Automating class definitions from OWL to English

Text definitions for entities within bio-ontologies are a cor-nerstone of the effort to gain a consensus in understanding and usage of those ontologies. Writing these definitions is, however, a considerable effort and there is often a lag be-tween specification of the entities in the ontology and the development of the text-based definitions. As well as these text definitions, there can also be logical descriptions and definitions of an ontology's entities. The goal of natural lan-guage generation (NLG) from ontologies is to take the logi-cal description of entities and generate fluent natural lan-guage. We should be able to use NLG to automatically pro-vide text-based definitions from an ontology that has logical descriptions of its entities and thus avoid the bottleneck of authoring these definitions by hand. In this paper we present some early work in using NLG to provide such text definitions for the Experimental factor Ontology (EFO). We present our results, discuss issues in generating text definitions, and highlight some future work

Measuring Expert Performance at Manually Classifying Domain Entities under Upper Ontology Classes

Classifying entities in domain ontologies under upper ontology classes is a recommended task in ontology engineering to facilitate semantic interoperability and modelling consistency. Integrating upper ontologies this way is difficult and, despite emerging automated methods, remains a largely manual task. Little is known about how well experts perform at upper ontology integration. To develop methodological and tool support, we first need to understand how well experts do this task. We designed a study to measure the performance of human experts at manually classifying classes in a general knowledge domain ontology with entities in the Basic Formal Ontology (BFO), an upper ontology used widely in the biomedical domain. We conclude that manually classifying domain entities under upper ontology classes is indeed very difficult to do correctly. Given the importance of the task and the high degree of inconsistent classifications we encountered, we further conclude that it is necessary to improve the methodological framework surrounding the manual integration of domain and upper ontologies

Interactions of the fungicide 2-aminobutane with potato tubers

A synthetic route to 2-aminobutane (2-AB) was developed, which enabled the synthesis of specifically and uniformly 14C labelled 2-AB to be carried out. 14C labelling was employed as a means of detecting 2-aminobutane in tuber tissue samples. An analytical technique, based on acid extraction and scintillation counting, was developed for the determination of 2-AB residues in potato tubers. This allowed studies to be carried out on various factors influencing the efficiency of fumigation of potato tubers with 2-aminobutane.Using C 2-AB and a specially constructed small scale fumigation chamber, an investigation into the absorption and penetration of 2-AB into tubers was undertaken. The rate and extent of 2-AB absorption were studied, and also the effect of initial fumigant concentration and length of exposure period, on the final 2-AB residues in tubers. The depth of penetration was shown to be limited to the first 1 cm of tissue indicating that after initial absorption, the amine is firmly bound at or near the tuber surface. Thin layer chromatography of extracts from fumigated tubers,provided evidence which suggested that 2-AB is not metabolised by the tubers during the storage period.Damaged tubers were shown to absorb higher levels of 2-AB, and the effect of wound healing at different temperatures, prior to fumigation, was demonstrated. The preferential uptake of 2-aminobutane through tuberlenticels was highlighted as a possible cause of tuberto tuber variation in 2-AB residues. Studies showed that there was no appreciable loss of 2-AB from fumigated tubers during the storage period, and that transfer of 2-AB from tuber to tuber during air recirculation was very limited.The absorption of 2-AB by soil, straw and wood,was examined and identified as a likely sink for the amine fumigant, and this could contribute to the low 2-AB residues recorded for some commercial fumigations.A comparison of the antifungal activity of the optical isomers of 2-aminobutane, confirmed that the R-(-)- enantiomer was more active than the corresponding S-(+)- isomer, or racemic mixture, against the fungi responsible for gangrene and skin spot in potato tubers

A Study of the Effect of Quinhydrone on the Time of Set of Silicic Acid Gells and of the Effect of Silicic Acid Gel on the Determination of pH by the Quinhydrone Electrode

The studies discussed in this report are supplementary to the work being done at Union College on silicic acid gels. In as much data has been taken in this work using pH as determined by the quinhydrone electrode, it was desired that a study be made of the effect of quinhydrone on the gel and of gel on the quinhydrone determinations. The pH of gels during their setting has been worked on and the first part of the experiment deals with the effect of quinhydrone on the time of set of silicic acid gel. Then it was desired to know wether a gel had any effect on the determination of the pH by means of the quinhydrone set up. It had been thought that there was no effect in either case but there was no experiemtnal evidence to show proof

A study of non-credit management education regarding the relationship between business and higher education.

This study was intended to examine the present direction of development and implementation of non-credit management education programs by companies and colleges and universities. This study presented specific information that illustrated that many industrial and service organizations have developed their own management education programs to satisfy their perceived current needs. The research was intended to provide information into the changing needs of management education as well as the deficiencies of academic institutions in successfully meeting those needs. It was intended to assist both business and higher education to understand the long-term needs of management education and the effects that the fulfillment of these needs will have on business, schools of management, schools of education, and divisions of continuing education. A survey questionnaire was developed and sent to 308 businesses. A different survey questionnaire was developed and sent to 60 colleges and universities. The business survey included small, medium, and large sized companies in the north, east, south, and west in both manufacturing and service sectors. The survey of colleges and universities included small, medium, and large sized institutions from the north, east, south, and west including both public and private colleges and universities. The findings indicated leadership/management issues are the critical needs of business in management education programs and that the majority of the companies use in-house programs to address those needs. The finding indicated that there is a need for better communications between business and higher education on the needs of business in management education and how colleges and universities can satisfy those needs. The findings indicated that higher education and corporations have completely different objectives in sponsoring management education programs. It was indicated that the objective of business is to design management education programs to fit specific immediate situations whereas programs sponsored by higher education are broader in context and are not designed to fit specific immediate situations. The findings also indicated that management education programs have an impact on business and higher education and a cooperative effort can result in a positive benefit to each other