Linked-data based domain-specific sentiment lexicons

In this paper we present a dataset componsed of domain-specific sentiment lexicons in six languages for two domains. We used existing collections of reviews from Trip Advisor, Amazon, the Stanford Network Analysis Project and the OpinRank Review Dataset. We use an RDF model based on the lemon and Marl formats to represent the lexicons. We describe the methodology that we applied to generate the domain-specific lexicons and we provide access information to our datasets.

Domain-Specific Multi-Modeling of Security Concerns in Service-Oriented Architectures

As a common reference for many in-development standards and execution frameworks, special attention is being paid to Service-Oriented Architectures. SOAs modeling, however, is an area in which a consensus has not being achieved. Currently, standardization organizations are defining proposals to offer a solution to this problem. Nevertheless, until very recently, non-functional aspects of services have not been considered for standardization processes. In particular, there exists a lack of a design solution that permits an independent development of the functional and non-functional concerns of SOAs, allowing that each concern be addressed in a convenient manner in early stages of the development, in a way that could guarantee the quality of this type of systems. This paper, leveraging on previous work, presents an approach to integrate security-related non-functional aspects (such as confidentiality, integrity, and access control) in the development of services.

Multi Domain-Specific Modeling of the Security Concerns of Service-Oriented Architectures

Service-Oriented Architectures (SOA), and Web Services (WS), the technology generally used to implement them, achieve the integration of heterogeneous technologies, providing interoperability, and yielding the reutilization of pre-existent systems. Model-driven development methodologies provide inherent benefits such as increased productivity, greater reuse, and better maintainability, to name a few. Efforts on achieving model-driven development of SOAs already exist, but there is currently no standard solution that addresses non-functional aspects of these services as well. This paper presents an approach to integrate these non-functional aspects in the development of web services, with an emphasis on security.

Hardware Reuse Improvement through the Domain Specific Language dHDL.

The dHDL language has been defined to improve hardware design productivity. This is achieved through the definition of a better reuse interface (including parameters, attributes and macroports) and the creation of control structures that help the designer in the hardware generation process.

Generating Linked-Data based Domain-Specific Sentiment Lexicons from Legacy Language and Semantic Resources

We present a methodology for legacy language resource adaptation that generates domain-specific sentiment lexicons organized around domain entities described with lexical information and sentiment words described in the context of these entities. We explain the steps of the methodology and we give a working example of our initial results. The resulting lexicons are modelled as Linked Data resources by use of established formats for Linguistic Linked Data (lemon, NIF) and for linked sentiment expressions (Marl), thereby contributing and linking to existing Language Resources in the Linguistic Linked Open Data cloud.

Automated attribute inference in complex service workflows based on sharing analysis

The properties of data and activities in business processes can be used to greatly facilítate several relevant tasks performed at design- and run-time, such as fragmentation, compliance checking, or top-down design. Business processes are often described using workflows. We present an approach for mechanically inferring business domain-specific attributes of workflow components (including data Ítems, activities, and elements of sub-workflows), taking as starting point known attributes of workflow inputs and the structure of the workflow. We achieve this by modeling these components as concepts and applying sharing analysis to a Horn clause-based representation of the workflow. The analysis is applicable to workflows featuring complex control and data dependencies, embedded control constructs, such as loops and branches, and embedded component services.

Semantic neology in the domain of videogames in Spanish

The aim of this paper is to discuss the meaning of five neologisms in the domain of videogames in Spanish: título, aventura, personaje, plataforma, and rol. Our study focuses on a special type of neologism since the Spanish terms we deal with here are not strictly new words; they are what have been called sense neologisms or neosemanticisms, that is, old words taking a new sense in a different domain. These words were identified as new concepts after a process of analysis based on contextual evidence. This study of neology is based on the analysis of a corpus of press articles evaluating videogames published by the Spanish newspaper El País from 1998 to 2008. The analysis of the instances of use of domain specific terms in the corpus revealed that they acquired new senses different to those they have in other domains where they are also used. The paper explains the process of discovering the specialized meaning these words have developed in the domain of videogames and how the analysis of collocational behavior helps in the process of discovering the new sense and in the design of the definition provided.

Semantic Neology in the Domain of Videogames in Spanish.

