Introducing "ecoputation": a universal systems design process

A universal systems design process is specified, tested in a case study and evaluated. It links English narratives to numbers using a categorical language framework with mathematical mappings taking the place of conjunctions and numbers. The framework is a ring of English narrative words between 1 (option) and 360 (capital); beyond 360 the ring cycles again to 1. English narratives are shown to correspond to the field of fractional numbers. The process can enable the development, presentation and communication of complex narrative policy information among communities of any scale, on a software implementation known as the "ecoputer". The information is more accessible and comprehensive than that in conventional decision support, because: (1) it is expressed in narrative language; and (2) the narratives are expressed as compounds of words within the framework. Hence option generation is made more effective than in conventional decision support processes including Multiple Criteria Decision Analysis, Life Cycle Assessment and Cost-Benefit Analysis.The case study is of a participatory workshop in UK bioenergy project objectives and criteria, at which attributes were elicited in environmental, economic and social systems. From the attributes, the framework was used to derive consequences at a range of levels of precision; these are compared with the project objectives and criteria as set out in the Case for Support. The design process is to be supported by a social information manipulation, storage and retrieval system for numeric and verbal narratives attached to the "ecoputer". The "ecoputer" will have an integrated verbal and numeric operating system. Novel design source code language will assist the development of narrative policy. The utility of the program, including in the transition to sustainable development and in applications at both community micro-scale and policy macro-scale, is discussed from public, stakeholder, corporate, Governmental and regulatory perspectives.

Topological multi-contour decomposition for image analysis and image retrieval

Successful classification, information retrieval and image analysis tools are intimately related with the quality of the features employed in the process. Pixel intensities, color, texture and shape are, generally, the basis from which most of the features are Computed and used in such fields. This papers presents a novel shape-based feature extraction approach where an image is decomposed into multiple contours, and further characterized by Fourier descriptors. Unlike traditional approaches we make use of topological knowledge to generate well-defined closed contours, which are efficient signatures for image retrieval. The method has been evaluated in the CBIR context and image analysis. The results have shown that the multi-contour decomposition, as opposed to a single shape information, introduced a significant improvement in the discrimination power. (c) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved,

A complex network approach to text summarization

Automatic summarization of texts is now crucial for several information retrieval tasks owing to the huge amount of information available in digital media, which has increased the demand for simple, language-independent extractive summarization strategies. In this paper, we employ concepts and metrics of complex networks to select sentences for an extractive summary. The graph or network representing one piece of text consists of nodes corresponding to sentences, while edges connect sentences that share common meaningful nouns. Because various metrics could be used, we developed a set of 14 summarizers, generically referred to as CN-Summ, employing network concepts such as node degree, length of shortest paths, d-rings and k-cores. An additional summarizer was created which selects the highest ranked sentences in the 14 systems, as in a voting system. When applied to a corpus of Brazilian Portuguese texts, some CN-Summ versions performed better than summarizers that do not employ deep linguistic knowledge, with results comparable to state-of-the-art summarizers based on expensive linguistic resources. The use of complex networks to represent texts appears therefore as suitable for automatic summarization, consistent with the belief that the metrics of such networks may capture important text features. (c) 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Security Issues in a SOA-based Provenance System

Recent work has begun exploring the characterization and utilization of provenance in systems based on the Service Oriented Architecture (such as Web Services and Grid based environments). One of the salient issues related to provenance use within any given system is its security. In a broad sense, security requirements arise within any data archival and retrieval system, however provenance presents unique requirements of its own. These requirements are additionally dependent on the architectural and environmental context that a provenance system operates in. We seek to analyze the security considerations pertaining to a Service Oriented Architecture based provenance system. Towards this end, we describe the components of such a system and illustrate the security considerations that arise within it. Concurrently, we outline possible approaches to address them.

Estudos de avaliação quantitativa e qualitativa de linguagens documentárias: uma síntese bibliográfica

Este estudo apresenta uma síntese bibliográfica sobre as metodologias de avaliação que foram propostas por pesquisadores internacionais e nacionais e utilizadas por indexadores de instituições de ensino e/ou pesquisas atuantes em unidades de informação e/ou centros de documentação, bem como aquelas que foram analisadas pelas opiniões dos próprios usuários da informação registrada e disponibilizada em inúmeros sistemas de informações, com enfoques nas abordagens quantitativa, qualitativa e qualitativa/cognitiva, respectivamente.

Indexação automatizada de artigos de periódicos científicos: análise da aplicação do software SISA com uso da terminologia DeCS na área de Odontologia

The indexing automation has been discussed by researches in the area of Information Science however the discussions have not been so clear on the use of indexing software. Thus, it is necessary to know the indexing software, as well as its application in the analysis of documentary contents. To do so, it is proposed, here, to investigate both the consistency of indexing and the exhaustiveness and precision of the information retrieval, by means of comparative analysis between SISA (Sistema de Indizacion Semi-Automatico) automatic index and BIREME ( Centro Latino-Americano e do Caribe de Informação em Ciencias da Saude) manual indexing. The aim of this paper is to contribute to the theoretical development of the indexing automation and the improvement of SISA. Thus, SISA application and evaluation was used based on the calculation of the consistency indexes between the two types of indexing, and the calculation of the exhaustiveness and precision indexes in information retrieval, by means of searching into BDSISA and BIREME databases, composed by descriptors taken from SISA and manual indexing respectively. The differences among the terms used in scientific papers comparing to the DeCS ones were the main difficult factor to achieve higher consistency indexes in the indexing. These differences influenced the exhaustiveness and precision indexes in the information retrieval, showing that it is necessary to improve the documentary language used by SISA software and to incorporate linguistic methods.

