Reverse simulation for collaborative commerce: A study of integrating object-oriented database technology with object-oriented simulator

Collaborative commerce has been used for communication, design, planning, information sharing, and information discovery in business-to-business (B2B) applications. The collaboration between buyers and sellers enhances product quality and customer satisfaction. However, most effort currently focuses on information sharing with customers and suppliers instead of joint product development or manufacturing. Moreover, traditional analytical methods have limited capability in solving problems. This study presents a framework for doing reverse simulation, where designers can reuse past experiments and change system parameters in manufacturing system for collaborative commerce. The framework integrates the object-oriented simulator and the object-oriented database. In this framework, the object-oriented database records the whole experiment scenarios and allows multiple planners with different expertise to involve concurrently and collaboratively. Then, simulations of advanced planning and scheduling in a product manufacturing environment that involves several planners working collaboratively are used for demonstration.     

Cosmopolitanism and the global economy: notes from China's knowledge factories

In Dalian Software Park, China's centre for IT-enabled outsourcing and offshore services, knowledge workers find themselves on the ‘assembly line’ of information processing, carrying out highly routinized, de-skilled, and poorly paid work for which they are vastly overqualified. Following the recent attention to culture and personhood in studies of global capitalism, I argue that these knowledge workers are motivated by two forms of cosmopolitanism: corporate cosmopolitanism, the capacity to reconcile the supra-territorial values of ‘global’ corporate culture with local values; and nationalist cosmopolitanism, whereby individual workers see the performance of cultural openness as a way of contributing to China's national project of modernization. As well as providing a rare account of cosmopolitanism in the workplace, this article demonstrates the significance of cosmopolitanism for the global economy. The pursuit of cosmopolitanism creates a productive friction between individual projects of self-making, corporate projects of disciplining labour, as well as national projects of pursuing modernity and development.     

An architecture for the autonomic curation of crowdsourced knowledge

Human knowledge curators are intrinsically better than their digital counterparts at providing relevant answers to queries. That is mainly due to the fact that an experienced biological brain will account for relevant community expertise as well as exploit the underlying connections between knowledge pieces when offering suggestions pertinent to a specific question, whereas most automated database managers will not. We address this problem by proposing an architecture for the autonomic curation of crowdsourced knowledge, that is underpinned by semantic technologies. The architecture is instantiated in the career data domain, thus yielding Aviator, a collaborative platform capable of producing complete, intuitive and relevant answers to career related queries, in a time effective manner. In addition to providing numeric and use case based evidence to support these research claims, this extended work also contains a detailed architectural analysis of Aviator to outline its suitability for automatically curating knowledge to a high standard of quality.     

Ultra-Structure database design methodology for managing systems biology data and analyses

Background  

Modern, high-throughput biological experiments generate copious, heterogeneous, interconnected data sets. Research is dynamic, with frequently changing protocols, techniques, instruments, and file formats. Because of these factors, systems designed to manage and integrate modern biological data sets often end up as large, unwieldy databases that become difficult to maintain or evolve. The novel rule-based approach of the Ultra-Structure design methodology presents a potential solution to this problem. By representing both data and processes as formal rules within a database, an Ultra-Structure system constitutes a flexible framework that enables users to explicitly store domain knowledge in both a machine- and human-readable form. End users themselves can change the system's capabilities without programmer intervention, simply by altering database contents; no computer code or schemas need be modified. This provides flexibility in adapting to change, and allows integration of disparate, heterogenous data sets within a small core set of database tables, facilitating joint analysis and visualization without becoming unwieldy. Here, we examine the application of Ultra-Structure to our ongoing research program for the integration of large proteomic and genomic data sets (proteogenomic mapping).     

Ligand based virtual screening and biological evaluation of inhibitors of chorismate mutase (Rv1885c) from Mycobacterium tuberculosis H37Rv

We have identified new lead candidates that possess inhibitory activity against Mycobacterium tuberculosis H37Rv chorismate mutase by a ligand-based virtual screening optimized for lead evaluation in combination with in vitro enzymatic assay. The initial virtual screening using a ligand-based pharmacophore model identified 95 compounds from an in-house small molecule database of 15,452 compounds. The obtained hits were further evaluated by molecular docking and 15 compounds were short listed based on docking scores and the other scoring functions and subjected to biological assay. Chorismate mutase activity assays identified four compounds as inhibitors of M. tuberculosis chorismate mutase (MtCM) with low K(i) values. The structural models for these ligands in the chorismate mutase binding site will facilitate medicinal chemistry efforts for lead optimization against this protein.     