The aim of this paper is to discuss the meaning of five neologisms in the domain of videogames in Spanish: título, aventura, personaje, plataforma, and rol. Our study focuses on a special type of neologism since the Spanish terms we deal with here are not strictly new words; they are what have been called sense neologisms or neosemanticisms, that is, old words taking a new sense in a different domain. These words were identified as new concepts after a process of analysis based on contextual evidence. This study of neology is based on the analysis of a corpus of press articles evaluating videogames published by the Spanish newspaper El País from 1998 to 2008. The analysis of the instances of use of domain specific terms in the corpus revealed that they acquired new senses different to those they have in other domains where they are also used. The paper explains the process of discovering the specialized meaning these words have developed in the domain of videogames and how the analysis of collocational behavior helps in the process of discovering the new sense and in the design of the definition provided. RESUMEN: En este trabajo se presentan cinco neologismos del ámbito del videojuego en español: “título”, “aventura”, “personaje”, “plataforma” y “rol”. Se trata de un tipo especial de neologismo, conocido también como “neologismo semántico” o “neosemanticismo”, ya que son palabras ya existentes en la lengua que adquieren un nuevo significado. Los nuevos significados que adquieren estos términos en el ámbito del videojuego se establecieron tras el análisis del contexto de uso en un corpus periodístico de críticas de videojuegos. Este corpus recoge las críticas de videojuegos publicadas por el periódico El País entre 1998 y 2008. El análisis de los casos de uso de los términos en el corpus de videojuegos reveló que adquirían un nuevo significado diferente al de su uso en otros ámbitos o en el lenguaje general. El artículo describe cada uno de los neologismos y el proceso de análisis contextual que conduce a descubrir el nuevo significado y elaborar su definición.

Combined determination of sharing and freeness of program variables through abstract interpretation

In this paper, abstract interpretation algorithms are described for computing the sharmg as well as the freeness information about the run-time instantiations of program variables. An abstract domain is proposed which accurately and concisely represents combined freeness and sharing information for program variables. Abstract unification and all other domain-specific functions for an abstract interpreter working on this domain are presented. These functions are illustrated with an example. The importance of inferring freeness is stressed by showing (1) the central role it plays in non-strict goal independence, and (2) the improved accuracy it brings to the analysis of sharing information when both are computed together. Conversely, it is shown that keeping accurate track of sharing allows more precise inference of freeness, thus resulting in an overall much more powerful abstract interpreter.

