, but they can develop in chronically-inflamed tissues. The interaction of L-selectin on lymphocytes with sulfated glycoprotein ligands on HEV results in lymphocyte rolling, which represents the initial step in lymphocyte homing. HEV expression of GlcNAc6ST-2 (also known as HEC-GlcNAc6ST, GST-3, LSST or CHST4), an HEV-restricted sulfotransferase, is essential for the elaboration of L-selectin functional ligands as well as a critical epitope recognized by MECA-79 mAb.ResultsWe examined the expression of GlcNAc6ST-2 in relationship to the MECA-79 epitope in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) synovial vessels. Expression of GlcNAc6ST-2 was specific to RA synovial tissues as compared to osteoarthritis synovial tissues and localized to endothelial cells of HEV-like vessels and small flat-walled vessels. Double MECA-79 and GlcNAc6ST-2 staining showed colocalization of the MECA-79 epitope and GlcNAc6ST-2. We further found that both TNF-alpha and lymphotoxin-alphabeta induced GlcNAc6ST-2 mRNA and protein in cultured human umbilical vein endothelial cells.ConclusionThese observations demonstrate that GlcNAc6ST-2 is induced in RA vessels and provide potential cytokine pathways for its induction. GlcNAc6ST-2 is a novel marker of activated vessels within RA ectopic lymphoid aggregates. This enzyme represents a potential therapeutic target for RA

Ariel - Volume 10 Number 6

Executive Editors Madalyn Schaefgen David Reich Business Manager David Reich News Editors Medical College Edward Zurad CAHS John Guardiani World Mark Zwanger Features Editors Meg Trexler Jim O\u27Brien Editorials Editor Jeffrey Banyas Photography and Sports Editor Stuart Singer Commons Editor Brenda Peterso

From market to environment – consumption-normalised pharmaceutical emissions in the Rhine catchment

Direct and indirect threats by organic micropollutants can only be reliably assessed and prevented if the exposure to these chemicals is known, which in turn requires a confident estimate of their emitted amounts into the environment. APIs (Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients) enter surface waters mostly through the sewer system and wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs). However, their effluent fluxes are highly variable and influenced by several different factors that challenge robust emission estimates. Here, we defined a dimensionless, theoretically consumption-independent ‘escape factor’ (kesc) for estimating the amount of APIs (expected to be) present in WWTP effluents. The factor is determined as the proportion of marketed and actually emitted amounts of APIs. A large collection of German and Swiss monitoring datasets were analyzed to calculate stochastic kesc values for 31 APIs, reflecting both the magnitude and uncertainty of consumption-normalised emissions. Escape factors provide an easy-to-use tool for the estimation of average API emissions and expected variability from numerous WWTPs given that consumption data are provided, thereby supporting simulation modeling of the fate of APIs in stream networks or exposure assessments