Self-help extension: Farmer-to-farmer extension

As staff and mobility cost have the lion share of the costs of extension work, there have been many alternatives to assign farmers the job of facilitators, trainers and advisors. The arguments behind are that they are geopraphically closer to the clients, but also mentally and culturally, because they are members of the client group themselves, speak their language and share their experience and daily life. The article starts with the origins of the larger movement in Latin-America, and then discusses potentials and limitations, and finally experience from elsewhere.

Learning for Sustainability - LforS: An extension approach in small scale farming

Description of LforS as a integrativ and learning oriented extension approach

Cerebral extension of steroid-responsive meningitis arteritis in a boxer

A comatose 30-month-old, entire male boxer was presented because of an acute history of a cluster of three to four seizures. Neurological examination suggested a diffuse to multifocal intracranial lesion. Magnetic resonance tomography revealed symmetrical multifocal to diffuse changes of the cerebral grey matter and ependymal lining with sediment in the lateral ventricles. Haematological examination revealed leucocytosis with neutrophilia. Cerebrospinal fluid examination revealed high protein concentration and polymorphonuclear pleocytosis. Despite antiepileptic treatment, therapy against increased intracranial pressure and antibiosis, the dog's condition continued to deteriorate and he was euthanased. Pathological examination revealed fibrinosuppurative meningo-ependymitis and necrotising arteritis throughout the brain. In addition, chronic inflammation and arterial stenosis was found in the spinal meninges. No infectious agent was found. A diagnosis of steroid-responsive meningitis arteritis was made. The massive extension into the meninges and ventricular system of the forebrain has not been described previously in dogs with steroid-responsive meningitis arteritis and should be considered in the differential diagnosis when an intracranial suppurative infection is suspected.

EU Copyright Law, Lobbying and Transparency of Policy-Making: The cases of sound recordings term extension and orphan works provisions

The objective of this paper is to discuss EU lobbying in the area of copyright. Legislation needs to regulate the legal position of various different stakeholders in a balanced manner. However, a number of EU copyright provisions brought into effect over recent years were highly controversial and have led to suggestions that powerful lobbying forces may have had some influence. This article investigates the effects of lobbying on copyright law-making in Europe. A specific comparative and multi-faceted analysis is provided of the legislative process for two recently adopted directives: 2011/77/EU which extends the term of protection of sound recordings and 2012/28/EU which introduces certain permitted uses of orphan works (some references are also made to the ACTA case). Firstly, a short presentation is given of the legal bases for the EU consultation process and lobbying. Next, an analysis is provided of the two cases, taking into consideration the policy-making procedures (with special focus on how the consultation process was handled), the legal solutions proposed and adopted and the various stakeholders’ claims. Lastly, it asks why some interest groups were successful and some others failed (the analysis identifies two types of factor for the effectiveness of lobbying: those resulting from stakeholders’ actions and those connected with the consultation process).

J-Quizmaker

Lehrvideos erfreuen sich dank aktueller Entwicklungen im Bereich der Online-Lehre (Videoplattformen, MOOCs) auf der einen Seite und einer riesigen Auswahl sowie einer einfachen Produktion und Distribution auf der anderen Seite großer Beliebtheit bei der Wissensvermittlung. Trotzdem bringen Videos einen entscheidenden Nachteil mit sich, welcher in der Natur des Datenformats liegt. So sind die Suche nach konkreten Sachverhalten in einem Video sowie die semantische Aufbereitung zur automatisierten Verknüpfung mit weiteren spezifischen Inhalten mit hohem Aufwand verbunden. Daher werden die lernerfolg-orientierte Selektion von Lehrsegmenten und ihr Arrangement zur auf Lernprozesse abgestimmten Steuerung gehemmt. Beim Betrachten des Videos werden unter Umständen bereits bekannte Sachverhalte wiederholt bzw. können nur durch aufwendiges manuelles Spulen übersprungen werden. Selbiges Problem besteht auch bei der gezielten Wiederholung von Videoabschnitten. Als Lösung dieses Problems wird eine Webapplikation vorgestellt, welche die semantische Aufbereitung von Videos hin zu adaptiven Lehrinhalten ermöglicht: mittels Integration von Selbsttestaufgaben mit definierten Folgeaktionen können auf Basis des aktuellen Nutzerwissens Videoabschnitte automatisiert übersprungen oder wiederholt und externe Inhalte verlinkt werden. Der präsentierte Ansatz basiert somit auf einer Erweiterung der behavioristischen Lerntheorie der Verzweigten Lehrprogramme nach Crowder, die auf den Lernverlauf angepasste Sequenzen von Lerneinheiten beinhaltet. Gleichzeitig werden mittels regelmäßig eingeschobener Selbsttestaufgaben Motivation sowie Aufmerksamkeit des Lernenden nach Regeln der Programmierten Unterweisung nach Skinner und Verstärkungstheorie gefördert. Durch explizite Auszeichnung zusammengehöriger Abschnitte in Videos können zusätzlich die enthaltenden Informationen maschinenlesbar gestaltet werden, sodass weitere Möglichkeiten zum Auffinden und Verknüpfen von Lerninhalten geschaffen werden.