Integración de Fuentes con Información de Contexto y Sistemas Interactivos

Durante el transcurso de esta Tesis Doctoral se ha realizado un estudio de la problemática asociada al desarrollo de sistemas de interacción hombre-máquina sensibles al contexto. Este problema se enmarca dentro de dos áreas de investigación: los sistemas interactivos y las fuentes de información contextual. Tradicionalmente la integración entre ambos campos se desarrollaba a través de soluciones verticales específicas, que abstraen a los sistemas interactivos de conocer los procedimientos de bajo nivel de acceso a la información contextual, pero limitan su interoperabilidad con otras aplicaciones y fuentes de información. Para solventar esta limitación se hace imprescindible potenciar soluciones interoperables que permitan acceder a la información del mundo real a través de procedimientos homogéneos. Esta problemática coincide perfectamente con los escenarios de \Computación Ubicua" e \Internet de las Cosas", donde se apunta a un futuro en el que los objetos que nos rodean serán capaces de obtener información del entorno y comunicarla a otros objetos y personas. Los sistemas interactivos, al ser capaces de obtener información de su entorno a través de la interacción con el usuario, pueden tomar un papel especial en este escenario tanto como consumidores como productores de información. En esta Tesis se ha abordado la integración de ambos campos teniendo en cuenta este escenario tecnológico. Para ello, en primer lugar se ha realizado un an álisis de las iniciativas más importantes para la definición y diseño de sistemas interactivos, y de las principales infraestructuras de suministro de información. Mediante este estudio se ha propuesto utilizar el lenguaje SCXML del W3C para el diseño de los sistemas interactivos y el procesamiento de los datos proporcionados por fuentes de contexto. Así, se ha reflejado cómo las capacidades del lenguaje SCXML para combinar información de diferentes modalidades pueden también utilizarse para procesar e integrar información contextual de diferentes fuentes heterogéneas, y por consiguiente diseñar sistemas de interacción sensibles al contexto. Del mismo modo se presenta a la iniciativa Sensor Web, y a su extensión semántica Semantic Sensor Web, como una iniciativa idónea para permitir un acceso y suministro homogéneo de la información a los sistemas interactivos sensibles al contexto. Posteriormente se han analizado los retos que plantea la integración de ambos tipos de iniciativas. Como resultado se ha conseguido establecer una serie de funcionalidades que son necesarias implementar para llevar a cabo esta integración. Utilizando tecnologías que aportan una gran flexibilidad al proceso de implementación y que se apoyan en recomendaciones y estándares actuales, se implementaron una serie de desarrollos experimentales que integraban las funcionalidades identificadas anteriormente. Finalmente, con el fin de validar nuestra propuesta, se realizaron un conjunto de experimentos sobre un entorno de experimentación que simula el escenario de la conducción. En este escenario un sistema interactivo se comunica con una extensión semántica de una plataforma basada en los estándares de la Sensor Web para poder obtener información y publicar las observaciones que el usuario realizaba al sistema. Los resultados obtenidos han demostrado la viabilidad de utilizar el lenguaje SCXML para el diseño de sistemas interactivos sensibles al contexto que requieren acceder a plataformas avanzadas de información para consumir y publicar información a la vez que interaccionan con el usuario. Del mismo modo, se ha demostrado cómo la utilización de tecnologías semánticas en los procesos de consulta y publicación de información puede facilitar la reutilización de la información publicada en infraestructuras Sensor Web por cualquier tipo de aplicación, y de este modo contribuir al futuro escenario de Internet de las Cosas. ABSTRACT In this Thesis, we have addressed the difficulties related to the development of context-aware human-machine interaction systems. This issue is part of two research fields: interactive systems and contextual information sources. Traditionally both fields have been integrated through domain-specific vertical solutions that allow interactive systems to access contextual information without having to deal with low-level procedures, but restricting their interoperability with other applications and heterogeneous data sources. Thus, it is essential to boost the research on interoperable solutions that provide access to real world information through homogeneous procedures. This issue perfectly matches with the scenarios of \Ubiquitous Computing" and \Internet of Things", which point toward a future in which many objects around us will be able to acquire meaningful information about the environment and communicate it to other objects and to people. Since interactive systems are able to get information from their environment through interaction with the user, they can play an important role in this scenario as they can both consume real-world data and produce enriched information. This Thesis deals with the integration of both fields considering this technological scenario. In order to do this, we first carried out an analysis of the most important initiatives for the definition and design of interactive systems, and the main infrastructures for providing information. Through this study the use of the W3C SCXML language is proposed for both the design of interactive systems and the processing of data provided by different context sources. Thus, this work has shown how the SCXML capabilities for combining information from different modalities can also be used to process and integrate contextual information from different heterogeneous sensor sources, and therefore to develope context-aware interaction systems. Similarly, we present the Sensor Web initiative, and its semantic extension Semantic Sensor Web, as an appropriate initiative to allow uniform access and delivery of information to the context-aware interactive systems. Subsequently we have analyzed the challenges of integrating both types of initiatives: SCXML and (Semantic) Sensor Web. As a result, we state a number of functionalities that are necessary to implement in order to perform this integration. By using technologies that provide exibility to the implementation process and are based on current recommendations and standards, we implemented a series of experimental developments that integrate the identified functionalities. Finally, in order to validate our approach, we conducted different experiments with a testing environment simulating a driving scenario. In this framework an interactive system can access a semantic extension of a Telco plataform, based on the standards of the Sensor Web, to acquire contextual information and publish observations that the user performed to the system. The results showed the feasibility of using the SCXML language for designing context-aware interactive systems that require access to advanced sensor platforms for consuming and publishing information while interacting with the user. In the same way, it was shown how the use of semantic technologies in the processes of querying and publication sensor data can assist in reusing and sharing the information published by any application in Sensor Web infrastructures, and thus contribute to realize the future scenario of \Internet of Things".