Discovery of novel low molecular weight inhibitors of IMPDH via virtual needle screening

Novel, low molecular weight inhibitors of IMPDH have been discovered through the application of a validated virtual screening protocol. A series of 21 IMPDH inhibitors were used to validate the docking procedure. Application of this procedure to the selection of compounds for screening from an in-house database resulted in a 50-fold reduction in the size of the screening set (3425 to 74 compounds) and gave a hit-rate of 10% on biological evaluation.     

USING HIGH-LEVEL CONSUMER-RESEARCH METHODS TO CREATE A TOOL-DRIVEN GUIDEBOOK AND DATABASE FOR PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT AND MARKETING

We present aspects and data for a tool‐driven database for marketing and product development, which are publicly accessible. The objective is to create a method whereby knowledge of concepts and products can be archived using overviews of a specific product category. The first phase of the database comprises systematic analysis of product concepts, which contain elements dealing both with features and emotions. The concept phase provides an idea about responses to statements about product features, along with responses to emotional elements and brands. The second phase comprises an analysis of the competitive frame of products, even before systematic product development is initiated. This second phase identifies expected and thus reasonable ranges of product‐sensory features, levels of acceptance of typical products, relations between liking and sensory attributes and segmentation of sensory preferences. Together, the two phases provide a guide to product developers new in a category, archive current knowledge and provide a sourcebook for marketers and developers alike, which is accessible using research tools. The two phases allow product development to become more scientific, more based on common experience rather than individual expertise and thus more efficient, without compromising corporate knowledge of specific ingredients, processes or business opportunities.     

BioProfile-Extract knowledge from corporate databases to assess cross-reactivities of compounds

In the last 10-15years, many new technologies and approaches have been implemented in research in the pharmaceutical industry; these include high-throughput screening or combinatorial chemistry, which result in a rapidly growing amount of biological assay and structural data in the corporate databases. Efficient use of the data from this growing data mountain is a key success factor; 'provide as much knowledge as possible as early as possible and therefore enable research teams to make the best possible decision whenever this decision can be supported by stored data'. Here, an approach which started several years ago to obtain as much information as possible out of historical assay data stored in the corporate database is described. It will be shown how important a careful preprocessing of the stored data is to enhance its information. Different possibilities for accessing and to analyzing the preconditioned data are in place. Some of will be described in the examples.     

Chelation therapy in workers with lead exposure.

Occupational lead overexposure remains a major problem. To evaluate the settings in which physicians appropriately prescribe chelation therapy for lead exposure, 7 cases were identified from physician phone calls and mandatory laboratory reporting of elevated blood lead levels to the California Department of Health Services. In the 2 workers with the highest blood lead levels (both of whom had severe symptoms), treatment was indicated. Physicians inappropriately prescribed chelating agents to workers with ongoing lead exposure as prophylaxis against rising blood lead levels and to treat atherosclerotic heart disease. Workers'' personal physicians identified lead overexposure in 5 of the 7 cases. Workplace lead medical surveillance programs mandated by the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration were inadequate in all 5 of the workplaces where information was available.     

A computer experiment model to investigate the effects of drug dosage in animals, for use in pharmacological education and research

The ACD-IDEA database, which was originally developed by the authors in 2004, is an ongoing compilation of existing data on the in vivo doses of compounds at which various responses in certain animal species have been observed. It can provide an infrastructure for various research/educational efforts, and creates a synergy for new applications. In this paper, some of these applications are described. Specific interfaces within the database are designed for users who are not computer specialists. Users can search the database to find the answer to a query, or they can design a simple virtual animal experiment. In the second case, the interface is used to undertake a dialogue with the system, in order to test the user's knowledge regarding an experiment under consideration, and to allow the user to glean additional information on better experimental planning. The use of this virtual experimental tool should lead to savings in time, animals, materials, and monetary costs, while the effective learning outcomes of pharmacological experiments are maintained or enhanced.     