A rare case of a large spinal meningioma with mediastinal extension and malignant behavior classified histologically as benign

AIM To report a rare case of a spinal WHO grade I meningioma extending through intervertebral foramina C7 to D4 with an extensive mediastinal mass and infiltration of the vertebrae, and to discuss the malignant behavior of a tumor classified as benign. METHODS (Clinical Presentation, Histology, and Imaging): A 54-year-old man suffered from increasing lower back pain with gait difficulties, weakness and numbness of the lower extremities, as well as urge incontinence. CT scan of the thorax and MRI scan of the spine revealed a large prevertebral tumor, which extended to the spinal canal and caused compression of the spinal cord at the levels of C7 to D4 leading to myelopathy with hyperintense signal alteration on T2-weighted MRI images. The signal constellation (T1 with and without contrast, T2, TIR) was highly suspicious for infiltration of vertebrae C7 to D5. Somatostatin receptor SPECT/CT with (111)In-DTPA-D: -Phe-1-octreotide detected a somatostatin receptor-positive mediastinal tumor with infiltration of multiple vertebrae, dura, and intervertebral foramina C7-D4, partially with Krenning score >2. Percutaneous biopsies of the mediastinal mass led to histopathological findings of WHO grade I meningioma of meningothelial subtype. RESULTS (Therapy): C7 to D4 laminoplasty was performed, and the intraspinal, extradural part of the tumor was microsurgically removed. Postoperative stereotactic radiation therapy was done using the volumetric modulated arc therapy (VMAT) technique (RapidArc). No PRRNT with (90)Y-DOTA-TOC was done. CONCLUSIONS Due to the rare incidence and complex presentation of this disease not amenable to complete surgical resection, an individualized treatment approach should be worked out interdisciplinarily. The treatment approach should be based not only on histology but also on clinical and imaging findings. Close clinical and radiological follow-up may be mandatory even for benign tumors.

Maxillary sinus floor extension and posterior tooth inclination in adolescent patients with Class II Division 1 malocclusion treated with maxillary first molar extractions

INTRODUCTION Our objective was to investigate potential associations between maxillary sinus floor extension and inclination of maxillary second premolars and second molars in patients with Class II Division 1 malocclusion whose orthodontic treatment included maxillary first molar extractions. METHODS The records of 37 patients (18 boys, 19 girls; mean age, 13.2 years; SD, 1.62 years) treated between 1998 and 2004 by 1 orthodontist with full Begg appliances were used in this study. Inclusion criteria were white patients with Class II Division 1 malocclusion, sagittal overjet of ≥4 mm, treatment plan including extraction of the maxillary first permanent molars, no missing teeth, and no agenesis. Maxillary posterior tooth inclination and lower maxillary sinus area in relation to the palatal plane were measured on lateral cephalograms at 3 time points: at the start and end of treatment, and on average 2.5 years posttreatment. Data were analyzed for the second premolar and second molar inclinations by using mixed linear models. RESULTS The analysis showed that the second molar inclination angle decreased by 7° after orthodontic treatment, compared with pretreatment values, and by 11.5° at the latest follow-up, compared with pretreatment. There was evidence that maxillary sinus volume was negatively correlated with second molar inclination angle; the greater the volume, the smaller the inclination angle. For premolars, inclination increased by 15.4° after orthodontic treatment compared with pretreatment, and by 8.1° at the latest follow-up compared with baseline. The volume of the maxillary sinus was not associated with premolar inclination. CONCLUSIONS We found evidence of an association between maxillary second molar inclination and surface area of the lower sinus in patients treated with maxillary first molar extractions. Clinicians who undertake such an extraction scheme in Class II patients should be aware of this potential association and consider appropriate biomechanics to control root uprighting.

Semantic Methods for Intelligent Distributed Design Environments

Continuous advancements in technology have led to increasingly comprehensive and distributed product development processes while in pursuit of improved products at reduced costs. Information associated with these products is ever changing, and structured frameworks have become integral to managing such fluid information. Ontologies and the Semantic Web have emerged as key alternatives for capturing product knowledge in both a human-readable and computable manner. The primary and conclusive focus of this research is to characterize relationships formed within methodically developed distributed design knowledge frameworks to ultimately provide a pervasive real-time awareness in distributed design processes. Utilizing formal logics in the form of the Semantic Web’s OWL and SWRL, causal relationships are expressed to guide and facilitate knowledge acquisition as well as identify contradictions between knowledge in a knowledge base. To improve the efficiency during both the development and operational phases of these “intelligent” frameworks, a semantic relatedness algorithm is designed specifically to identify and rank underlying relationships within product development processes. After reviewing several semantic relatedness measures, three techniques, including a novel meronomic technique, are combined to create AIERO, the Algorithm for Identifying Engineering Relationships in Ontologies. In determining its applicability and accuracy, AIERO was applied to three separate, independently developed ontologies. The results indicate AIERO is capable of consistently returning relatedness values one would intuitively expect. To assess the effectiveness of AIERO in exposing underlying causal relationships across product development platforms, a case study involving the development of an industry-inspired printed circuit board (PCB) is presented. After instantiating the PCB knowledge base and developing an initial set of rules, FIDOE, the Framework for Intelligent Distributed Ontologies in Engineering, was employed to identify additional causal relationships through extensional relatedness measurements. In a conclusive PCB redesign, the resulting “intelligent” framework demonstrates its ability to pass values between instances, identify inconsistencies amongst instantiated knowledge, and identify conflicting values within product development frameworks. The results highlight how the introduced semantic methods can enhance the current knowledge acquisition, knowledge management, and knowledge validation capabilities of traditional knowledge bases.

