LegalHTML: semantic mark-up of legal acts using web technologies

We introduce here LegalHTML, an extension of the HTML language thought for representing legal acts. LegalHTML has been conceived in the context of an exploratory study conducted for the Publications Office of the European Union, with the objective of overcoming the proliferation of formats for the electronic redaction of legal acts, dedicated to different steps of the editorial process (e.g. first draft, content editing, proof reading, introducing semantics, publishing) and of realizing a model and a language that could bind all processes and exigencies under a common umbrella. LegalHTML satisfies these requirements by providing an explicit domain language addressing all structural aspects of an act, such as articles, paragraphs, items, references and an associated ontology (foreseeing both inline annotations through RDFa and explicit RDF code within script elements) providing rich semantics to describe the editorial and jurisdictional history of the act and to insert references to entities of the domain. Being based on HTML, presentation is also offered by the same language, an aspect missing from all most notable standards for the legal domain. Furthermore, LegalHTML addresses consolidation of an act and its subsequent modifications into a single document using a tree-based representation of the original content and of its modified versions. Finally, alongside the language & ontology, we implemented a CSS stylesheet for the default rendering of LegalHTML documents and a JavaScript file imbuing documents with an API supporting TOC generation, footnote cross-references and the said point-in-time visualization of consolidated legal acts

Application of a Semantic Search Algorithm to Semi-Automatic GUI Generation

The Semantic Search research field aims to query metadata and to identify relevant subgraphs. While in traditional search engines queries are composed by lists of keywords connected through boolean operators, Semantic Search instead, requires the submission of semantic queries that are structured as a graph of concepts, entities and relations. Submission of this graph is however not trivial as while a list of keywords of interest can be provided by any user, the formulation of semantic queries is not easy as well. One of the main challenges of RDF Browsers lies in the implementation of interfaces that allow the common user to submit semantic queries by hiding their complexity. Furthermore a good semantic search algorithm is not enough to fullfil user needs, it is worthwhile to implement visualization methods which can support users in intuitively understanding why and how the results were retrieved. In this paper we present a novel solution to query RDF datasets and to browse the results of the queries in an appealing manner

LIME: Towards a Metadata Module for Ontolex

The OntoLex W3C Community Group has been working for more than a year on realizing a proposal for a standard ontol-ogy lexicon model. As the core-specification of the model is almost com-plete, the group started development of additional modules for specific tasks and use cases. We think that in many usage scenarios (e.g. linguistic enrichment, lo-calization and alignment of ontologies) the discovery and exploitation of linguis-tically grounded datasets may benefit from summarizing information about their linguistic expressivity. While the VoID vocabulary covers the need for general metadata about linked datasets, this more specific information demands a dedicated extension. In this paper, we fill this gap by introducing LIME (Linguistic Metadata), a new vocabulary aiming at completing the OntoLex standard with specifications for linguistic metadata.

FROM OSCILLATIONS TO NORMAL MODES: AN EDUCATIONAL PATH FOR THE UPPER SECONDARY SCHOOL

The present thesis work starts from the assumption that harmonic oscillations and normal modes are key physical concepts. They are fundamental in quantum physics, in electromagnetism (especially in treating coupled oscillating circuits and electromagnetic waves), in acoustics and in mechanical systems. The conceptual and practical importance of normal modes emerges also clearly from the fact that every small and sufficiently smooth oscillation of a complex system is given by a linear superposition of its normal modes. The notion of normal modes is thus a powerful conceptual organizer. Nevertheless, in teaching practice (at least in Italy), only short time is devoted to harmonic motion, rarely coupled oscillators are treated and, in secondary school text-books, normal modes are usually not even present. The purpose of this thesis work is to develop an effective path on scillations for the upper secondary school that leads to the normal modes of oscillations. To do this, an educational reconstruction of the concept of harmonic motion has been necessary as the harmonic motion is a fundamental prerequisite for the understanding of normal modes. The introduction of normal modes is, for upper secondary school students, complicated by the complexity of the mathematics involved. In our path we propose to overcome the mathematical difficulties through an experimental approach and the use of different tools such as video and picture analysis, also in slow motion, data logging and data analysis techniques and applet simulations, with the goal of being as simple as possible from the mathematical point of view but without losing the advantages that mathematics (even at simple level) can provide. In this perspective, a multiple representation approach has been used. The path on oscillations that we present here is the result of a Design Based Research on normal modes with Italian upper secondary school students. The complete path has been proposed to three classes of 11th grade students during curricular lessons. A version of the sequence has been proposed also to other three classes (one of grade 11th and two of grade 12th) during afternoon extra-curricular lessons, and a version with university-level formalism has also been proposed to a group of undergraduate students in mathematics during the third year course \u201cPreparation of Didactical Experiments\u201d. A reduced version of the path has also been proposed to a number of classes of 12th grade students within the one-shot lessons on oscillations (afternoon extra-curricular activities) in the framework of PLS (Piano Lauree Scientifiche) activities. The one-shot lessons have been attended, over time, by about six hundred students. The all path is based on a number of activities in which we start from a real experiment or a video or else an applet simulation to introduce and discuss a limited topic. The general purpose is to identify, among the oscillations, those that give rise to a peculiar kind of motion, the harmonic motion, and determine the conditions under which such motion can be obtained. A number of significant situations of harmonic and anharmonic motions are investigated and criteria to establishing the harmonicity/anharmonicity of the oscillation are discussed. An important tool for the analysis of the data is then introduced: the Fast Fourier Transform. The FFT is introduced as a tool and not discussed through mathematics. Then the concept on resonance is introduced in a phenomenological way through experiments and exploring related videos in the Internet videos database. The next step is the introduction of the coupling between two oscillators and the discovery of particular motion configurations: the Normal Modes of Oscillation. We then extend the experiments to three, four, five....many coupled oscillators until we arrive to the continuous case; first in one dimension with the string and then in two dimensions with the Cladni plates and we study the normal modes of such complex systems. The structure of the thesis is as follows: an introduction to the motivations, a description of the state of the art and the formulation of the research questions. Then a brief description of the methodological framework mainly based on the Design Based Research approach and the Model of the Educational Reconstruction. The reconstruction of the Harmonic motion at university level follows; the translation of such a reconstruction into upper secondary school level is developed in chapter five. In chapter four normal modes for a system of two, three, N coupled oscillators are treated with the proper formalism; also in this case the translation into upper secondary school level is developed in chapter five. Then the very core of the thesis follows , namely the developing of the path, as briefly described above. The next chapter reports a path developed with undergraduate students as an implementation of the study of oscillations. It is the study of the modes of oscillation in the interesting case of a parametric oscillator were there is a non-linear coupling between modes of oscillation. In the last section, the main results of the experimentation of the path with threes classes of 11th grade students are briefly presented. These results are based on questionnaires (pre-test and post-test), discussions and interviews

The role of post-transcriptional regulation in chemokine gene expression in inflammation and allergy.

The aim of this review is to discuss recent advances in the understanding of the regulation of chemokine expression occurring during chronic inflammatory conditions, such as allergic diseases. The focus will be on current data, which suggest that post-transcriptional regulation plays a larger role in chemokine gene regulation than previously recognised. In particular, a growing body of data indicates that mechanisms controlling mRNA stability may be relevant in determining, or maintaining, the increased levels of chemokine gene expression in this context. Such regulatory pathways may be important targets of novel anti-inflammatory strategies