A model to develop a platform for personalised health applications

Antecedentes Europa vive una situación insostenible. Desde el 2008 se han reducido los recursos de los gobiernos a raíz de la crisis económica. El continente Europeo envejece con ritmo constante al punto que se prevé que en 2050 habrá sólo dos trabajadores por jubilado [54]. A esta situación se le añade el aumento de la incidencia de las enfermedades crónicas, relacionadas con el envejecimiento, cuyo coste puede alcanzar el 7% del PIB de un país [51]. Es necesario un cambio de paradigma. Una nueva manera de cuidar de la salud de las personas: sustentable, eficaz y preventiva más que curativa. Algunos estudios abogan por el cuidado personalizado de la salud (pHealth). En este modelo las prácticas médicas son adaptadas e individualizadas al paciente, desde la detección de los factores de riesgo hasta la personalización de los tratamientos basada en la respuesta del individuo [81]. El cuidado personalizado de la salud está asociado a menudo al uso de las tecnologías de la información y comunicación (TICs) que, con su desarrollo exponencial, ofrecen oportunidades interesantes para la mejora de la salud. El cambio de paradigma hacia el pHealth está lentamente ocurriendo, tanto en el ámbito de la investigación como en la industria, pero todavía no de manera significativa. Existen todavía muchas barreras relacionadas a la economía, a la política y la cultura. También existen barreras puramente tecnológicas, como la falta de sistemas de información interoperables [199]. A pesar de que los aspectos de interoperabilidad están evolucionando, todavía hace falta un diseño de referencia especialmente direccionado a la implementación y el despliegue en gran escala de sistemas basados en pHealth. La presente Tesis representa un intento de organizar la disciplina de la aplicación de las TICs al cuidado personalizado de la salud en un modelo de referencia, que permita la creación de plataformas de desarrollo de software para simplificar tareas comunes de desarrollo en este dominio. Preguntas de investigación RQ1 >Es posible definir un modelo, basado en técnicas de ingeniería del software, que represente el dominio del cuidado personalizado de la salud de una forma abstracta y representativa? RQ2 >Es posible construir una plataforma de desarrollo basada en este modelo? RQ3 >Esta plataforma ayuda a los desarrolladores a crear sistemas pHealth complejos e integrados? Métodos Para la descripción del modelo se adoptó el estándar ISO/IEC/IEEE 42010por ser lo suficientemente general y abstracto para el amplio enfoque de esta tesis [25]. El modelo está definido en varias partes: un modelo conceptual, expresado a través de mapas conceptuales que representan las partes interesadas (stakeholders), los artefactos y la información compartida; y escenarios y casos de uso para la descripción de sus funcionalidades. El modelo fue desarrollado de acuerdo a la información obtenida del análisis de la literatura, incluyendo 7 informes industriales y científicos, 9 estándares, 10 artículos en conferencias, 37 artículos en revistas, 25 páginas web y 5 libros. Basándose en el modelo se definieron los requisitos para la creación de la plataforma de desarrollo, enriquecidos por otros requisitos recolectados a través de una encuesta realizada a 11 ingenieros con experiencia en la rama. Para el desarrollo de la plataforma, se adoptó la metodología de integración continua [74] que permitió ejecutar tests automáticos en un servidor y también desplegar aplicaciones en una página web. En cuanto a la metodología utilizada para la validación se adoptó un marco para la formulación de teorías en la ingeniería del software [181]. Esto requiere el desarrollo de modelos y proposiciones que han de ser validados dentro de un ámbito de investigación definido, y que sirvan para guiar al investigador en la búsqueda de la evidencia necesaria para justificarla. La validación del modelo fue desarrollada mediante una encuesta online en tres rondas con un número creciente de invitados. El cuestionario fue enviado a 134 contactos y distribuido en algunos canales públicos como listas de correo y redes sociales. El objetivo era evaluar la legibilidad del modelo, su nivel de cobertura del dominio y su potencial utilidad en el diseño de sistemas derivados. El cuestionario incluía preguntas cuantitativas de tipo Likert y campos para recolección de comentarios. La plataforma de desarrollo fue validada en dos etapas. En la primera etapa se utilizó la plataforma en un experimento a pequeña escala, que consistió en una sesión de entrenamiento de 12 horas en la que 4 desarrolladores tuvieron que desarrollar algunos casos de uso y reunirse en un grupo focal para discutir su uso. La segunda etapa se realizó durante los tests de un proyecto en gran escala llamado HeartCycle [160]. En este proyecto un equipo de diseñadores y programadores desarrollaron tres aplicaciones en el campo de las enfermedades cardio-vasculares. Una de estas aplicaciones fue testeada en un ensayo clínico con pacientes reales. Al analizar el proyecto, el equipo de desarrollo se reunió en un