New Lipid Lowering Therapies for Cardiovascular and Metabolic Diseases: Lessons from the Past and Future Challenges

This book illustrates some of the most recent research efforts that have been made in lowering plasma cholesterol levels in patients with CVD. Selected articles aimed to illuminate advances and urgent challenges in the management of CVD, including disease management using statin-combined therapeutic strategies

Towards spatio‐temporal data modeling of geo‐tagged shipping information

Ponencias, comunicaciones y pósters presentados en el 17th AGILE Conference on Geographic Information Science "Connecting a Digital Europe through Location and Place", celebrado en la Universitat Jaume I del 3 al 6 de junio de 2014.Spatio-temporal data models deal with capturing information characterized by both spatial and temporal semantics. In this paper we review current approaches for spatio-temporal data modelling and present out initial results for selecting the most relevant approach: Object-Oriented modeling for means of modeling geo-tagged shipping information. The shipping information is provided by the well-known LLLOYD’s lists dataset. We have introduced the case study and dataset characteristics used in the research project and presented our data model in Unified Modeling Language (UML). The model focuses on spatio-temporal events where characteristics are categorized as thematic, spatial and temporal attributes. The paper follows up with discussion on the selected approach and results, and finally ends with presenting the future outlook

Développement d'une approche géosémantique intégrée pour ajuster les résultats des requêtes spatiotemporelles dans les bases de données géospatiales multidimensionnelles évolutives

Dans le domaine forestier, la gestion des ressources naturelles se base sur les données recueillies lors des inventaires portant sur la représentation spatiale d'un même territoire à différentes époques. Au fil des inventaires, l'évolution naturelle, les interventions humaines, l'évolution des modes d'acquisition, des spécifications et des normes forestières créent une hétérogénéité spatiale et sémantique entre les différentes bases de données. Dans un processus décisionnel, ces données et spécifications sont structurées d'une façon multidimensionnelle dans des cubes de données géospatiales. Par conséquent, la structure multidimensionnelle est également amenée à évoluer, ce qui affecte la réponse aux requêtes spatiotemporelles. Dans le domaine forestier, la problématique de l'évolution de structure se traduit par l'impossibilité d'effectuer des analyses spatiotemporelles, par exemple sur l'évolution du volume de bois de certaines essences ou l'évolution des épidémies, affectant directement la prise de décision dans la gestion forestière. Cette problématique exige de concevoir de nouvelles solutions capables de préserver les liens entre les membres des différentes structures. Cependant, les solutions proposées ne tiennent pas compte de manière explicite et simultanée de l'évolution sémantique et géométrique de la structure. Afin d'apporter une solution plus adaptée aux réalités des phénomènes spatiotemporels, nous avons développé une approche géosémantique intégrée pour la gestion de l'évolution de la structure du cube afin d'ajuster la qualité de la réponse à la requête spatiotemporelle et ainsi offrir un meilleur support à la prise de décision. L'approche proposée définit une méthode de rétablissement des liens entre des versions du cube. Sur le plan sémantique, nous rétablissons les liens en employant une fonction de similarité sémantique basée sur l'ontologie et qui tient compte du plus fin niveau de définition des concepts. Au niveau géométrique, notre approche se base sur une méthode d'indexation QuadTree pour constituer une matrice de correspondances spatiales entre les géométries des différentes époques. Les liens résultants sont intégrés dans une méthode de transformation matricielle afin de pouvoir répondre d'une manière plus adaptée à des requêtes spatiotemporelles

Crowdsourced-based mapping of historical west-to-east routes from the textual accounts of European Travelers

Ponencias, comunicaciones y pósters presentados en el 17th AGILE Conference on Geographic Information Science "Connecting a Digital Europe through Location and Place", celebrado en la Universitat Jaume I del 3 al 6 de junio de 2014.Through the centuries, numerous travellers and orientalists visited Persia (Iran) and described the country and its inhabitants in their travel writings. These travel accounts comprise valuable historical information about the people and their traditions. A literature on travel writings indicate that surprisingly, despite the importance of these recordings, the studies related to the different aspects of these travels, such as the travel routes and the varieties of the possible application of them on the modern time are relatively scarce. The current research deals with the travel routes of nine the most famous early modern European explorers. Accordingly, in addition to digitalizing and mapping the taken routes, the dynamics of their itineraries are analysed

