e-LION: Data integration semantic model to enhance predictive analytics in e-Learning.

The surge in online education emphasizes Learning Management Systems' (LMSs) crucial role in organizing learning resources and enabling teacher-learner communication. COVID-19 accelerated this, spiking engagement and substantial learning data. Academic institutions now have extensive data for comprehensive analysis to inform educational planning. However, integrating this diverse, sizable dataset from heterogeneous sources with semantic inconsistencies is challenging. Standardized integration schemes are needed for efficient utilization in machine learning models. Semantic web technologies offer a promising framework for semantic integration of e-learning data, enabling systematic consolidation, linkage, and advanced querying. We propose the e-LION (e-Learning Integration ONtology) semantic model to consolidate diverse e-learning knowledge bases and enhance analytical capabilities. Populated with real-world data from various LMSs, focusing on Software Engineering courses from the University of Malaga (Spain) and the Open University Learning, we validate it through four in-depth case studies. Advanced semantic querying techniques feed predictive models, perform time-series forecasting of student interactions based on final grades, and develop SWRL reasoning rules for student behavior classification. Validation study results are highly promising, suggesting e-LION as an ontological mediator scheme for integrating future semantic models within the e-learning domain. This opens exciting possibilities for leveraging the e-LION model to enhance educational planning, predictive modeling, and behavioral analysis, ultimately advancing e-learning through effective semantic integration and diverse learning-related data utilization.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tec

NORA: Scalable OWL reasoner based on NoSQL databasesand Apache Spark

Reasoning is the process of inferring new knowledge and identifying inconsis-tencies within ontologies. Traditional techniques often prove inadequate whenreasoning over large Knowledge Bases containing millions or billions of facts.This article introduces NORA, a persistent and scalable OWL reasoner built ontop of Apache Spark, designed to address the challenges of reasoning over exten-sive and complex ontologies. NORA exploits the scalability of NoSQL databasesto effectively apply inference rules to Big Data ontologies with large ABoxes. Tofacilitatescalablereasoning,OWLdata,includingclassandpropertyhierarchiesand instances, are materialized in the Apache Cassandra database. Spark pro-grams are then evaluated iteratively, uncovering new implicit knowledge fromthe dataset and leading to enhanced performance and more efficient reasoningover large-scale ontologies. NORA has undergone a thorough evaluation withdifferent benchmarking ontologies of varying sizes to assess the scalability of thedeveloped solution.Funding for open access charge: Universidad de Málaga / CBUA This work has been partially funded by grant (funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033/) PID2020-112540RB-C41,AETHER-UMA (A smart data holistic approach for context-aware data analytics: semantics and context exploita-tion). Antonio Benítez-Hidalgo is supported by Grant PRE2018-084280 (Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation andUniversities)

e-LION: Data integration semantic model to enhance predictive analytics in e-Learning

In the last years, Learning Management systems (LMSs) are acquiring great importance in online education, since they offer flexible integration platforms for organising a vast amount of learning resources, as well as for establishing effective communication channels between teachers and learners, at any direction. These online platforms are then attracting an increasing number of users that continuously access, download/upload resources and interact each other during their teaching/learning processes, which is even accelerating by the breakout of COVID-19. In this context, academic institutions are generating large volumes of learning-related data that can be analysed for supporting teachers in lesson, course or faculty degree planning, as well as administrations in university strategic level. However, managing such amount of data, usually coming from multiple heterogeneous sources and with attributes sometimes reflecting semantic inconsistencies, constitutes an emerging challenge, so they require common definition and integration schemes to easily fuse them, with the aim of efficiently feeding machine learning models. In this regard, semantic web technologies arise as a useful framework for the semantic integration of multi-source e-learning data, allowing the consolidation, linkage and advanced querying in a systematic way. With this motivation, the e-LION (e-Learning Integration ONtology) semantic model is proposed for the first time in this work to operate as data consolidation approach of different e-learning knowledge-bases hence leading to enrich on-top analysis. For demonstration purposes, the proposed ontological model is populated with real-world private and public data sources from different LMSs referring university courses of the Software Engineering degree of the University of Malaga (Spain) and the Open University Learning. [...]This work has been partially funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, Spain via Grant PID2020-112540RB-C41 (AEI/FEDER, UE) and Andalusian PAIDI program, Spain with grant P18-RT-2799. It has been developed in the context of PIE-17-166: Advanced Analysis of Students in Virtual Campus, and we specially thank to Carlos Romero and Rafael Gutierrez from the Virtual Campus Service of the University of Malaga for their technical support and data availability. Funding for open access charge: Universidad de Málaga /CBUA