grupo focal para identificar las ventajas y desventajas de la plataforma y su utilidad. Resultados Por lo que concierne el modelo que describe el dominio del pHealth, la parte conceptual incluye una descripción de los roles principales y las preocupaciones de los participantes, un modelo de los artefactos TIC que se usan comúnmente y un modelo para representar los datos típicos que son necesarios formalizar e intercambiar entre sistemas basados en pHealth. El modelo funcional incluye un conjunto de 18 escenarios, repartidos en: punto de vista de la persona asistida, punto de vista del cuidador, punto de vista del desarrollador, punto de vista de los proveedores de tecnologías y punto de vista de las autoridades; y un conjunto de 52 casos de uso repartidos en 6 categorías: actividades de la persona asistida, reacciones del sistema, actividades del cuidador, \engagement" del usuario, actividades del desarrollador y actividades de despliegue. Como resultado del cuestionario de validación del modelo, un total de 65 personas revisó el modelo proporcionando su nivel de acuerdo con las dimensiones evaluadas y un total de 248 comentarios sobre cómo mejorar el modelo. Los conocimientos de los participantes variaban desde la ingeniería del software (70%) hasta las especialidades médicas (15%), con declarado interés en eHealth (24%), mHealth (16%), Ambient Assisted Living (21%), medicina personalizada (5%), sistemas basados en pHealth (15%), informática médica (10%) e ingeniería biomédica (8%) con una media de 7.25_4.99 años de experiencia en estas áreas. Los resultados de la encuesta muestran que los expertos contactados consideran el modelo fácil de leer (media de 1.89_0.79 siendo 1 el valor más favorable y 5 el peor), suficientemente abstracto (1.99_0.88) y formal (2.13_0.77), con una cobertura suficiente del dominio (2.26_0.95), útil para describir el dominio (2.02_0.7) y para generar sistemas más específicos (2_0.75). Los expertos también reportan un interés parcial en utilizar el modelo en su trabajo (2.48_0.91). Gracias a sus comentarios, el modelo fue mejorado y enriquecido con conceptos que faltaban, aunque no se pudo demonstrar su mejora en las dimensiones evaluadas, dada la composición diferente de personas en las tres rondas de evaluación. Desde el modelo, se generó una plataforma de desarrollo llamada \pHealth Patient Platform (pHPP)". La plataforma desarrollada incluye librerías, herramientas de programación y desarrollo, un tutorial y una aplicación de ejemplo. Se definieron cuatro módulos principales de la arquitectura: el Data Collection Engine, que permite abstraer las fuentes de datos como sensores o servicios externos, mapeando los datos a bases de datos u ontologías, y permitiendo interacción basada en eventos; el GUI Engine, que abstrae la interfaz de usuario en un modelo de interacción basado en mensajes; y el Rule Engine, que proporciona a los desarrolladores un medio simple para programar la lógica de la aplicación en forma de reglas \if-then". Después de que la plataforma pHPP fue utilizada durante 5 años en el proyecto HeartCycle, 5 desarrolladores fueron reunidos en un grupo de discusión para analizar y evaluar la plataforma. De estas evaluaciones se concluye que la plataforma fue diseñada para encajar las necesidades de los ingenieros que trabajan en la rama, permitiendo la separación de problemas entre las distintas especialidades, y simplificando algunas tareas de desarrollo como el manejo de datos y la interacción asíncrona. A pesar de ello, se encontraron algunos defectos a causa de la inmadurez de algunas tecnologías empleadas, y la ausencia de algunas herramientas específicas para el dominio como el procesado de datos o algunos protocolos de comunicación relacionados con la salud. Dentro del proyecto HeartCycle la plataforma fue utilizada para el desarrollo de la aplicación \Guided Exercise", un sistema TIC para la rehabilitación de pacientes que han sufrido un infarto del miocardio. El sistema fue testeado en un ensayo clínico randomizado en el cual a 55 pacientes se les dio el sistema para su uso por 21 semanas. De los resultados técnicos del ensayo se puede concluir que, a pesar de algunos errores menores prontamente corregidos durante el estudio, la plataforma es estable y fiable. Conclusiones La investigación llevada a cabo en esta Tesis y los resultados obtenidos proporcionan las respuestas a las tres preguntas de investigación que motivaron este trabajo: RQ1 Se ha desarrollado un modelo para representar el dominio de los sistemas personalizados de salud. La evaluación hecha por los expertos de la rama concluye que el modelo representa el dominio con precisión y con un balance apropiado entre abstracción y detalle. RQ2 Se ha desarrollado, con éxito, una plataforma de desarrollo basada en el modelo. RQ3 Se ha demostrado que la plataforma es capaz de ayudar a los desarrolladores en la creación de software pHealth complejos. Las ventajas de la plataforma han sido demostradas en el ámbito de un proyecto de gran escala, aunque el enfoque genérico adoptado indica que la plataforma podría ofrecer beneficios también en otros contextos. Los