A semantic-based system for querying personal digital libraries

This is the author's accepted manuscript. The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-28640-0_4. Copyright @ Springer 2004.The decreasing cost and the increasing availability of new technologies is enabling people to create their own digital libraries. One of the main topic in personal digital libraries is allowing people to select interesting information among all the different digital formats available today (pdf, html, tiff, etc.). Moreover the increasing availability of these on-line libraries, as well as the advent of the so called Semantic Web [1], is raising the demand for converting paper documents into digital, possibly semantically annotated, documents. These motivations drove us to design a new system which could enable the user to interact and query documents independently from the digital formats in which they are represented. In order to achieve this independence from the format we consider all the digital documents contained in a digital library as images. Our system tries to automatically detect the layout of the digital documents and recognize the geometric regions of interest. All the extracted information is then encoded with respect to a reference ontology, so that the user can query his digital library by typing free text or browsing the ontology

Inference of stress and texture from angular dependence of ultrasonic plate mode velocities

The theory for the angular dependence of the ultrasonic wave velocity in a symmetry plane of an orthorhombic, stressed material is presented. The two waves having polarizations in this plane are shown to have velocities which can be estimated from measurements of the SH sub 0 and S sub 0 guided modes of a thin plate: the relationship being exact for the SH sub 0 mode and requiring a 10% correction for the S sub 0 mode at long wavelength. It is then shown how stress and texture can be independently inferred from various features of the angular dependence of these two velocities. From the SH sub 0 data, the ability to determine the directions and differences in magnitudes of principal stresses is described and supported by experimental data on several materials. From a combination of the SH sub 0 and S sub 0 data, a procedure is proposed for determining the coefficients W sub 400, W sub 420 and W sub 440 of an expansion of the crystallite orientation distribution function in terms of generalized Legendre functions. Possible applications in process control are indicated

Dynamical Coupled-Channels Effects on Pion Photoproduction

The electromagnetic pion production reactions are investigated within the dynamical coupled-channels model developed in {\bf Physics Reports, 439, 193 (2007)}. The meson-baryon channels included in this study are $\gamma N$, $\pi N$, $\eta N$, and the $\pi\Delta$, $\rho N$ and $\sigma N$ resonant components of the $\pi\pi N$ channel. With the hadronic parameters of the model determined in a recent study of $\pi N$ scattering, we show that the pion photoproduction data up to the second resonance region can be described to a very large extent by only adjusting the bare $\gamma N \to N^*$ helicity amplitudes, while the non-resonant electromagnetic couplings are taken from previous works. It is found that the coupled-channels effects can contribute about 10 - 20 % of the production cross sections in the $\Delta$ (1232) resonance region, and can drastically change the magnitude and shape of the cross sections in the second resonance region. The importance of the off-shell effects in a dynamical approach is also demonstrated. The meson cloud effects as well as the coupled-channels contributions to the $\gamma N \to N^*$ form factors are found to be mainly in the low $Q^2$ region. For the magnetic M1 $\gamma N \to \Delta$ (1232) form factor, the results are close to that of the Sato-Lee Model. Necessary improvements to the model and future developments are discussed.Comment: Corrected version. 14 pages, 10 figure

My Girl From Tennessee

https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/mmb-vp/4983/thumbnail.jp

Geographical information retrieval with ontologies of place

Geographical context is required of many information retrieval tasks in which the target of the search may be documents, images or records which are referenced to geographical space only by means of place names. Often there may be an imprecise match between the query name and the names associated with candidate sources of information. There is a need therefore for geographical information retrieval facilities that can rank the relevance of candidate information with respect to geographical closeness of place as well as semantic closeness with respect to the information of interest. Here we present an ontology of place that combines limited coordinate data with semantic and qualitative spatial relationships between places. This parsimonious model of geographical place supports maintenance of knowledge of place names that relate to extensive regions of the Earth at multiple levels of granularity. The ontology has been implemented with a semantic modelling system linking non-spatial conceptual hierarchies with the place ontology. An hierarchical spatial distance measure is combined with Euclidean distance between place centroids to create a hybrid spatial distance measure. This is integrated with thematic distance, based on classification semantics, to create an integrated semantic closeness measure that can be used for a relevance ranking of retrieved objects

The Blazhko behaviour of RR Geminorum I - CCD photometric results in 2004

Extended CCD monitoring of RR Gem revealed that it is a Blazhko type RRab star with the shortest Blazhko period (7.23d) and smallest modulation amplitude (Delta Mmax<0.1 mag) currently known. The short period of the modulation cycle enabled us to obtain complete phase coverage of the pulsation at each phase of the modulation. This is the first multicolour observation of a Blazhko star which is extended enough to define accurate mean magnitudes and colours of the variable at different Blazhko phases. Small, but real, changes in the intensity mean colours at different Blazhko phases have been detected. The Fourier analysis of the light curves shows that, in spite of the mmag and smaller order of the amplitudes, the triplet structure is noticeable up to about the 14th harmonic. The modulation is concentrated to a very narrow, 0.2 phase range of the pulsation, centred on the supposed onset of the H emission during rising light. These observational results raise further complications for theoretical explanation of the long known but poorly understood Blazhko phenomenon.Comment: 10 pages, 12 figures, 3 tables. Accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysic

Validation of evidence-Based Fall Prevention Programs for adults with intellectual and/or developmental disorders: a modified otago exercise Program

Introduction: Evidence-based fall prevention (EBFP) programs significantly decrease fall risk, falls, and fall-related injuries in community-dwelling older adults. To date, EBFP programs are only validated for use among people with normal cognition and, therefore, are not evidence-based for adults with intellectual and/or developmental disorders (IDD) such as Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias, cerebral vascular accident, or traumatic brain injury. Background: Adults with IDD experience not only a higher rate of falls than their community-dwelling, cognitively intact peers but also higher rates and earlier onset of chronic diseases, also known to increase fall risk. Adults with IDD experience many barriers to health care and health promotion programs. As the lifespan for people with IDD continues to increase, issues of aging (including falls with associated injury) are on the rise and require effective and efficient prevention. Methods: A modified group-based version of the Otago Exercise Program (OEP) was developed and implemented at a worksite employing adults with IDD in Montana. Participants were tested pre- and post-intervention using the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Stopping Elderly Accidents Deaths and Injuries (STEADI) tool kit. Participants participated in progressive once weekly, 1-h group exercise classes and home programs over a 7-week period. Discharge planning with consumers and caregivers included home exercise, walking, and an optional home assessment. Results: Despite the limited number of participants (n = 15) and short length of participation, improvements were observed in the 30-s Chair Stand Test, 4-Stage Balance Test, and 2-Minute Walk Test. Additionally, three individuals experienced an improvement in ambulation independence. Participants reported no falls during the study period. Discussion: Promising results of this preliminary project underline the need for further study of this modified OEP among adults with IDD. Future multicenter study should include more participants in diverse geographic regions with longer lengths of participation and follow-up