Bridging the Gap Between Human Language and Computer-Oriented Representations

Information can be expressed in many ways according to the different capacities of humans to perceive it. Current systems deals with multimedia, multiformat and multiplatform systems but another « multi » is still pending to guarantee global access to information, that is, multilinguality. Different languages imply different replications of the systems according to the language in question. No solutions appear to represent the bridge between the human representation (natural language) and a system-oriented representation. The United Nations University defined in 1997 a language to be the support of effective multilinguism in Internet. In this paper, we describe this language and its possible applications beyond multilingual services as the possible future standard for different language independent applications.

A Knowledge-Oriented Technology of System-Objective Analysis and Modelling of Business-Systems

A new original method and CASE-tool of system analysis and modelling are represented. They are for the first time consistent with the requirements of object-oriented technology of informational systems design. They essentially facilitate the construction of organisational systems models and increase the quality of the organisational designing and basic technological processes of object application developing.

The New Science Intensive Standard of Master Preparation in Sphere of Competitive Intelligence on the Basis of Systemological Knowledge-Oriented Technologies

Methodological, theoretical and technological bases of the new branch standard of Ukraine higher education which regulates preparation process of masters - professionals in the information area and information analysts are considered. The new systemological knowledge-oriented technologies developed in KNURE which considerably surpass foreign analogues are put as the basis of training.

Effects of nutrition education on the nutrition knowledge of future aerobic dance instructors

The effectiveness of nutrition education on the nutrition knowledge of future aerobic instructors was studied. Forty-seven subjects participated in the study. The experimental group (n=31) chose to and paid for a two-hour per week session of structured nutrition education for four weeks, the control group (n=16) did not. A nutrition knowledge test was completed by all subjects before and after the intervention. Results were analyzed for relationships between subject's nutrition knowledge and age, gender, educational background, income, and body mass index. No significant differences were found between the groups. The results showed that prior to any formal nutrition education, fitness instructors in the experimental and control groups had low nutrition knowledge (8.06%±16.4% and 4.38%±4.12%, respectively). Post-intervention nutrition knowledge significantly improved (p

Achieving a strategic sales focus: contemporary issues and future challenges.

The main aim of this book is to consider how the sales function informs business strategy. Although there are a number of books available that address how to manage the sales team tactically, this text addresses how sales can help organizations to become more customer oriented. Many organizations are facing escalating costs and a growth in customer power, which makes it necessary to allocate resources more strategically. The sales function can provide critical customer and market knowledge to help inform both innovation and marketing. Sales are responsible for building customer knowledge, networking both internally and externally to help create additional customer value, as well as the more traditional role of managing customer relationships and selling. The text considers how sales organizations are responding to increasing competition, more demanding customers and a more complex selling environment. We identify many of the challenges facing organisations today and offers discussions of some of the possible solutions. This book considers the changing nature of sales and how activities can be aligned within the organization, as well as marketing sensing, creating customer focus and the role of sales leadership. The text will include illustrations (short case studies) provided by a range of successful organizations operating in a number of industries. Sales and senior management play an important role in ensuring that the sales teams' activities are aligned to business strategy and in creating an environment to allow salespeople to be more successful in developing new business opportunities and building long-term profitable business relationships. One of the objectives of this book is to consider how conventional thinking has changed in the last five years and integrate it with examples from sales practice to provide a more complete picture of the role of sales within the modern organization.