resultados de estas evaluaciones ofrecen indicios de que, ambos, el modelo y la plataforma serán buenos candidatos para poderse convertir en una referencia para futuros desarrollos de sistemas pHealth. ABSTRACT Background Europe is living in an unsustainable situation. The economic crisis has been reducing governments' economic resources since 2008 and threatening social and health systems, while the proportion of older people in the European population continues to increase so that it is foreseen that in 2050 there will be only two workers per retiree [54]. To this situation it should be added the rise, strongly related to age, of chronic diseases the burden of which has been estimated to be up to the 7% of a country's gross domestic product [51]. There is a need for a paradigm shift, the need for a new way of caring for people's health, shifting the focus from curing conditions that have arisen to a sustainable and effective approach with the emphasis on prevention. Some advocate the adoption of personalised health care (pHealth), a model where medical practices are tailored to the patient's unique life, from the detection of risk factors to the customization of treatments based on each individual's response [81]. Personalised health is often associated to the use of Information and Communications Technology (ICT), that, with its exponential development, offers interesting opportunities for improving healthcare. The shift towards pHealth is slowly taking place, both in research and in industry, but the change is not significant yet. Many barriers still exist related to economy, politics and culture, while others are purely technological, like the lack of interoperable information systems [199]. Though interoperability aspects are evolving, there is still the need of a reference design, especially tackling implementation and large scale deployment of pHealth systems. This thesis contributes to organizing the subject of ICT systems for personalised health into a reference model that allows for the creation of software development platforms to ease common development issues in the domain. Research questions RQ1 Is it possible to define a model, based on software engineering techniques, for representing the personalised health domain in an abstract and representative way? RQ2 Is it possible to build a development platform based on this model? RQ3 Does the development platform help developers create complex integrated pHealth systems? Methods As method for describing the model, the ISO/IEC/IEEE 42010 framework [25] is adopted for its generality and high level of abstraction. The model is specified in different parts: a conceptual model, which makes use of concept maps, for representing stakeholders, artefacts and shared information, and in scenarios and use cases for the representation of the functionalities of pHealth systems. The model was derived from literature analysis, including 7 industrial and scientific reports, 9 electronic standards, 10 conference proceedings papers, 37 journal papers, 25 websites and 5 books. Based on the reference model, requirements were drawn for building the development platform enriched with a set of requirements gathered in a survey run among 11 experienced engineers. For developing the platform, the continuous integration methodology [74] was adopted which allowed to perform automatic tests on a server and also to deploy packaged releases on a web site. As a validation methodology, a theory building framework for SW engineering was adopted from [181]. The framework, chosen as a guide to find evidence for justifying the research questions, imposed the creation of theories based on models and propositions to be validated within a scope. The validation of the model was conducted as an on-line survey in three validation rounds, encompassing a growing number of participants. The survey was submitted to 134 experts of the field and on some public channels like relevant mailing lists and social networks. Its objective was to assess the model's readability, its level of coverage of the domain and its potential usefulness in the design of actual, derived systems. The questionnaires included quantitative Likert scale questions and free text inputs for comments. The development platform was validated in two scopes. As a small-scale experiment, the platform was used in a 12 hours training session where 4 developers had to perform an exercise consisting in developing a set of typical pHealth use cases At the end of the session, a focus group was held to identify benefits and drawbacks of the platform. The second validation was held as a test-case study in a large scale research project called HeartCycle the aim of which was to develop a closed-loop disease management system for heart failure and coronary heart disease patients [160]. During this project three applications were developed by a team of programmers and designers. One of these applications was tested in a clinical trial with actual patients. At the end of the project, the team was interviewed in a focus group to assess the role the platform had within the project. Results