Integration strategy and tool between formal ontology and graph database technology

Ontologies, and especially formal ones, have traditionally been investigated as a means to formalize an application domain so as to carry out automated reasoning on it. The union of the terminological part of an ontology and the corresponding assertional part is known as a Knowledge Graph. On the other hand, database technology has often focused on the optimal organization of data so as to boost efficiency in their storage, management and retrieval. Graph databases are a recent technology specifically focusing on element-driven data browsing rather than on batch processing. While the complementarity and connections between these technologies are patent and intuitive, little exists to bring them to full integration and cooperation. This paper aims at bridging this gap, by proposing an intermediate format that can be easily mapped onto the formal ontology on one hand, so as to allow complex reasoning, and onto the graph database on the other, so as to benefit from efficient data handling

Thoracic Endovascular Aortic Repair for Type B Acute Aortic Dissection Complicated by Descending Thoracic Aneurysm

OBJECTIVES: To analyse the results and review the literature about thoracic aortic endovascular repair (TEVAR) for type B acute aortic dissection (TBAAD) complicated by descending thoracic aortic aneurysm (DTA) in the hyperacute or acute phases. METHODS: This was a multicentre, observational descriptive study. Inclusion criteria were TBAAD with a DTA of 6550 mm, TBAAD on an already known aneurysmal descending thoracic aorta, and TBAAD presenting with an enlarged aorta with a total diameter <50 mm, but with >50% diameter increase compared with a previous computed tomography angiography (CTA) showing a non-dissected aorta with normal sizing. Primary endpoints were early and long-term survival, freedom from TEVAR and aortic related mortality (ARM), and freedom from re-intervention. RESULTS: Twenty-two patients were included in the analysis. The mean aortic diameter was 66 \ub1 26 mm (range 42-130; IQR 51-64). The in hospital TEVAR related mortality was 14% (n = 3). The mean radiological follow-up was 56 \ub1 45 months (range 6-149; IQR 12-82), and the follow-up index 0.97 \ub1 0.1. All surviving patients were available for follow-up. During follow-up the cumulative mortality was 26% (n = 5) and TEVAR related mortality was 5% (n = 1). Overall the estimate of survival was 82% (95%CI: 61.5-93) at 1 year, and 64% at 5 years. Ongoing primary clinical success was 79% (re-intervention n = 4). Freedom from aortic related mortality was 86% (95%CI: 66-95) at 1 and 5 year, while freedom from re-intervention was 95% (95%CI: 75.5-95) at 1 year, and 77% (95%CI: 50-92) at 5 years. CONCLUSIONS: In our experience, DTA is a frequent complication from the very beginning of the clinical onset of TBAAD. In this high-risk cohort, TEVAR showed satisfactory results, better than those predicted by the risk score for open repair, with favourable stability of the aortic diameter and no aortic related adverse events during follow-up

Cyclic vomiting syndrome in children: a nationwide survey of current practice on behalf of the Italian Society of Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition (SIGENP) and Italian Society of Pediatric Neurology (SINP)

Background: Cyclic Vomiting Syndrome (CVS) is a rare functional gastrointestinal disorder, which has a considerable burden on quality of life of both children and their family. Aim of the study was to evaluate the diagnostic modalities and therapeutic approach to CVS among Italian tertiary care centers and the differences according to subspecialties, as well as to explore whether potential predictive factors associated with either a poor outcome or a response to a specific treatment. Methods: Cross-sectional multicenter web-based survey involving members of the Italian Society of Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition (SIGENP) and Italian Society of Pediatric Neurology (SINP). Results: A total of 67 responses were received and analyzed. Most of the respondent units cared for less than 20 patients. More than half of the patients were referred after 3 to 5 episodes, and a quarter after 5 attacks. We report different diagnostic approaches among Italian clinicians, which was particularly evident when comparing gastroenterologists and neurologists. Moreover, our survey demonstrated a predilection of certain drugs during emetic phase according to specific clinic, which reflects the cultural background of physicians. Conclusion: In conclusion, our survey highlights poor consensus amongst clinicians in our country in the diagnosis and the management of children with CVS, raising the need for a national consensus guideline in order to standardize the practice

Early Immunotherapy and Longer Corticosteroid Treatment Are Associated With Lower Risk of Relapsing Disease Course in Pediatric MOGAD