Are iron oxide nanoparticles safe? Current knowledge and future perspectives

Due to their unique physicochemical properties, including superparamagnetism, iron oxide nanoparticles (ION) have a number of interesting applications, especially in the biomedical field, that make them one of the most fascinating nanomaterials. They are used as contrast agents for magnetic resonance imaging, in targeted drug delivery, and for induced hyperthermia cancer treatments. Together with these valuable uses, concerns regarding the onset of unexpected adverse health effects following exposure have been also raised. Nevertheless, despite the numerous ION purposes being explored, currently available information on their potential toxicity is still scarce and controversial data have been reported. Although ION have traditionally been considered as biocompatible - mainly on the basis of viability tests results - influence of nanoparticle surface coating, size, or dose, and of other experimental factors such as treatment time or cell type, has been demonstrated to be important for ION in vitro toxicity manifestation. In vivo studies have shown distribution of ION to different tissues and organs, including brain after passing the blood-brain barrier; nevertheless results from acute toxicity, genotoxicity, immunotoxicity, neurotoxicity and reproductive toxicity investigations in different animal models do not provide a clear overview on ION safety yet, and epidemiological studies are almost inexistent. Much work has still to be done to fully understand how these nanomaterials interact with cellular systems and what, if any, potential adverse health consequences can derive from ION exposure.

On the role of Computational Logic in Data Science: representing, learning, reasoning, and explaining knowledge

In this thesis we discuss in what ways computational logic (CL) and data science (DS) can jointly contribute to the management of knowledge within the scope of modern and future artificial intelligence (AI), and how technically-sound software technologies can be realised along the path. An agent-oriented mindset permeates the whole discussion, by stressing pivotal role of autonomous agents in exploiting both means to reach higher degrees of intelligence. Accordingly, the goals of this thesis are manifold. First, we elicit the analogies and differences among CL and DS, hence looking for possible synergies and complementarities along 4 major knowledge-related dimensions, namely representation, acquisition (a.k.a. learning), inference (a.k.a. reasoning), and explanation. In this regard, we propose a conceptual framework through which bridges these disciplines can be described and designed. We then survey the current state of the art of AI technologies, w.r.t. their capability to support bridging CL and DS in practice. After detecting lacks and opportunities, we propose the notion of logic ecosystem as the new conceptual, architectural, and technological solution supporting the incremental integration of symbolic and sub-symbolic AI. Finally, we discuss how our notion of logic ecosys- tem can be reified into actual software technology and extended towards many DS-related directions.

Ecological Literacy And Beyond: Problem-based Learning For Future Professionals.

Ecological science contributes to solving a broad range of environmental problems. However, lack of ecological literacy in practice often limits application of this knowledge. In this paper, we highlight a critical but often overlooked demand on ecological literacy: to enable professionals of various careers to apply scientific knowledge when faced with environmental problems. Current university courses on ecology often fail to persuade students that ecological science provides important tools for environmental problem solving. We propose problem-based learning to improve the understanding of ecological science and its usefulness for real-world environmental issues that professionals in careers as diverse as engineering, public health, architecture, social sciences, or management will address. Courses should set clear learning objectives for cognitive skills they expect students to acquire. Thus, professionals in different fields will be enabled to improve environmental decision-making processes and to participate effectively in multidisciplinary work groups charged with tackling environmental issues.

Delivery Of A Urology Online Course Using Moodle Versus Didactic Lectures Methods.

To subjectively and objectively compare an accessible interactive electronic library using Moodle with lectures for urology teaching of medical students. Forty consecutive fourth-year medical students and one urology teacher were exposed to two teaching methods (4 weeks each) in the form of problem-based learning: - lectures and - student-centered group discussion based on Moodle (modular object-oriented dynamic learning environment) full time online delivered (24/7) with video surgeries, electronic urology cases and additional basic principles of the disease process. All 40 students completed the study. While 30% were moderately dissatisfied with their current knowledge base, online learning course delivery using Moodle was considered superior to the lectures by 86% of the students. The study found the following observations: (1) the increment in learning grades ranged from 7.0 to 9.7 for students in the online Moodle course compared to 4.0-9.6 to didactic lectures; (2) the self-reported student involvement in the online course was characterized as large by over 60%; (3) the teacher-student interaction was described as very frequent (50%) and moderately frequent (50%); and (4) more inquiries and requisitions by students as well as peer assisting were observed from the students using the Moodle platform. The Moodle platform is feasible and effective, enthusing medical students to learn, improving immersion in the urology clinical rotation and encouraging the spontaneous peer assisted learning. Future studies should expand objective evaluations of knowledge acquisition and retention.