For what regards the model that describes the pHealth domain, its conceptual part includes a description of the main roles and concerns of pHealth stakeholders, a model of the ICT artefacts that are commonly adopted and a model representing the typical data that need to be formalized among pHealth systems. The functional model includes a set of 18 scenarios, divided into assisted person's view, caregiver's view, developer's view, technology and services providers' view and authority's view, and a set of 52 Use Cases grouped in 6 categories: assisted person's activities, system reactions, caregiver's activities, user engagement, developer's activities and deployer's activities. For what concerns the validation of the model, a total of 65 people participated in the online survey providing their level of agreement in all the assessed dimensions and a total of 248 comments on how to improve and complete the model. Participants' background spanned from engineering and software development (70%) to medical specialities (15%), with declared interest in the fields of eHealth (24%), mHealth (16%), Ambient Assisted Living (21%), Personalized Medicine (5%), Personal Health Systems (15%), Medical Informatics (10%) and Biomedical Engineering (8%) with an average of 7.25_4.99 years of experience in these fields. From the analysis of the answers it is possible to observe that the contacted experts considered the model easily readable (average of 1.89_0.79 being 1 the most favourable scoring and 5 the worst), sufficiently abstract (1.99_0.88) and formal (2.13_0.77) for its purpose, with a sufficient coverage of the domain (2.26_0.95), useful for describing the domain (2.02_0.7) and for generating more specific systems (2_0.75) and they reported a partial interest in using the model in their job (2.48_0.91). Thanks to their comments, the model was improved and enriched with concepts that were missing at the beginning, nonetheless it was not possible to prove an improvement among the iterations, due to the diversity of the participants in the three rounds. From the model, a development platform for the pHealth domain was generated called pHealth Patient Platform (pHPP). The platform includes a set of libraries, programming and deployment tools, a tutorial and a sample application. The main four modules of the architecture are: the Data Collection Engine, which allows abstracting sources of information like sensors or external services, mapping data to databases and ontologies, and allowing event-based interaction and filtering, the GUI Engine, which abstracts the user interface in a message-like interaction model, the Workow Engine, which allows programming the application's user interaction ows with graphical workows, and the Rule Engine, which gives developers a simple means for programming the application's logic in the form of \if-then" rules. After the 5 years experience of HeartCycle, partially programmed with pHPP, 5 developers were joined in a focus group to discuss the advantages and drawbacks of the platform. The view that emerged from the training course and the focus group was that the platform is well-suited to the needs of the engineers working in the field, it allowed the separation of concerns among the different specialities and it simplified some common development tasks like data management and asynchronous interaction. Nevertheless, some deficiencies were pointed out in terms of a lack of maturity of some technological choices, and for the absence of some domain-specific tools, e.g. for data processing or for health-related communication protocols. Within HeartCycle, the platform was used to develop part of the Guided Exercise system, a composition of ICT tools for the physical rehabilitation of patients who suffered from myocardial infarction. The system developed using the platform was tested in a randomized controlled clinical trial, in which 55 patients used the system for 21 weeks. The technical results of this trial showed that the system was stable and reliable. Some minor bugs were detected, but these were promptly corrected using the platform. This shows that the platform, as well as facilitating the development task, can be successfully used to produce reliable software. Conclusions The research work carried out in developing this thesis provides responses to the three three research questions that were the motivation for the work. RQ1 A model was developed representing the domain of personalised health systems, and the assessment of experts in the field was that it represents the domain accurately, with an appropriate balance between abstraction and detail. RQ2 A development platform based on the model was successfully developed. RQ3 The platform has been shown to assist developers create complex pHealth software. This was demonstrated within the scope of one large-scale project, but the generic approach adopted provides indications that it would offer benefits more widely. The results of these evaluations provide indications that both the model and the platform are good candidates for being a reference for future pHealth developments.

