A WEB-System for Computer Experiments in the Field of Program Transformations

The paper presents basic notions and scientific achievements in the field of program transformations, describes usage of these achievements both in the professional activity (when developing optimizing and unparallelizing compilers) and in the higher education. It also analyzes main problems in this area. The concept of control of program transformation information is introduced in the form of specialized knowledge bank on computer program transformations to support the scientific research, education and professional activity in the field. The tasks that are solved by the knowledge bank are formulated. The paper is intended for experts in the artificial intelligence, optimizing compilation, postgraduates and senior students of corresponding specialties; it may be also interesting for university lecturers and instructors.

Semantic reasoning for autonomic IT systems

Autonomic systems are required to adapt continually to changing environments and user goals. This process involves the real-Time update of the system's knowledge base, which should therefore be stored in a machine-readable format and automatically checked for consistency. OWL ontologies meet both requirements, as they represent collections of knowl- edge expressed in FIrst order logic, and feature embedded reasoners. To take advantage of these OWL ontology char- acteristics, this PhD project will devise a framework com- prising a theoretical foundation, tools and methods for de- veloping knowledge-centric autonomic systems. Within this framework, the knowledge storage and maintenance roles will be fulfilled by a specialised class of OWL ontologies. ©2014 ACM.

Towards the Semiotics of Noosphere

Civilization has brought us into the noosphere world. Besides physical, around (and inside of) us exist and function also mental and cultural entities. It is impossible to perform now knowledge acquisition, knowledge base creation and organizational systems management without adequate consideration of object’s noosphere statuses. I tried here to clarify basic viewpoints concerning this issue, hoping that elaboration of common methodological foundations of semiotic modeling will be useful for developers and also for users of new generation automation systems.

Towartds Computer-aided Editing of Scientific and Technical Texts

The paper discusses facilities of computer systems for editing scientific and technical texts, which partially automate functions of human editor and thus help the writer to improve text quality. Two experimental systems LINAR and CONUT developed in 90s to control the quality of Russian scientific and technical texts are briefly described; and general principles for designing more powerful editing systems are pointed out. Features of an editing system being now under development are outlined, primarily the underlying linguistic knowledge base and procedures controlling the text.

A Log Tool for Software Systems Analyses

The article presents a new type of logs merging tool for multiple blade telecommunication systems based on the development of a new approach. The introduction of the new logs merging tool (the Log Merger) can help engineers to build a processes behavior timeline with a flexible system of information structuring used to assess the changes in the analyzed system. This logs merging system based on the experts experience and their analytical skills generates a knowledge base which could be advantageous in further decision-making expert system development. This paper proposes and discusses the design and implementation of the Log Merger, its architecture, multi-board analysis of capability and application areas. The paper also presents possible ways of further tool improvement e.g. - to extend its functionality and cover additional system platforms. The possibility to add an analysis module for further expert system development is also considered.

Multiple-Valued Structures of Intellectual Systems

The basic construction concepts of many-valued intellectual systems, which are adequate to primal problems of person activity and using hybrid tools with many-valued intellectual systems being two-place, but simulating neuron processes of space toting which are different on a level of actions, inertial and threshold of properties of neuron diaphragms, and also frequency modification of the following transmitted messages are created. All enumerated properties and functions in point of fact are essential not only are discrete on time, but also many-valued.

Semantically Enhanced Software Documentation Processes

High-quality software documentation is a substantial issue for understanding software systems. Shorter time-to-market software cycles increase the importance of automatism for keeping the documentation up to date. In this paper, we describe the automatic support of the software documentation process using semantic technologies. We introduce a software documentation ontology as an underlying knowledge base. The defined ontology is populated automatically by analysing source code, software documentation and code execution. Through selected results we demonstrate that the use of such semantic systems can support software documentation processes efficiently.

Green manufacturing supply chain design and operations decision support

This special issue of International Journal of Production Research provides a platform for sharing the knowledge base, recent research outputs and a review of recent developments highlighting the critical aspects of green manufacturing supply chain design and operations decision support. The special issue includes 15 contributions presenting new and significant research in the relevant area. Contributions mainly present either a novel green/sustainable manufacturing supply chain design and operations decision support approach applied to a problem, or a state-of-the-art method on green/sustainable factors in supply chain design and operations. The article delineates an overview of the contributions and their significance, and an introspection on the ‘green’ factors involved.

Identifying DNA-binding proteins by combining support vector machine and PSSM distance transformation