Adaptação e validação da escla ASKAS - Aging Sexual Knowledge and Attitudes Scale em idosos brasileiros

Universidade Estadual de Campinas . Faculdade de Educação Física

Students' collective knowledge construction in the virtual learning environment ""ToLigado - your school interactive newspaper""

Introduction. The ToLigado Project - Your School Interactive Newspaper is an interactive virtual learning environment conceived, developed, implemented and supported by researchers at the School of the Future Research Laboratory of the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil. Method. This virtual learning environment aims to motivate trans-disciplinary research among public school students and teachers in 2,931 schools equipped with Internet-access computer rooms. Within this virtual community, students produce collective multimedia research documents that are immediately published in the portal. The project also aims to increase students' autonomy for research, collaborative work and Web authorship. Main sections of the portal are presented and described. Results. Partial results of the first two years' implementation are presented and indicate a strong motivation among students to produce knowledge despite the fragile hardware and software infrastructure at the time. Discussion. In this new environment, students should be seen as 'knowledge architects' and teachers as facilitators, or 'curiosity managers'. The ToLigado portal may constitute a repository for future studies regarding student attitudes in virtual learning environments, students' behaviour as 'authors', Web authorship involving collective knowledge production, teachers' behaviour as facilitators, and virtual learning environments as digital repositories of students' knowledge construction and social capital in virtual learning communities.

Process oriented framework to support PLM implementation

Product lifecycle management (PLM) innovates as it defines both the product as a central element to aggregate enterprise information and the lifecycle as a new time dimension for information integration and analysis. Because of its potential benefits to shorten innovation lead-times and to reduce costs, PLM has attracted a lot of attention at industry and at research. However, the current PLM implementation stage at most organisations still does not apply the lifecycle management concepts thoroughly. In order to close the existing realisation gap, this article presents a process oriented framework to support effective PLM implementation. The framework central point consists of a set of lifecycle oriented business process reference models which links the necessary fundamental concepts, enterprise knowledge and software solutions to effectively deploy PLM. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Learning about knowledge management for improving environmental impact assessment in a government agency: The Western Australian experience

How does knowledge management (KM) by a government agency responsible for environmental impact assessment (EIA) potentially contribute to better environmental assessment and management practice? Staff members at government agencies in charge of the EIA process are knowledge workers who perform judgement-oriented tasks highly reliant on individual expertise, but also grounded on the agency`s knowledge accumulated over the years. Part of an agency`s knowledge can be codified and stored in an organizational memory, but is subject to decay or loss if not properly managed. The EIA agency operating in Western Australia was used as a case study. Its KM initiatives were reviewed, knowledge repositories were identified and staff surveyed to gauge the utilisation and effectiveness of such repositories in enabling them to perform EIA tasks. Key elements of KM are the preparation of substantive guidance and spatial information management. It was found that treatment of cumulative impacts on the environment is very limited and information derived from project follow-up is not properly captured and stored, thus not used to create new knowledge and to improve practice and effectiveness. Other opportunities for improving organizational learning include the use of after-action reviews. The learning about knowledge management in EIA practice gained from Western Australian experience should be of value to agencies worldwide seeking to understand where best to direct their resources for their own knowledge repositories and environmental management practice. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Knowledge and information flows in supply chains: A study on pharmaceutical companies

A great deal of attention in the supply chain management literature is devoted to study material and demand information flows and their coordination. But in many situations, supply chains may convey information from different nature, they may be an important channel companies have to deliver knowledge, or specifically, technical information to the market. This paper studies the technical flow and highlights its particular requirements. Drawing upon a qualitative field research, it studies pharmaceutical companies, since those companies face a very specific challenge: consumers do not have discretion over their choices, ethical drugs must be prescribed by physicians to be bought and used by final consumers. Technical information flow is rich, and must be redundant and early delivered at multiple points. Thus, apart from the regular material channel where products and order information flow, those companies build a specialized information channel, developed to communicate to those who need it to create demand. Conclusions can be extended to supply chains where products and services are complex and decision makers must be clearly informed about technology-related information. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.