Knowledge-based spatiotemporal linear abstraction

We present a theoretical framework and a case study for reusing the same conceptual and computational methodology for both temporal abstraction and linear (unidimensional) space abstraction, in a domain (evaluation of traffic-control actions) significantly different from the one (clinical medicine) in which the method was originally used. The method, known as knowledge-based temporal abstraction, abstracts high-level concepts and patterns from time-stamped raw data using a formal theory of domain-specific temporal-abstraction knowledge. We applied this method, originally used to interpret time-oriented clinical data, to the domain of traffic control, in which the monitoring task requires linear pattern matching along both space and time. First, we reused the method for creation of unidimensional spatial abstractions over highways, given sensor measurements along each highway measured at the same time point. Second, we reused the method to create temporal abstractions of the traffic behavior, for the same space segments, but during consecutive time points. We defined the corresponding temporal-abstraction and spatial-abstraction domain-specific knowledge. Our results suggest that (1) the knowledge-based temporal-abstraction method is reusable over time and unidimensional space as well as over significantly different domains; (2) the method can be generalized into a knowledge-based linear-abstraction method, which solves tasks requiring abstraction of data along any linear distance measure; and (3) a spatiotemporal-abstraction method can be assembled from two copies of the generalized method and a spatial-decomposition mechanism, and is applicable to tasks requiring abstraction of time-oriented data into meaningful spatiotemporal patterns over a linear, decomposable space, such as traffic over a set of highways.

SMART Protocols: seMAntic represenTation for experimental protocols

Two important characteristics of science are the ?reproducibility? and ?clarity?. By rigorous practices, scientists explore aspects of the world that they can reproduce under carefully controlled experimental conditions. The clarity, complementing reproducibility, provides unambiguous descriptions of results in a mechanical or mathematical form. Both pillars depend on well-structured and accurate descriptions of scientific practices, which are normally recorded in experimental protocols, scientific workflows, etc. Here we present SMART Protocols (SP), our ontology-based approach for representing experimental protocols and our contribution to clarity and reproducibility. SP delivers an unambiguous description of processes by means of which data is produced; by doing so, we argue, it facilitates reproducibility. Moreover, SP is thought to be part of e-science infrastructures. SP results from the analysis of 175 protocols; from this dataset, we extracted common elements. From our analysis, we identified document, workflow and domain-specific aspects in the representation of experimental protocols. The ontology is available at http://purl.org/net/SMARTprotocol

Dense Map Inference with User-Defined Priors: From Priorlets to Scan Eigenvariations

When mapping is formulated in a Bayesian framework, the need of specifying a prior for the environment arises naturally. However, so far, the use of a particular structure prior has been coupled to working with a particular representation. We describe a system that supports inference with multiple priors while keeping the same dense representation. The priors are rigorously described by the user in a domain-specific language. Even though we work very close to the measurement space, we are able to represent structure constraints with the same expressivity as methods based on geometric primitives. This approach allows the intrinsic degrees of freedom of the environment’s shape to be recovered. Experiments with simulated and real data sets will be presented

Identification of logically related heap regions

This paper introduces a novel technique for identifying logically related sections of the heap such as recursive data structures, objects that are part of the same multi-component structure, and related groups of objects stored in the same collection/array. When combined withthe lifetime properties of these structures, this information can be used to drive a range of program optimizations including pool allocation, object co-location, static deallocation, and region-based garbage collection. The technique outlined in this paper also improves the efficiency of the static analysis by providing a normal form for the abstract models (speeding the convergence of the static analysis). We focus on two techniques for grouping parts of the heap. The first is a technique for precisely identifying recursive data structures in object-oriented programs based on the types declared in the program. The second technique is a novel method for grouping objects that make up the same composite structure and that allows us to partition the objects stored in a collection/array into groups based on a similarity relation. We provide a parametric component in the similarity relation in order to support specific analysis applications (such as a numeric analysis which would need to partition the objects based on numeric properties of the fields). Using the Barnes-Hut benchmark from the JOlden suite we show how these grouping methods can be used to identify various types of logical structures allowing the application of many region-based program optimizations.