Aligning the top-level of SNOMED-CT with Basic Formal Ontology

Effective translational research requires automated analysis of large datasets collected by multiple researchers working at multiple locations. Reliable, machine interpretation of-—and reasoning with—-large datasets assembled at different times and places by different researchers requires standard representations of data. These representations are controlled, structured vocabularies also known as ontologies. By far, the most successful ontology is the Gene Ontology (GO), used by bioinformatics researchers to annotate genomics data. However, to address the phenotype side of translational research will require annotation of electronic medical record data and clinical research data with a clinical-phenotype ontology analogous to GO. One leading candidate for this ontology is SNOMED-CT (SNCT). However, GO and SNCT are incompatible representations. GO is based on an upper level ontology called Basic Formal Ontology (BFO). In this work, we aligned the upper level of SNCT with BFO to enhance its suitability for translational research. Most (14/19 or 74%) of the top-level concepts of SNCT can be fitted into the framework of BFO, but only after significant reorganization. An important concept that does not align is Clinical Finding, which is intended to comprehend diseases and signs and symptoms of disease. However, a finding of disease (epistemology) is not the same thing as a disease (ontology). This discrepancy between SNCT and BFO is important to consider further. Another key result is that children of the top-level concepts do not necessarily follow their parents into BFO, and thus one must align each SNCT concept independently. Future work is to align the next level of SNCT (345 concepts) with BFO

Economic Reforms in the Sovereign States of the Former Soviet Union

macroeconomics, former Soviet Union, economic reforms

Production Costs in Atlantic Fresh Fish Processing

Production costs for fresh Atlantic groundfish and scallop processing are examined using direct observation, linear regression analysis, and cost accounting. Assuming that management chooses a production technique where marginal costs are constant over a wide range of production due to management's expectation of predictable and unpredictable variation in product demand and exvessel supply, estimates of marginal cost for nonfish inputs from linear regression results and from cost accounting are compared. Also, regression results for physical yield from fish inputs are compared to estimates from the U.S. Department of Commerce. The similarity in results between these independent forms of estimation supports the maintained hypothesis of constant marginal cost over a wide range of production.Demand and Price Analysis, Environmental Economics and Policy, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Production Economics, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy, Risk and Uncertainty,

Toward a Combined Merchant-Regulatory Mechanism for Electricity Transmission Expansion

Electricity transmission pricing and transmission grid expansion have received increasing regulatory and analytical attention in recent years. Since electricity transmission is a very special service with unusual characteristics, such as loop flows, the approaches have been largely tailor-made and not simply taken from the general economic literature or from the more specific but still general incentive regulation literature. An exception has been Vogelsang (2001), who postulated transmission cost and demand functions with fairly general properties and then adapted known regulatory adjustment processes to the electricity transmission problem. A concern with this approach has been that the properties of transmission cost and demand functions are little known but are suspected to differ from conventional functional forms. The assumed cost and demand properties in Vogelsang (2001) may actually not hold for transmission companies (Transcos). Loop-flows imply that certain investments in transmission upgrades cause negative network effects on other transmission links, so that capacity is multidimensional. Total network capacity might even decrease due to the addition of new capacity in certain transmission links. The transmission capacity cost function can be discontinuous. There are two disparate approaches to transmission investment: one employs the theory based on long-run financial rights (LTFTR) to transmission (merchant approach), while the other is based on the incentive-regulation hypothesis (regulatory approach). An independent system operator (ISO) could handle the actual dispatch and operational pricing. The transmission firm is regulated through benchmark or price regulation to provide long-term investment incentives while avoiding congestion. In this paper we consider the elements that could combine the merchant and regulatory approaches in a setting with price-taking electricity generators and loads.Electricity transmission, Incentive regulation, Financial transmission rights, Loop-flow problem

Towards Initial Mass Functions for Asteroids and Kuiper Belt Objects

Our goal is to understand primary accretion of the first planetesimals. The primitive meteorite record suggests that sizeable planetesimals formed in the asteroid belt over a period longer than a million years, each composed entirely of an unusual, but homogeneous, mixture of mm-size particles. We sketch a scenario in which primary accretion of 10-100km size planetesimals proceeds directly, if sporadically, from aerodynamically-sorted mm-size particles (generically "chondrules"). These planetesimal sizes are in general agreement with the currently observed asteroid mass peak near 100km diameter, which has been identified as a "fossil" property of the pre-erosion, pre-depletion population. We extend our primary accretion theory to make predictions for outer solar system planetesimals, which may also have a preferred size in the 100km diameter range. We estimate formation rates of planetesimals and assess the conditions needed to match estimates of both asteroid and Kuiper Belt Object (KBO) formation rates. For nebula parameters that satisfy observed mass accretion rates of Myr-old protoplanetary nebulae, the scenario is roughly consistent with not only the "fossil" sizes of the asteroids, and their estimated production rates, but also with the observed spread in formation ages of chondrules in a given chondrite, and with a tolerably small radial diffusive mixing during this time between formation and accretion (the model naturally helps explain the peculiar size distribution of chondrules within such objects). The scenario also produces 10-100km diameter primary KBOs. The optimum range of parameters, however, represents a higher gas density and fractional abundance of solids, and a smaller difference between keplerian and pressure-supported orbital velocities, than "canonical" models of the solar nebula. We discuss several potential explanations for these differences.Comment: Icarus, in pres

The critical junctures approach remoulded: explaining change in trade union influence over public policy in four countries

The aim of this dissertation is to improve our understanding of the concept of critical junctures in political science. In this regard the dissertation examines the approach’s evolution to this point. It is argued here that the critical junctures approach, as it had developed up to now, has lacked rigour. Consequently, the approach is remoulded in ways that add to its rigour and applicability. Improving upon the approach will involve specifying clearly defined standards that enable the identification of levels of change in order to see if that change constitutes a critical juncture. This systemisation of standards will improve the usefulness of the critical junctures approach in identifying change both within and across countries over time. The remoulded critical junctures approach is employed in examining changes in the trade union peak organisations’ influence over public policy in a series of case studies in Ireland, Britain, the United States of America, and Sweden spanning the period 1945-2000. This is in order to see if these changes in the trade unions’ influence over public policy constituted critical junctures. This research is based on the extensive assessment of trade union documentation, the media, government and political party publications, and other policy papers, along with the extensive use of secondary source material from these countries. This dissertation argues that the remoulded critical junctures approach, as set out here, possesses a clarity that was lacking in the literature up until now. The clear criteria concerning the levels of change permits the identification of critical junctures. Thus, uncertainty surrounding the concept of critical junctures is diminished. What is more, the approach as set out here is designed to be readily applicable to any research project concerned with the issue of change