Background: DNA-binding proteins play a pivotal role in various intra- and extra-cellular activities ranging from DNA replication to gene expression control. Identification of DNA-binding proteins is one of the major challenges in the field of genome annotation. There have been several computational methods proposed in the literature to deal with the DNA-binding protein identification. However, most of them can't provide an invaluable knowledge base for our understanding of DNA-protein interactions. Results: We firstly presented a new protein sequence encoding method called PSSM Distance Transformation, and then constructed a DNA-binding protein identification method (SVM-PSSM-DT) by combining PSSM Distance Transformation with support vector machine (SVM). First, the PSSM profiles are generated by using the PSI-BLAST program to search the non-redundant (NR) database. Next, the PSSM profiles are transformed into uniform numeric representations appropriately by distance transformation scheme. Lastly, the resulting uniform numeric representations are inputted into a SVM classifier for prediction. Thus whether a sequence can bind to DNA or not can be determined. In benchmark test on 525 DNA-binding and 550 non DNA-binding proteins using jackknife validation, the present model achieved an ACC of 79.96%, MCC of 0.622 and AUC of 86.50%. This performance is considerably better than most of the existing state-of-the-art predictive methods. When tested on a recently constructed independent dataset PDB186, SVM-PSSM-DT also achieved the best performance with ACC of 80.00%, MCC of 0.647 and AUC of 87.40%, and outperformed some existing state-of-the-art methods. Conclusions: The experiment results demonstrate that PSSM Distance Transformation is an available protein sequence encoding method and SVM-PSSM-DT is a useful tool for identifying the DNA-binding proteins. A user-friendly web-server of SVM-PSSM-DT was constructed, which is freely accessible to the public at the web-site on http://bioinformatics.hitsz.edu.cn/PSSM-DT/.

The Latin American Perspective in Dade County Schools: An Initial Curricular and Teacher Survey (Dialogue #65)

This paper analyzes the knowledge about Latin America that is present in the newly required 9th grade World History Course in Dade County Public Schools. Nine recommended World History textbooks are examined in terms of their Latin American content. Also, the results of a survey questionnaire dealing with knowledge and perceptions of Latin America, which was distributed to various World History and general teachers, are discussed. The findings of this research effort while tentative, seem to indicate that there is a definite need to upgrade the Latin American knowledge base both in textbook content and among teachers. Few of the texts are considered adequate in their treatment of Latin America. Some, especially those for below average readers, present a slanted, even distorted picture of Latin American reality. While World History teachers appear to be more knowledgeable about Latin America than teachers in general, lack of knowledge and stereotyping are clearly manifested in certain persisting beliefs about the region. While this is a narrow research effort, it explores the intriguing notion that what is often considered legitimate knowledge in our classrooms can in fact be quite inadequate. The concluding section of the paper focuses on whether academic excellence is possible when there are distortions and lacunae in our classroom knowledge base.

Design and evaluation of a consulting system for database design

Database design is a difficult problem for non-expert designers. It is desirable to assist such designers during the problem solving process by means of a knowledge based (KB) system. A number of prototype KB systems have been proposed, however there are many shortcomings. Few have incorporated sufficient expertise in modeling relationships, particularly higher order relationships. There has been no empirical study that experimentally tested the effectiveness of any of these KB tools. Problem solving behavior of non-experts, whom the systems were intended to assist, has not been one of the bases for system design. In this project a consulting system for conceptual database design that addresses the above short comings was developed and empirically validated.^ The system incorporates (a) findings on why non-experts commit errors and (b) heuristics for modeling relationships. Two approaches to knowledge base implementation--system restrictiveness and decisional guidance--were used and compared in this project. The Restrictive approach is proscriptive and limits the designer's choices at various design phases by forcing him/her to follow a specific design path. The Guidance system approach which is less restrictive, provides context specific, informative and suggestive guidance throughout the design process. The main objectives of the study are to evaluate (1) whether the knowledge-based system is more effective than a system without the knowledge-base and (2) which knowledge implementation--restrictive or guidance--strategy is more effective. To evaluate the effectiveness of the knowledge base itself, the two systems were compared with a system that does not incorporate the expertise (Control).^ The experimental procedure involved the student subjects solving a task without using the system (pre-treatment task) and another task using one of the three systems (experimental task). The experimental task scores of those subjects who performed satisfactorily in the pre-treatment task were analyzed. Results are (1) The knowledge based approach to database design support lead to more accurate solutions than the control system; (2) No significant difference between the two KB approaches; (3) Guidance approach led to best performance; and (4) The subjects perceived the Restrictive system easier to use than the Guidance system. ^

Salient factors in child molestation: Moral development, social competence, and type of offender

The current study was designed to build on and extend the existing knowledge base of factors that cause, maintain, and influence child molestation. Theorized links among the type of offender and the offender's levels of moral development and social competence in the perpetration of child molestation were investigated. The conceptual framework for the study is based on the cognitive developmental stages of moral development as proposed by Kohlberg, the unified theory, or Four-Preconditions Model, of child molestation as proposed by Finkelhor, and the Information-Processing Model of Social Skills as proposed by McFall. The study sample consisted of 127 adult male child molesters participating in outpatient group therapy. All subjects completed a Self-Report Questionnaire which included questions designed to obtain relevant demographic data, questions similar to those used by the researchers for the Massachusetts Treatment Center: Child Molester Typology 3's social competency dimension, the Defining Issues Test (DIT) short form, the Social Avoidance and Distress Scale (SADS), the Rathus Assertiveness Schedule (RAS), and the Questionnaire Measure of Empathic Tendency (Empathy Scale). Data were analyzed utilizing confirmatory factor analysis, t-tests, and chi-square statistics. Partial support was found for the hypothesis that moral development is a separate but correlated construct from social competence. As predicted, although the actual mean score differences were small, a statistically significant difference was found in the current study between the mean DITP scores of the subject sample and that of the general male population, suggesting that child molesters, as a group, function at a lower level of moral development than does the general male population, and the situational offenders in the study sample demonstrated a statistically significantly higher level of moral development than the preferential offenders. The data did not support the hypothesis that situational offenders will demonstrate lower levels of social competence than preferential offenders. Relatively little significance is placed on this finding, however, because the measure for the social competency variable was likely subject to considerable measurement error in that the items used as indicators were not clearly defined. The last hypothesis, which involved the potential differences in social anxiety, assertion skills, and empathy between the situational and preferential offender types, was not supported by the data. ^

