coconceptmap: a system for collaborative concept mapping

Concept mapping is a technique for visualizing the relationships between different concepts, and collaborative concept mapping is used to model knowledge and transfer expert knowledge. Because of lacking some features,existing systems can’t support collaborative concept mapping effectively. In this paper, we analysis the collaborative concept mapping process according to the theory of distributed cognition, and argue the functions effective systems ought to include. A collaborative concept mapping system should have the following features: visualization of concept map, flexible collaboration style,supporting natural interaction, knowledge management and history management. Furthermore, we describe every feature in details. Finally,a prototype system has been built to fully explore the above technologies.

structuring and manipulating hand-drawn concept maps

Concept maps are an important tool to knowledge organization,representation, and sharing. Most current concept map tools do not provide full support for hand-drawn concept map creation and manipulation, largely due to the lack of methods to recognize hand-drawn concept maps. This paper proposes a structure recognition method. Our algorithm can extract node blocks and link blocks of a hand-drawn concept map by combining dynamic programming and graph partitioning and then build a concept-map structure by relating extracted nodes and links. We also introduce structure-based intelligent manipulation technique of hand-drawn concept maps. Evaluation shows that our method has high structure recognition accuracy in real time, and the intelligent manipulation technique is efficient and effective.

The mean value concept in mono-linear regression of multi-variables and its application to trace studies in geosciences

IEECAS SKLLQG

A hardware proof of concept of a sailing robot for ocean observation

M J Neal, A hardware proof of concept of a sailing robot for ocean observation, IEEE Journal of Oceanic Engineering, 2006 accepted for publication RAE2008

Taking advantage of an old concept, "illegitimate transcription", for a proposed novel method of genetic diagnosis of McArdle disease

McArdle disease is a metabolic disorder caused by pathogenic mutations in the PYGM gene. Timely diagnosis can sometimes be difficult with direct genomic analysis, which requires additional studies of cDNA from muscle transcripts. Although the "nonsense-mediated mRNA decay" (NMD) eliminates tissue-specific aberrant transcripts, there is some residual transcription of tissue-specific genes in virtually all cells, such as peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs).We studied a subset of the main types of PYGM mutations (deletions, missense, nonsense, silent, or splicing mutations) in cDNA from easily accessible cells (PBMCs) in 12 McArdle patients.Analysis of cDNA from PBMCs allowed detection of all mutations. Importantly, the effects of mutations with unknown pathogenicity (silent and splicing mutations) were characterized in PBMCs. Because the NMD mechanism does not seem to operate in nonspecific cells, PBMCs were more suitable than muscle biopsies for detecting the pathogenicity of some PYGM mutations, notably the silent mutation c.645G>A (p.K215=), whose effect in the splicing of intron 6 was unnoticed in previous muscle transcriptomic studies.We propose considering the use of PBMCs for detecting mutations that are thought to cause McArdle disease, particularly for studying their actual pathogenicity.

Causes of a Divided Discipline: Rethinking the Concept of Cause in International Relations theory

Kurki, M. (2006). Causes of a Divided Discipline: Rethinking the Concept of Cause in International Relations theory. Review of International Studies, 32 (2), 189-216. RAE2008

A Memory Model for Concept Hierarchy Representation and Commonsense Reasoning

Most associative memory models perform one level mapping between predefined sets of input and output patterns1 and are unable to represent hierarchical knowledge. Complex AI systems allow hierarchical representation of concepts, but generally do not have learning capabilities. In this paper, a memory model is proposed which forms concept hierarchy by learning sample relations between concepts. All concepts are represented in a concept layer. Relations between a concept and its defining lower level concepts, are chunked as cognitive codes represented in a coding layer. By updating memory contents in the concept layer through code firing in the coding layer, the system is able to perform an important class of commonsense reasoning, namely recognition and inheritance.

Is the Species Flock Concept Operational? The Antarctic Shelf Case

There has been a significant body of literature on species flock definition but not so much about practical means to appraise them. We here apply the five criteria of Eastman and McCune for detecting species flocks in four taxonomic components of the benthic fauna of the Antarctic shelf: teleost fishes, crinoids (feather stars), echinoids (sea urchins) and crustacean arthropods. Practical limitations led us to prioritize the three historical criteria (endemicity, monophyly, species richness) over the two ecological ones (ecological diversity and habitat dominance). We propose a new protocol which includes an iterative fine-tuning of the monophyly and endemicity criteria in order to discover unsuspected flocks. As a result nine « full » species flocks (fulfilling the five criteria) are briefly described. Eight other flocks fit the three historical criteria but need to be further investigated from the ecological point of view (here called « core flocks »). The approach also shows that some candidate taxonomic components are no species flocks at all. The present study contradicts the paradigm that marine species flocks are rare. The hypothesis according to which the Antarctic shelf acts as a species flocks generator is supported, and the approach indicates paths for further ecological studies and may serve as a starting point to investigate the processes leading to flock-like patterning of biodiversity. © 2013 Lecointre et al.

[Book review] Symmetry - A Unifying Concept, István Hargittai and Magdolna Hargittai

Tony Mann provides a review of the book: István Hargittai and Magdolna Hargittai, Symmetry - A Unifying Concept, 1994, Ten Speed Press, 222pp. ISBN: 089815-590-8. £14.99

Predicting toxic gas concentrations resulting from enclosure fires using local equivalence ratio concept linked to fire field models

A practical CFD method is presented in this study to predict the generation of toxic gases in enclosure fires. The model makes use of local combustion conditions to determine the yield of carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, hydrocarbon, soot and oxygen. The local conditions used in the determination of these species are the local equivalence ratio (LER) and the local temperature. The heat released from combustion is calculated using the volumetric heat source model or the eddy dissipation model (EDM). The model is then used to simulate a range of reduced-scale and full-scale fire experiments. The model predictions for most of the predicted species are then shown to be in good agreement with the test results