Biotechnology and the birth of a third culture

Biotechnology represents such an important challenge for present day culture that one can speak of a biotechnological revolution in many other scientific fields as well, such as biology, clinical medicine, pharmacology, and genetic engineering. It also significantly affects political and economic choices to such a degree that they call for a new kind of attention from jurisprudence which has to regulate an ever changing world. Many important queries arise particularly at a bioethical level, issues that will also affect future generations. Scientific progress has unexpectedly widened the biological knowledge of human kind. Thanks to the contribution of continuously more refined and advanced technology, it has nurtured the hope of solving all problems and of overcoming all limits. The scientist's intellectual curiosity, encompassing these new resources, is spurred on by the desire for knowledge and understanding. However sometimes he loses sight of the repercussions and of the possible uses his achievements may have. Only a profound personal education, integrated with the scientist's technical and scientific expertise, will allow science to knock down some barriers, advancing constantly but without losing respect for man's dignity. However the separation between scientific and ethical expertise can only raise new barriers and create limits to the freedom of science which will appear just restrictive, while a kind of medieval obscurantism will be opposed to ethical rigour.     

A manually curated network of the PML nuclear body interactome reveals an important role for PML-NBs in SUMOylation dynamics

Promyelocytic Leukaemia Protein nuclear bodies (PML-NBs) are dynamic nuclear protein aggregates. To gain insight in PML-NB function, reductionist and high throughput techniques have been employed to identify PML-NB proteins. Here we present a manually curated network of the PML-NB interactome based on extensive literature review including database information. By compiling ''the PML-ome'', we highlighted the presence of interactors in the Small Ubiquitin Like Modifier (SUMO) conjugation pathway. Additionally, we show an enrichment of SUMOylatable proteins in the PML-NBs through an in-house prediction algorithm. Therefore, based on the PML network, we hypothesize that PML-NBs may function as a nuclear SUMOylation hotspot.     

Vector NTI, a balanced all-in-one sequence analysis suite

Vector NTI is a well-balanced desktop application integrated for molecular sequence analysis and biological data management. It has a centralised database and five application modules: Vector NTI, AlignX, BioAnnotator, ContigExpress and GenomBench. In this review, the features and functions available in this software are examined. These include database management, primer design, virtual cloning, alignments, sequence assembly, 3D molecular viewer and internet tools. Some problems encountered when using this software are also discussed. It is hoped that this review will introduce this software to more molecular biologists so they can make better-informed decisions when choosing computational tools to facilitate their everyday laboratory work. This tool can save time and enhance analysis but it requires some learning on the user's part and there are some issues that need to be addressed by the developer.     

What is an expert? A systems perspective on expertise

Expert knowledge is a valuable source of information with a wide range of research applications. Despite the recent advances in defining expert knowledge, little attention has been given to how to view expertise as a system of interacting contributory factors for quantifying an individual's expertise. We present a systems approach to expertise that accounts for many contributing factors and their inter‐relationships and allows quantification of an individual's expertise. A Bayesian network (BN) was chosen for this purpose. For illustration, we focused on taxonomic expertise. The model structure was developed in consultation with taxonomists. The relative importance of the factors within the network was determined by a second set of taxonomists (supra‐experts) who also provided validation of the model structure. Model performance was assessed by applying the model to hypothetical career states of taxonomists designed to incorporate known differences in career states for model testing. The resulting BN model consisted of 18 primary nodes feeding through one to three higher‐order nodes before converging on the target node (Taxonomic Expert). There was strong consistency among node weights provided by the supra‐experts for some nodes, but not others. The higher‐order nodes, “Quality of work” and “Total productivity”, had the greatest weights. Sensitivity analysis indicated that although some factors had stronger influence in the outer nodes of the network, there was relatively equal influence of the factors leading directly into the target node. Despite the differences in the node weights provided by our supra‐experts, there was good agreement among assessments of our hypothetical experts that accurately reflected differences we had specified. This systems approach provides a way of assessing the overall level of expertise of individuals, accounting for multiple contributory factors, and their interactions. Our approach is adaptable to other situations where it is desirable to understand components of expertise.     