Enterprise Integration of Smart Objects using Semantic Service Descriptions

Integrating physical objects (smart objects) and enterprise IT systems is still a labor intensive, mainly manual task done by domain experts. On one hand, enterprise IT backend systems are based on service oriented architectures (SOA) and driven by business rule engines or business process execution engines. Smart objects on the other hand are often programmed at very low levels. In this paper we describe an approach that makes the integration of smart objects with such backends systems easier. We introduce semantic endpoint descriptions based on Linked USDL. Furthermore, we show how different communication patterns can be integrated into these endpoint descriptions. The strength of our endpoint descriptions is that they can be used to automatically create REST or SOAP endpoints for enterprise systems, even if which they are not able to talk to the smart objects directly. We evaluate our proposed solution with CoAP, UDP and 6LoWPAN, as we anticipate the industry converge towards these standards. Nonetheless, our approach also allows easy integration with backend systems, even if no standardized protocol is used.

Integration of WSNs into enterprise systems based on semantic physical business entities

Internet of Things based systems are anticipated to gain widespread use in industrial applications. Standardization efforts, like 6L0WPAN and the Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP) have made the integration of wireless sensor nodes possible using Internet technology and web-like access to data (RESTful service access). While there are still some open issues, the interoperability problem in the lower layers can now be considered solved from an enterprise software vendors' point of view. One possible next step towards integration of real-world objects into enterprise systems and solving the corresponding interoperability problems at higher levels is to use semantic web technologies. We introduce an abstraction of real-world objects, called Semantic Physical Business Entities (SPBE), using Linked Data principles. We show that this abstraction nicely fits into enterprise systems, as SPBEs allow a business object centric view on real-world objects, instead of a pure device centric view. The interdependencies between how currently services in an enterprise system are used and how this can be done in a semantic real-world aware enterprise system are outlined, arguing for the need of semantic services and semantic knowledge repositories. We introduce a lightweight query language, which we use to perform a quantitative analysis of our approach to demonstrate its feasibility.

Towards an Emergent Semantic Web

In his in uential article about the evolution of the Web, Berners-Lee [1] envisions a Semantic Web in which humans and computers alike are capable of understanding and processing information. This vision is yet to materialize. The main obstacle for the Semantic Web vision is that in today's Web meaning is rooted most often not in formal semantics, but in natural language and, in the sense of semiology, emerges not before interpretation and processing. Yet, an automated form of interpretation and processing can be tackled by precisiating raw natural language. To do that, Web agents extract fuzzy grassroots ontologies through induction from existing Web content. Inductive fuzzy grassroots ontologies thus constitute organically evolved knowledge bases that resemble automated gradual thesauri, which allow precisiating natural language [2]. The Web agents' underlying dynamic, self-organizing, and best-effort induction, enable a sub-syntactical bottom up learning of semiotic associations. Thus, knowledge is induced from the users' natural use of language in mutual Web interactions, and stored in a gradual, thesauri-like lexical-world knowledge database as a top-level ontology, eventually allowing a form of computing with words [3]. Since when computing with words the objects of computation are words, phrases and propositions drawn from natural languages, it proves to be a practical notion to yield emergent semantics for the Semantic Web. In the end, an improved understanding by computers on the one hand should upgrade human- computer interaction on the Web, and, on the other hand allow an initial version of human- intelligence amplification through the Web.

A fuzzy grassroots ontology for improving social semantic web search

The web is continuously evolving into a collection of many data, which results in the interest to collect and merge these data in a meaningful way. Based on that web data, this paper describes the building of an ontology resting on fuzzy clustering techniques. Through continual harvesting folksonomies by web agents, an entire automatic fuzzy grassroots ontology is built. This self-updating ontology can then be used for several practical applications in fields such as web structuring, web searching and web knowledge visualization.A potential application for online reputation analysis, added value and possible future studies are discussed in the conclusion.

Prometheus Framework for Fuzzy Information Retrieval in Semantic Spaces

This paper introduces a novel vision for further enhanced Internet of Things services. Based on a variety of data (such as location data, ontology-backed search queries, in- and outdoor conditions) the Prometheus framework is intended to support users with helpful recommendations and information preceding a search for context-aware data. Adapted from artificial intelligence concepts, Prometheus proposes user-readjusted answers on umpteen conditions. A number of potential Prometheus framework applications are illustrated. Added value and possible future studies are discussed in the conclusion.