An ontology-based secure design framework for graph-based databases

Graph-based databases are concerned with performance and flexibility. Most of the existing approaches used to design secure NoSQL databases are limited to the final implementation stage, and do not involve the design of security and access control issues at higher abstraction levels. Ensuring security and access control for Graph-based databases is difficult, as each approach differs significantly depending on the technology employed. In this paper, we propose the first technology-ascetic framework with which to design secure Graph-based databases. Our proposal raises the abstraction level by using ontologies to simultaneously model database and security requirements together. This is supported by the TITAN framework, which facilitates the way in which both aspects are dealt with. The great advantages of our approach are, therefore, that it: allows database designers to focus on the simultaneous protection of security and data while ignoring the implementation details; facilitates the secure design and rapid migration of security rules by deriving specific security measures for each underlying technology, and enables database designers to employ ontology reasoning in order to verify whether the security rules are consistent. We show the applicability of our proposal by applying it to a case study based on a hospital data access control.This work has been developed within the AETHER-UA (PID2020-112540RB-C43), AETHER-UMA (PID2020-112540RB-C41) and AETHER-UCLM (PID2020-112540RB-C42), ALBA (TED2021-130355B-C31, TED2021-130355B-C33), PRESECREL (PID2021-124502OB-C42) projects funded by the “Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación”, Andalusian PAIDI program with grant (P18-RT-2799) and the BALLADER Project (PROMETEO/2021/088) funded by the “Consellería de Innovación, Universidades, Ciencia Sociedad Digital”, Generalitat Valenciana

Moldando o corpo como uma prática de cuidado: el waltha-chumpi (criança envolvida) entre os imigrantes bolivianos

Objetivo: Describir el “chumpi”, una práctica de cuidados a niños de hasta un año de edad propia del ámbito cultural quechua. Método: Diseño cualitativo basado en el método etnográfico y teoría fundamentada. Muestra: 27 inmigrantes bolivianos. Las estrategias para recoger datos fueron las entrevistas en profundidad y la observación participante. Los datos se categorizaron y ordenaron en esquemas lógicos manualmente y a través del programa ATLAS-ti v.5. Resultados: El chumpi facilita el transporte de los recién nacidos y los protege del frío de la cordillera andina mientras la madre los transporta y trabaja, pero descubrimos que esta práctica se sigue desarrollando por inmigrantes bolivianos en el Sureste de España. Discusión y Conclusiones: Motivaciones relacionadas con la cosmovisión quechua llevan a las mujeres bolivianas a seguir practicando el chumpi en los países a los que emigran. El chumpi moldea el cuerpo y el carácter del lactante de forma que un niño envuelto fuerte será fuerte. El chumpi, una práctica de cuidados, se convierte en una práctica cultural identitaria que puede generar situaciones conflictivas en el ámbito sanitario.Objective: To analyze el chumpi, a Quechua baby body care cultural practice during the first year of life. Method: Qualitative study based on ethnography and grounded theory procedures. Muestra: 27 inmigrantes bolivianos. Las estrategias para recoger datos fueron las entrevistas en profundidad y la observación participante. Los datos se categorizaron y ordenaron en esquemas lógicos manualmente y a través del programa ATLAS-ti v.5. Results: El chumpi makes newborns transport easier and protects them from the cold of the Andean region while being carried by their working mothers. However, we found that this practice remains among Bolivian immigrants in southeast Spain. Conclusions: Quechua worldview motivations lead Bolivian women to continue practising el chumpi in destination countries. El chumpi molds the body and the character of the infant so that a strongly wrapped child will be strong. El chumpi, a practice of care, becomes a cultural identity sign. El chumpi generates controversial situations within the health sphere.Objetivo: Analisar o chumpi, uma prática cultural de cuidado corporal do bebê Quechua durante o primeiro ano de vida. Método: Estudo qualitativo baseado em procedimentos de etnografia e teoria fundamentada. Amostra: 27 imigrantes bolivianos. As estratégias para coletar os dados foram entrevistas em profundidade e observação participante. Os dados foram categorizados e ordenados em esquemas lógicos manualmente e através do programa ATLAS-ti v.5. Resultados: O chumpi facilita o transporte de recém-nascidos e protege-os do frio da região andina enquanto são transportados por suas mães trabalhadoras. No entanto, descobrimos que essa prática é mantida entre os imigrantes bolivianos no sudeste da Espanha. Conclusões: As motivações da visão de mundo quechua levam as mulheres bolivianas a continuar praticando o chumpi nos países de destino. O chumpi molda o corpo e o caráter do bebê, de modo que uma criança bem embrulhada é forte. O chumpi, uma prática de cuidado, torna-se um sinal de identidade cultural. O chumpi gera situações controversas dentro da esfera da saúde