Building better relationships workshop: An intervention fostering identity formation and interpersonal development in middle adolescents

The aim of this study was to further knowledge development concerning the formation of a sense of identity and intimacy. This study drew on the growing recognition by many researchers in the psychosocial development field of the need to target interventions at the interface of the development of identity and intimacy. The specific aim of the study was to address the question of whether it would be possible to develop intervention procedures for fostering identity and intimacy exploration and development. Using both qualitative and quantitative measurements, the results appeared to clearly support an affirmative answer to this question. A total of sixty-three middle adolescent students from an urban, public high school participated in this study. Twenty-nine participants in the treatment group and 34 participants in the comparison group were pre- and post tested on measures of identity and intimacy. Participants in this study consisted of multiethnic, urban youth that presented themselves for relationship counseling. Repeated measures analysis of variance's (RMANOVA's), used to evaluate the impact of the intervention on the quantitative measures of identity and intimacy exploration, clearly supported the efficacy of the intervention. In addition, the findings also provided tentative support for the view that the increase in exploration that results from entering a period of active exploration is associated with a “loosening” of commitment. Finally, the findings of this study also contributed to the empirical knowledge-base about procedures for intervening with respect to the process of intimacy development. More specifically, both the qualitative and quantitative findings of this study began to shed some light on the potential impact of exploration for interpersonal insight as that as a process for fostering intimacy development. ^

A qualitative study of the clinical practice of graduates of a problem-based physical therapy program

The purpose of this study was to examine the perspectives of three graduates of a problem-based leaning (PBL) physical therapy (PT) program about their clinical practice. The study used the qualitative methods of observations, interviews, and journaling to gather the data. Three sessions of audiotaped interviews and two observation sessions were conducted with three exemplars from Nova Southeastern University PBL PT program. Each participant also maintained a reflective journal. The data were analyzed using content analysis. A systematic filing system was used by employing a mechanical means of maintaining and indexing coded data and sorting data into coded classifications of subtopics or themes. All interview transcripts, field notes from observations, and journal accounts were read, and index sheets were appropriately annotated. From the findings of the study, it was noted that, from the participants' perspectives, they were practicing at typically expected levels as clinicians. The attributes that governed the perspectives of the participants about their physical therapy clinical practice included flexibility, reflection, analysis, decision-making, self-reliance, problem-solving, independent thinking, and critical thinking. Further, the findings indicated that the factors that influenced those attributes included the PBL process, parents' value system, self-reliant personality, innate personality traits, and deliberate choice. Finally, the findings indicated that the participants' perspectives, for the most part, appeared to support the espoused efficacy of the PBL educational approach. In conclusion, there is evidence that the physical therapy clinical practice of the participants were positively impacted by the PBL curriculum. Among the many attributes they noted which governed these perspectives, problem-solving, as postulated by Barrows, was one of the most frequently mentioned benefits gained from their PBL PT training. With more schools adopting the PBL approach, this research will hopefully add to the knowledge base regarding the efficacy of embracing a problem-based learning instructional approach in physical therapy programs. ^

Cultural influence and learning to teach: Beginning teachers' perceptions of teacher preparation programs and school support systems

Beginning teachers in the field of English Language Arts and Reading are responsible for providing literacy instruction to students. Teachers need a broad background in teaching reading, writing, listening, speaking, and viewing, as well as critical thinking. In secondary schools in particular, beginning English Language Arts and Reading teachers are also faced with the challenge of preparing students to be proficient enough readers and writers to meet required State standards. Beginning teachers must navigate compelling challenges that exist during the first years of teaching. The school support systems available to new teachers are an integral part of their educational development. ^ This qualitative study was conceptualized as an in-depth examination of the experiences and perceptions of eight beginning teachers. They represented different racial/ethnic groups, attended different teacher preparation programs, and taught in different school cultures. The data were collected through formal and informal interviews and classroom observations. A qualitative system of data analysis was used to examine the patterns relating to the interrelationship between teacher preparation programs and school support systems. ^ The experiences of the beginning teachers in this study indicated that teacher education programs should provide preservice teachers with a critical knowledge base for teaching literature, language, and composition. A liberal arts background in English, followed by an extensive program focusing on pedagogy, seems to provide a thorough level of curriculum and instructional practices needed for teaching in 21st century classrooms. The data further suggested that a school support system should pair beginning teachers with mentor teachers and provide a caring, professional environment that seeks to nurture the teacher as she/he develops during the first years of teaching. ^