Ontology View Query Management

Like views in relational databases, ontology views are expressed as queries, but over source ontologies rather than tables. To enhance the reusability of such views, we are constructing a view Query Manager application. The Query Manager allows queries to be edited, executed, and stored for reuse. View queries are discoverable by searching the Query Manager's metadata catalog. The Query Manager also supports the storage of materialized view results upon which further queries may be issued

vSPARQL: A View Definition Language for the Semantic Web

Translational medicine applications would like to leverage the biological and biomedical ontologies, vocabularies, and data sets available on the semantic web. We present a general solution for RDF information set reuse inspired by database views. Our view definition language, vSPARQL, allows applications to specify the exact content that they are interested in and how that content should be restructured or modified. Applications can access relevant content by querying against these view definitions. We evaluate the expressivity of our approach by defining views for practical use cases and comparing our view definition language to existing query languages

Do we get by with a little help from our friends?:Social drinking and risk-taking behaviour

The independent roles of social influence and alcohol consumption on risk-taking behaviour have been well researched within the psychological literature. However, the investigation of how all three of these variables interact is both diminutive and inconsistent. That is, there is no general consensus as to whether groups are beneficial or detrimental to alcohol-induced risk-taking. A review of the literature suggests that the relationship between these variables may not be straightforward, and thus a multifaceted approach with consideration of both individual differences and group characteristics may shed light on the complex relationship between social influence and alcohol-induced risk-taking. Subsequently, investigations could potentially identify effective strategies towards targeting sensible drinking in light of social contexts

Social media:A psychology postgraduate's reflection

Social media is increasingly being utilised as a means of sharing research and ideas, showing your skill-set and collecting data. This article reflects on the positives and potential pitfalls for psychology postgraduates of this burgeoning area

‘Maybe I can do this. Maybe I should be here’: Evaluating an academic literacy, resilience and confidence programme

It has been well documented in research that students from so-called ‘non-traditional’ backgrounds can experience significant difficulty in accessing Higher Education, in part due to a lack of cultural capital. This is further reinforced by ‘invisible pedagogic practices’ (Tapp 2015), which uphold the prestige of disciplines such as ‘critical analysis’, ‘structure’ and ‘argument’ without adequately inducting students into such practices. Through the evaluation of an academic literacy intervention (‘ARC’) designed to improve the academic resilience and confidence of students on an undergraduate degree programme, this paper demonstrates that ‘literacy’ is as much a social practice as it is a set of applied skills. Thus, ‘academic literacy’ should constitute both study skills and academic socialisation. This paper further argues that the acquisition of ‘academic literacy’ necessitates the adoption of an ‘academic identity’; which is an emotional, as well as an intellectual endeavour. This requires institutions to move away from the deficit model of ‘academic literacy support’ towards models which enable the construction of a shared academic identity and cultivate a sense of belonging to the university environment

Generating Application Ontologies from Reference Ontologies

The semantic web provides the possiblity of linking together large numbers of biomedical ontologies. Unfortunately, many of the biomedical ontologies that have been developed are domain-specific and do not share a common structure that will allow them to be easily combined. Reference ontologies provide the necessary ontological framework for linking together these smaller, specialized ontologies. We present extensions to the semantic web query language SparQL that will allow researchers to develop application ontologies that are derived from reference ontologies. We have modified the ARQ query processor to support subqueries, recursive subqueries, and Skolem functions for node creation. We demonstrate the utility of these extensions by deriving an application ontology from the Foundational Model of Anatomy

The shuffleboard game: investigating group drinking, mood, and risky behavior

Objective: Existing research examining how social forces and alcohol interact to impact risky behaviors has yielded contrasting findings, possibly due to the nature and variety of risk-taking tasks used and the failure to consider the role of emotion. Using a novel risk task, akin to real-world drinking games, this study examines the effect of intoxication and group contexts on risk-taking, considering mediating effects of mood. Method: One hundred thirty-two social drinkers (83 females) consumed an alcoholic (0.8 g/kg) or placebo beverage before participating in the shuffleboard game (designed to mimic real drinking games) either individually (N = 66) or in the presence of two friends (N = 66). Mood was assessed before and after beverage consumption. Results: When controlling for group identity, intoxication (vs. placebo) was associated with significantly higher risk-taking, although there was no impact of group context. No interaction between context and intoxication was observed, and mood did not mediate this relationship. Conclusions: Intoxication increases risk-taking behavior regardless of whether an individual is in a group, or isolated, whereas groups do not appear to enhance risky behavior. Previous evidence of an effect of groups on risk-taking may have been due to a failure to control for the effect of group identity. To reduce risky behaviors, interventions may benefit from targeting alcohol use while considering how preexisting social norms within a friendship group may either mitigate or exacerbate risk. Results affirm the importance of considering both intoxication and group effects on affective states when investigating risk-taking behaviors