A program for terpenoid skeleton prediction based on botanical information

This paper describes a new program developed to the SISTEMAT expert system, the SISOCBOT program. This program employs the botanical data analysis and predicts, at the end of analysis, the probable skeleton of a compound based on the input of family or genus names. The SISOCBOT program was tested with 78 samples involving 302 substances, pertaining to 38 carbon skeletons, and showed a high hit index on skeleton prediction, thus emphasizing the potential importance of these data for structural determination of natural products. © 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

GnRH agonist versus GnRH antagonist in poor ovarian responders: A meta-analysis

The aim of this meta-analysis was to compare the efficacy of gonadotrophin antagonist (GnRH-ant) versus GnRH agonist (GnRHa) as coadjuvant therapy for ovarian stimulation in poor ovarian responders in IVF/intracytoplasmic sperm injection cycles. Search strategies included on-line surveys of databases such as MEDLINE, EMBASE and others. A fixed effects model was used for odds ratio (OR) and effect size (weighted mean difference, WMD). Six trials fulfilled the inclusion criteria (randomized controlled trials). There was no difference between GnRH-ant and GnRHa (long and flare-up protocols) with respect to cycle cancellation rate, number of mature oocytes and clinical pregnancy rate per cycle initiated, per oocyte retrieval and per embryo transfer. When the mete-analysis was applied to the two trials that had used GnRH-ant versus long protocols of GnRHa, a significantly higher number of retrieved oocytes was observed in the GnRH-ant protocols [P = 0.018; WMD: 1.12 (0.18, 2.05)]. However, when the meta-analysis was applied to the four trials that had used GnRH-ant versus flare-up protocols, a significantly higher number of retrieved oocytes (P = 0.032; WMD: -0.51, 95% CI -0.99, -0.04) was observed in the GnRHa protocols. Nevertheless, additional randomized controlled trials with better planning are needed to confirm these results.

Proposal of convergence of e-Learning systems for t-Learning

This article presents considerations about viability on reutilize existing web based e-Learning systems on Interactive Digital TV environment according to Digital TV standard adopted in Brazil. Considering the popularity of Moodle system in academic and corporative area, such system was chosen as a foundation for a survey into its properties to create a specification of an Application Programming Interface (API) for convergence to t-Learning characteristics that demands efforts in interface design area due the fact that computer and TV concepts are totally different. This work aims to present studies concerning user interface design during two stages: survey and detail of functionalities from an e-Learning system and how to adapt them for the Interactive TV regarding usability context and Information Architecture concepts.

Optimum-Path Forest pruning parameter estimation through Harmony Search

Pattern recognition in large amount of data has been paramount in the last decade, since that is not straightforward to design interactive and real time classification systems. Very recently, the Optimum-Path Forest classifier was proposed to overcome such limitations, together with its training set pruning algorithm, which requires a parameter that has been empirically set up to date. In this paper, we propose a Harmony Search-based algorithm that can find near optimal values for that. The experimental results have showed that our algorithm is able to find proper values for the OPF pruning algorithm parameter. © 2011 IEEE.

Usabilidade na recuperação da informação: um enfoque no catálogo Athena

Pós-graduação em Ciência da Informação - FFC

Avaliação de linguagem documentária em fonoaudiologia na perspectiva do usuário: estudo de observação da recuperação da informação com protocolo verbal

Pós-graduação em Ciência da Informação - FFC

SRDigital: proposta de um modelo baseado na linguagem natural e controlada como instrumentos de apoio ao agente computacional do processo de referência

Pós-graduação em Ciência da Informação - FFC

Modelos de recuperação de informação e web semântica: a questão da relevância

Introduction: In the Web environment, there is a need for greater care with regard to the processing of descriptive and thematic information. The concern with the recovery of information in computer systems precedes the development of the first personal computers. Models of information retrieval have been and are today widely used in databases specific to a field whose scope is known. Objectives: Verify how the issue of relevance is treated in the main computer models of information retrieval and, especially, as the issue is addressed in the future of the Web, the called Semantic Web. Methodology: Bibliographical research. Results: In the classical models studied here, it was realized that the main concern is retrieving documents whose description is closest to the search expression used by the user, which does not necessarily imply that this really needs. In semantic retrieval is the use of ontologies, feature that extends the user's search for a wider range of possible relevant options. Conclusions: The relevance is a subjective judgment and inherent to the user, it will depend on the interaction with the system and especially the fact that he expects to recover in your search. Systems that are based on a model of relevance are not popular, because it requires greater interaction and depend on the user's disposal. The Semantic Web is so far the initiative more efficient in the case of information retrieval in the digital environment.