Towards initiating OpenLandMap founded on citizens’ science: The current status of land use features of OpenStreetMap in Europe

Ponencias, comunicaciones y pósters presentados en el 17th AGILE Conference on Geographic Information Science "Connecting a Digital Europe through Location and Place", celebrado en la Universitat Jaume I del 3 al 6 de junio de 2014.Land use inventories are important information sources for scholarly research, policy-makers, practitioners, and developers. A considerable amount of effort and monetary resources have been used to generate global/regional/local land use datasets. While remote sensing images and techniques as well as field surveying have been the main sources of determining land use features, in-field measurements of ground truth data collection for attributing those features has been always a challenging step in terms of time, money, as well as information reliability. In recent years, Web 2.0 technologies and GPS-enabled devices have advanced citizen science (CS) projects and made them user-friendly for volunteered citizens to collect and share their knowledge about geographical objects to these projects. Surprisingly, one of the leading CS projects i.e., OpenStreetMap (OSM) collects and provides land use features. The collaboratively collected land use features from multiple citizens could greatly support the challenging component of land use mapping which is in-field data collection. Hence, the main objective of this study is to calculate the completeness of land use features to OSM across Europe. The empirical findings reveal that the completeness index varies widely ranging from almost 2% for Iceland to 96% for Bosnia and Herzegovina. More precisely, more than 50% of land use features of eight European countries are mapped. This shows that CS can play a role in land use mapping as an alternative data source, which can partially contribute to the existing inventories for updating purposes

A dynamic and context-aware semantic mediation service for discovering and fusion of heterogeneous sensor data

Sensors play an increasingly critical role in capturing and distributing observations of phenomena in our environment. The vision of the semantic sensor web is to enable the interoperability of various applications that use sensor data provided by semantically heterogeneous sensor services. However, several challenges still need to be addressed to achieve this vision. More particularly, mechanisms that can support context-aware semantic mapping and that can adapt to the dynamic metadata of sensors are required. Semantic mapping for the sensor web is required to support sensor data fusion, sensor data discovery and retrieval, and automatic semantic annotation, to name only a few tasks. This paper presents a context-aware ontology-based semantic mediation service for heterogeneous sensor services. The semantic mediation service is context-aware and dynamic because it takes into account the real-time variability of thematic, spatial, and temporal elements that describe sensor data in different contexts. The semantic mediation service integrates rule-based reasoning to support the resolution of semantic heterogeneities. An application scenario is presented showing how the semantic mediation service can improve sensor data interpretation, reuse, and sharing in static and dynamic settings

Cancer Patient Beliefs and Attitudes Regarding Immune Checkpoint Inhibitor Therapy

The development and widespread use of immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) have advanced the field of oncology in a short period of time. Despite this, patient perception regarding this new medication class has not been adequately assessed, which may affect treatment decisions and adherence. The Belief about Medicines Questionnaire (BMQ) is a validated survey composed of 18 questions which analyzes patient’s beliefs about the necessity of prescribed medication and concern about the potential adverse events caused by the medication. General medication overuse and harm are also determined. This is the first study to utilize the BMQ for patients on ICI therapy

Об устойчивости движения математического маятника, взаимодействующего со струной

В линейной и нелинейной постановках решена задача об устойчивости стационарных движений однозвенного маятника в гибридной модели механической системы, состоящей из горизонтально закрепленной струны, нагруженной колеблющейся сосредоточенной массой.У лінійній і нелінійній постановках розв'язано задачу про стійкість стаціонарних рухів одноланкового маятника в гібридній моделі механічної системи, яка складається з горизонтально розміщеної струни, навантаженої коливною зосередженою масою.The problem of stability of the stationary motions of a single-mass pendulum in the hybrid model of one mechanical system is solved in the linear and nonlinear statements. The mechanical system consists of a string which is horizontally disposed and loaded by an oscillating localized mass