OntoExhibit: una ontología para el modelado del ámbito de las exposiciones artísticas y sus expansiones semántico-discursivas.

El objetivo de esta comunicación es presentar OntoExhibit v. 1.0, una ontología diseñada para la representación, publicación y reutilización de información codificada y semánticamente enriquecida del dominio de las exposiciones artísticas. OntoExhibit es el resultado de una línea de investigación que se ha desplegado a través de cuatro proyectos de investigación consecutivos (2015-2022)Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

KA-SB: from data integration to large scale reasoning

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The analysis of information in the biological domain is usually focused on the analysis of data from single on-line data sources. Unfortunately, studying a biological process requires having access to disperse, heterogeneous, autonomous data sources. In this context, an analysis of the information is not possible without the integration of such data.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>KA-SB is a querying and analysis system for final users based on combining a data integration solution with a reasoner. Thus, the tool has been created with a process divided into two steps: 1) KOMF, the Khaos Ontology-based Mediator Framework, is used to retrieve information from heterogeneous and distributed databases; 2) the integrated information is crystallized in a (persistent and high performance) reasoner (DBOWL). This information could be further analyzed later (by means of querying and reasoning).</p> <p>Results</p> <p>In this paper we present a novel system that combines the use of a mediation system with the reasoning capabilities of a large scale reasoner to provide a way of finding new knowledge and of analyzing the integrated information from different databases, which is retrieved as a set of ontology instances. This tool uses a graphical query interface to build user queries easily, which shows a graphical representation of the ontology and allows users o build queries by clicking on the ontology concepts.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>These kinds of systems (based on KOMF) will provide users with very large amounts of information (interpreted as ontology instances once retrieved), which cannot be managed using traditional main memory-based reasoners. We propose a process for creating persistent and scalable knowledgebases from sets of OWL instances obtained by integrating heterogeneous data sources with KOMF. This process has been applied to develop a demo tool <url>http://khaos.uma.es/KA-SB</url>, which uses the BioPax Level 3 ontology as the integration schema, and integrates UNIPROT, KEGG, CHEBI, BRENDA and SABIORK databases.</p

SALON ontology for the formal description of Sequence Alignments.

Background. Information provided by high-throughput sequencing platforms allows the collection of content-rich data about bio- logical sequences and their context. Sequence alignment is a bioinformatics approach to identifying regions of similarity in DNA, RNA, or protein sequences. However, there is no consensus about the specific common terminology and representation for sequence alignments. Thus, automatically linking the wide existing knowledge about the sequences with the alignments is challenging. Results. The Sequence Alignment Ontology (SALON) defines a helpful vocabulary for representing and semantically annotating pairwise and multiple sequence alignments. SALON is an OWL 2 ontology that supports automated reasoning for alignments validation and retrieving complementary information from public databases under the Open Linked Data approach. This will reduce the effort needed by scientists to interpret the sequence alignment results. Conclusions. SALON defines a full range of controlled terminology in the domain of sequence alignments. It can be used as a mediated schema to integrate data from different sources and validate acquired knowledge.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

A Study About Meta-Optimizing the NSGA-II Multi-Objective Evolutionary Algorithm.