Background and Objectives We sought to identify early factors associated with relapse and outcome in paediatric-onset myelin oligodendrocyte glycoprotein antibody-associated disorders (MOGAD). Methods In a multicenter retrospective cohort of pediatric MOGAD (≤18 years), onset features and treatment were compared in patients with monophasic vs relapsing disease (including cases with follow-up ≥12 months after onset or relapse at any time) and in patients with final Expanded Disability Status Scale (EDSS) 0 vs ≥1 at last follow-up (including cases with followup >3 months after last event or EDSS0 at any time). Multivariable logistic regression models were used to evaluate factors associated with relapsing disease course and EDSS ≥ 1 at final follow-up. Results Seventy-five children were included (median onset age 7 years; median 30 months of follow-up). Presentation with acute disseminated encephalomyelitis was more frequent in children aged 8 years or younger (66.7%, 28/42) than in older patients (30.3%, 10/33) (p = 0.002), whereas presentation with optic neuritis was more common in children older than 8 years (57.6%, 19/33) than in younger patients (21.4%, 9/42) (p = 0.001). 40.0% (26/65) of patients relapsed. Time to first relapse was longer in children aged 8 years or younger than in older patients (median 18 vs 4 months) (p = 0.013). Factors at first event independently associated with lower risk of relapsing disease course were immunotherapy <7 days from onset (6.7-fold reduced odds of relapsing course, OR 0.15, 95% CI 0.03–0.61, p = 0.009), corticosteroid treatment for ≥5 weeks (6.7-fold reduced odds of relapse, OR 0.15, 95% CI 0.03–0.80, p = 0.026), and abnormal optic nerves on onset MRI (12.5-fold reduced odds of relapse, OR 0.08, 95% CI 0.01–0.50, p = 0.007). 21.1% (15/71) had EDSS ≥ 1 at final follow-up. Patients with a relapsing course had a higher proportion of final EDSS ≥ 1 (37.5%, 9/24) than children with monophasic disease (12.8%, 5/39) (p = 0.022, univariate analysis). Each 1-point increment in worst EDSS at onset was independently associated with 6.7-fold increased odds of final EDSS ≥ 1 (OR 6.65, 95% CI 1.33–33.26, p = 0.021). Discussion At first attack of pediatric MOGAD, early immunotherapy, longer duration of corticosteroid treatment, and abnormal optic nerves on MRI seem associated with lower risk of relapse, whereas higher disease severity is associated with greater risk of final disability (EDSS ≥ 1)

Predictive Process Monitoring Methods: Which One Suits Me Best?

Predictive process monitoring has recently gained traction in academia and is maturing also in companies. However, with the growing body of research, it might be daunting for companies to navigate in this domain in order to find, provided certain data, what can be predicted and what methods to use. The main objective of this paper is developing a value-driven framework for classifying existing work on predictive process monitoring. This objective is achieved by systematically identifying, categorizing, and analyzing existing approaches for predictive process monitoring. The review is then used to develop a value-driven framework that can support organizations to navigate in the predictive process monitoring field and help them to find value and exploit the opportunities enabled by these analysis techniques

EVALITA Evaluation of NLP and Speech Tools for Italian - December 17th, 2020

Welcome to EVALITA 2020! EVALITA is the evaluation campaign of Natural Language Processing and Speech Tools for Italian. EVALITA is an initiative of the Italian Association for Computational Linguistics (AILC, http://www.ai-lc.it) and it is endorsed by the Italian Association for Artificial Intelligence (AIxIA, http://www.aixia.it) and the Italian Association for Speech Sciences (AISV, http://www.aisv.it)

Towards a general model for abstract argumentation frameworks

In its original definition, the Abstract Argumentation framework considers atomic claims and a binary attack relationship among them, based on which different semantics would select subsets of claims consistently supporting the same position in a dispute or debate. While attack is obviously the core relationship in this setting, in more complex (and in many real-world) situations additional information may help, or might even be crucial, in determining such positions, and especially those that are going to win the debate. Examples are bipolarity (considering also the support relationship between pairs of claims) and weights (assigning different importance to different elements of the framework). These additional features have often been considered separately, yielding incompatible or anyhow disjoint models for argumentation frameworks. In this paper we propose a model that unifies all these perspectives, and further extends them by allowing to express contextual information associated to the arguments, in addition to their relationships

Toward automatic floor plan interpretation

Beyond exploitation and management of document collections based on the syntactic level, approaching the semantic level can open new perspectives for the collection users. This is particularly challenging in technical documents, where most relevant information is implicit in the graphic. This paper deals with architectural floorplans, proposing an approach based on formal representation and reasoning for their understanding and interpretation. The results of our study show that it is a viable and promising line of research