An Entailment Relation for Reasoning on the Web

Reasoning on the Web is receiving an increasing attention because of emerging fields such as Web adaption and Semantic Web. Indeed, the advanced functionalities striven for in these fields call for reasoning capabilities. Reasoning on the Web, however, is usually done using existing techniques rarely fitting the Web. As a consequence, additional data processing like data conversion from Web formats (e.g. XML or HTML) into some other formats (e.g. classical logic terms and formulas) is often needed and aspects of the Web (e.g. its inherent inconsistency) are neglected. This article first gives requirements for an entailment tuned to reasoning on the Web. Then, it describes how classical logic’s entailment can be modified so as to enforce these requirements. Finally, it discusses how the proposed entailment can be used in applying logic programming to reasoning on the Web

The Value of Global Earth Observations

Humankind has never been so populous, technically equipped, and economically and culturally integrated as it is today. In the twenty-first century, societies are confronted with a multitude of challenges in their efforts to manage the Earth system

ANALYZING THE EFFECT OF AGRI-ENVIRONMENT MEASURES ON NITRATE CONCENTRATION IN GROUNDWATER FOR AUSTRIA

The Austrian agri-environment program (ÖPUL) from 2000-2006 introduced several measures to reduce nitrate concentration in groundwater. We apply spatial econometric methods on a country-wide panel dataset to assess the partial effects of ÖPUL and other determining factors on nitrate concentration in groundwater. Preliminary results reveal that organic farming and refraining from using inputs on arable land have a measurable negative effect on nitrate concentration

Estimation of radiation doses delivered by Terrestrial Gamma ray Flashes within leader‐based production models

International audienceWith a typical production altitude of ∼12 km, Terrestrial Gamma ray Flash (TGF) sources are close to commercial flight altitudes, and these events could potentially be an unforeseen exposure to ionizing radiation for aircraft passengers and crews. wyer et al. (2010) estimated the dose that a TGF could produce, andD showed that TGFs in principle could be an additional non‐negligible factor to the exposure for aircraft passengers. The regulations for aircrew protection against radiation, only consider the radiation of galactic and solar origin (ICRP, 2007; Bottollier‐Depois et al., 2012). Other possible sources of exposure, such as TGFs, are not yet considered, mainly because of the lack of reliable data on possible dose level and on the probability for an airplane to be in the vicinity of such an event. In order to improve the evaluation of the TGF exposure level and associated risks, and as there is still a divergence of opinion about the exact source mechanisms, we present calculations of doses produced by high‐energy electrons in TGF sources, within two different lightning leader‐based production models: (1) a pure lightning leader model and (2) considering further avalanches in a homogeneous electric field region. We find that although the doses from photon and secondary electron beams are weak, the dose potentially received by passengers inside the TGF electron source regions may be very high ( > 20 mSv). The results reported in the present paper call for a need to perform a thorough risk assessment including the probability for an aircraft to be in a TGF source region