The automatic design of multi-objective metaheuristics is an active research line aimed at, given a set of problems used as training set, to find the configuration of a multi-objective optimizer able of solving them efficiently. The expected outcome is that the auto-configured algorithm can be used of find accurate Pareto front approximations for other problems. In this paper, we conduct a study on the meta-optimization of the wellknown NSGA-II algorithm, i.e., we intend to use NSGA-II as an automatic configuration tool to find configurations of NSGA-II. This search can be formulated as a multi-objective problem where the decision variables are the NSGA-II components and parameters and the the objectives are quality indicators that have to be minimized. To develop this study, we rely on the jMetal framework. The analysis we propose is aimed at answering the following research questions: RQ1 - how complex is to build the meta-optimization package?, and RQ2 - can accurate configurations be found? We conduct an experimentation to give an answer to these questions.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Síndromes vinculadas à cultura nos processos migratórios: o caso dos imigrantes bolivianos

Objetivo: descrever as síndromes vinculadas à cultura mantidas pelos imigrantes bolivianos no novo contexto migratório e analisar os processos de cuidado para esses problemas de saúde. Método: projeto de pesquisa de natureza qualitativa e com abordagem metodológica etnográfica. Amostra: 27 imigrantes bolivianos. As estratégias para a coleta de dados foram as entrevistas em profundidade e a observação participativa. Os dados foram classificados e categorizados em esquemas lógicos manualmente e por meio do programa ATLAS-ti v.5. Resultados: o susto, os “wayras”, o amartelo (tristeza), o pasmo de sol, o pasmo de lua e o pasmo de sereno são algumas das síndromes de caráter popular que acometem os imigrantes bolivianos, e que eles tratam no novo contexto migratório. Conclusões: no novo ambiente, as síndromes vinculadas à cultura, comuns em seu país de origem, são mantidas pelo grupo estudado. As formas de cuidado para esses problemas de saúde são adaptadas aos recursos do novo contexto e baseadas em interações com o ambiente doméstico, a biomedicina e a medicina tradicional. Foi constatada a necessidade de que os profissionais de saúde reconheçam que a eficácia de determinadas terapias se dá no âmbito das crenças culturais e não no âmbito da comprovação científica.Objetivo: describir los síndromes de filiación cultural que mantienen los inmigrantes bolivianos en el nuevo contexto migratorio y analizar los procesos de atención de estos padecimientos. Método: diseño de investigación de carácter cualitativo con enfoque metodológico etnográfico. Muestra: 27 inmigrantes bolivianos. Las estrategias para recoger datos fueron las entrevistas en profundidad y la observación participante. Los datos se categorizaron y ordenaron en esquemas lógicos manualmente y a través del programa ATLAS-ti v.5. Resultados: el susto, los “wayras”, el amartelo, el pasmo de sol, el pasmo de luna y el pasmo de sereno son algunos de los síndromes de carácter folk que los inmigrantes bolivianos padecen y tratan en el nuevo contexto migratorio. Conclusiones: en el nuevo entorno, el colectivo estudiado mantiene síndromes de filiación cultural comunes en su país de origen. Las formas de atención de éstos padecimientos se adaptan a los recursos del nuevo contexto y se basan en transacciones con el ámbito doméstico, la biomedicina y la medicina tradicional. Se constata la necesidad de que el profesional sanitario reconozca que la efectividad percibida de ciertas terapias opera dentro del ámbito de las creencias culturales y no en el de la evidencia científica.Objective: to describe the culture-bound syndromes maintained by Bolivian immigrants in the new migratory context and analyze the care processes of these health problems. Method: qualitative research with an ethnographic methodological approach. Sample: 27 Bolivian immigrants. In-depth interviews and participatory observation were the strategies used for data collection. Data were classified and categorized into logical schemes manually and using the ATLAS-ti program v.5. Results: susto, “wayras”, amartelo, pasmo de sol, pasmo de luna and pasmo de sereno are some of the folk illnesses that affect the Bolivian immigrants and that they have to treat in the new migratory context. Conclusions: in the new environment, the group under study preserves culture-bound syndromes that are common in their country of origin. The care strategies used for these health problems are adapted to the resources of the new context and based on interactions with the domestic environment, biomedicine and traditional medicine. It was observed the need for the health professionals to realize that the efficacy of certain therapies occurs within the scope of cultural beliefs and not in that of the scientific evidence