472 research outputs found
Nodes and Arcs: Concept Map, Semiotics, and Knowledge Organization.
Purpose – The purpose of the research reported here is to improve comprehension of the socially-negotiated identity of concepts in the domain of knowledge organization. Because knowledge organization as a domain has as its focus the order of concepts, both from a theoretical perspective and from an applied perspective, it is important to understand how the domain itself understands the meaning of a concept.
Design/methodology/approach – The paper provides an empirical demonstration of how the domain itself understands the meaning of a concept. The paper employs content analysis to demonstrate the ways in which concepts are portrayed in KO concept maps as signs, and they are subjected to evaluative semiotic analysis as a way to understand their meaning. The frame was the entire population of formal proceedings in knowledge organization – all proceedings of the
International Society for Knowledge Organization’s international conferences (1990-2010) and those of the annual classification workshops of the Special Interest Group for Classification Research of the American Society for Information Science and Technology (SIG/CR).
Findings – A total of 344 concept maps were analyzed. There was no discernible chronological pattern. Most concept maps were created by authors who were professors from the USA, Germany, France, or Canada. Roughly half were judged to contain semiotic content. Peirceian semiotics predominated, and tended to convey greater granularity and complexity in conceptual terminology.
Nodes could be identified as anchors of conceptual clusters in the domain; the arcs were identifiable as verbal relationship indicators. Saussurian concept maps were more applied than theoretical; Peirceian concept maps had more theoretical content.
Originality/value – The paper demonstrates important empirical evidence about the coherence of the domain of knowledge organization. Core values are conveyed across time through the concept maps in this population of conference paper
Blood-Brain Barrier Breakdown and Blood-Brain Communication in Neurological and Psychiatric Diseases
Breaching the Blood-Brain Barrier as a Gate to Psychiatric Disorder
The mechanisms underlying the development and progression of psychiatric
illnesses are only partially known. Clinical data suggest blood-brain barrier (BBB)
breakdown and inflammation are involved in some patients groups. Here we put
forward the “BBB hypothesis” and abnormal blood-brain communication as key
mechanisms leading to neuronal dysfunction underlying disturbed cognition, mood,
and behavior. Based on accumulating clinical data and animal experiments, we
propose that events within the “neurovascular unit” are initiated by a focal BBB
breakdown, and are associated with dysfunction of brain astrocytes, a local
inflammatory response, pathological synaptic plasticity, and increased network
connectivity. Our hypothesis should be validated in animal models of psychiatric
diseases and BBB breakdown. Recently developed imaging approaches open the
opportunity to challenge our hypothesis in patients. We propose that molecular
mechanisms controlling BBB permeability, astrocytic functions, and inflammation
may become novel targets for the prevention and treatment of psychiatric
disorders
Bioenergetic mechanisms of seizure control
Epilepsy is characterized by the regular occurrence of seizures, which follow a stereotypical sequence of alterations in the electroencephalogram. Seizures are typically a self limiting phenomenon, concluding finally in the cessation of hypersynchronous activity and followed by a state of decreased neuronal excitability which might underlie the cognitive and psychological symptoms the patients experience in the wake of seizures. Many efforts have been devoted to understand how seizures spontaneously stop in hope to exploit this knowledge in anticonvulsant or neuroprotective therapies. Besides the alterations in ion-channels, transmitters and neuromodulators, the successive build up of disturbances in energy metabolism have been suggested as a mechanism for seizure termination. Energy metabolism and substrate supply of the brain are tightly regulated by different mechanisms called neurometabolic and neurovascular coupling. Here we summarize the current knowledge whether these mechanisms are sufficient to cover the energy demand of hypersynchronous activity and whether a mismatch between energy need and supply could contribute to seizure control
Min-Rank Conjecture for Log-Depth Circuits
A completion of an m-by-n matrix A with entries in {0,1,*} is obtained by
setting all *-entries to constants 0 or 1. A system of semi-linear equations
over GF(2) has the form Mx=f(x), where M is a completion of A and f:{0,1}^n -->
{0,1}^m is an operator, the i-th coordinate of which can only depend on
variables corresponding to *-entries in the i-th row of A. We conjecture that
no such system can have more than 2^{n-c\cdot mr(A)} solutions, where c>0 is an
absolute constant and mr(A) is the smallest rank over GF(2) of a completion of
A. The conjecture is related to an old problem of proving super-linear lower
bounds on the size of log-depth boolean circuits computing linear operators x
--> Mx. The conjecture is also a generalization of a classical question about
how much larger can non-linear codes be than linear ones. We prove some special
cases of the conjecture and establish some structural properties of solution
sets.Comment: 22 pages, to appear in: J. Comput.Syst.Sci
Finding Cycles and Trees in Sublinear Time
We present sublinear-time (randomized) algorithms for finding simple cycles
of length at least and tree-minors in bounded-degree graphs. The
complexity of these algorithms is related to the distance of the graph from
being -minor-free (resp., free from having the corresponding tree-minor).
In particular, if the graph is far (i.e., -far) {from} being
cycle-free, i.e. if one has to delete a constant fraction of edges to make it
cycle-free, then the algorithm finds a cycle of polylogarithmic length in time
\tildeO(\sqrt{N}), where denotes the number of vertices. This time
complexity is optimal up to polylogarithmic factors.
The foregoing results are the outcome of our study of the complexity of {\em
one-sided error} property testing algorithms in the bounded-degree graphs
model. For example, we show that cycle-freeness of -vertex graphs can be
tested with one-sided error within time complexity
\tildeO(\poly(1/\e)\cdot\sqrt{N}). This matches the known
query lower bound, and contrasts with the fact that any minor-free property
admits a {\em two-sided error} tester of query complexity that only depends on
the proximity parameter \e. For any constant , we extend this result
to testing whether the input graph has a simple cycle of length at least .
On the other hand, for any fixed tree , we show that -minor-freeness has
a one-sided error tester of query complexity that only depends on the proximity
parameter \e.
Our algorithm for finding cycles in bounded-degree graphs extends to general
graphs, where distances are measured with respect to the actual number of
edges. Such an extension is not possible with respect to finding tree-minors in
complexity.Comment: Keywords: Sublinear-Time Algorithms, Property Testing, Bounded-Degree
Graphs, One-Sided vs Two-Sided Error Probability Updated versio
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