Criteria followed in the establishment of a filamentous fungal culture collection – Micoteca da Universidade do Minho (MUM)

In Portugal there are few culture collections of filamentous fungi and these are mostly in-house, and located mainly in the Lisbon area. Furthermore, open access to Portuguese databases on microorganisms is not well established. This knowledge and the continuing experimental activity in mycology, combined with an interest from the University in creating and financing reliable services to support research, led to the organization of a filamentous fungal culture collection, hosted at the Biological Engineering Centre of Minho University, in the North of Portugal. The Micoteca da Universidade do Minho (MUM), was established in 1996, with the aim of maintaining and providing strains for research on biotechnology and for use in teaching laboratories, and to act as a centre of expertise, information and training, complying with international quality standards. The use of a computerized system for the management of recorded data and the collection's holdings was envisaged from the start. The collection now holds 128 identified species, including recognized standard or test strains and isolates derived from research activities, mainly of the genera Penicillium and Aspergillus. The microbial strain database was built in-house and runs on Windows 2000. To ensure widespread availability of details of the collection's holdings, the fields intended for general searching and viewing are available on-line at http://www.micoteca.deb.uminho.pt/.     

Lessons Learned from Crowdsourcing Complex Engineering Tasks

Crowdsourcing

Crowdsourcing is the practice of obtaining needed ideas, services, or content by requesting contributions from a large group of people. Amazon Mechanical Turk is a web marketplace for crowdsourcing microtasks, such as answering surveys and image tagging. We explored the limits of crowdsourcing by using Mechanical Turk for a more complicated task: analysis and creation of wind simulations.

Harnessing Crowdworkers for Engineering

Our investigation examined the feasibility of using crowdsourcing for complex, highly technical tasks. This was done to determine if the benefits of crowdsourcing could be harnessed to accurately and effectively contribute to solving complex real world engineering problems. Of course, untrained crowds cannot be used as a mere substitute for trained expertise. Rather, we sought to understand how crowd workers can be used as a large pool of labor for a preliminary analysis of complex data.

Virtual Wind Tunnel

We compared the skill of the anonymous crowd workers from Amazon Mechanical Turk with that of civil engineering graduate students, making a first pass at analyzing wind simulation data. For the first phase, we posted analysis questions to Amazon crowd workers and to two groups of civil engineering graduate students. A second phase of our experiment instructed crowd workers and students to create simulations on our Virtual Wind Tunnel website to solve a more complex task.

Conclusions

With a sufficiently comprehensive tutorial and compensation similar to typical crowd-sourcing wages, we were able to enlist crowd workers to effectively complete longer, more complex tasks with competence comparable to that of graduate students with more comprehensive, expert-level knowledge. Furthermore, more complex tasks require increased communication with the workers. As tasks become more complex, the employment relationship begins to become more akin to outsourcing than crowdsourcing. Through this investigation, we were able to stretch and explore the limits of crowdsourcing as a tool for solving complex problems.     

“Green Fluff”? The Role of Corporate Sustainability Initiatives in Effective Climate Policy: Comment on “Science‐Based Carbon Targets for the Corporate World: The Ultimate Sustainability Commitment,or a Costly Distraction?”

The commentary by Schendler and Trexler (2015) strikes us as an intriguing paradox. Schendler and Trexler see responses to the threat of global climate change beginning to move forward in the corporate world, but they fear these corporate initiatives will be a distraction from what is ultimately required. They emphasize the need for “greater government intervention.” An earlier text by Schendler and Toffel (2013) notes, and we agree, that “we're failing to deal with the problem at anywhere near sufficient scale.” But we feel that the article by Schendler and Trexler does not adequately acknowledge the importance of these corporate efforts as elements of initiation and leadership. Schendler and Trexler express the impatience that many of us feel regarding the continued failure of political progress at the national and international levels. But they do not embrace the thoughts attributed to the sixth century B.C. Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu: “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” They fail to acknowledge that, in democratic governments, there is the need for grass‐roots support in order to develop and implement effective policy. Rather than distractions, individual and corporate efforts are generally necessary prerequisites for implementation of and receptiveness to government action. We agree that society is not dealing with climate change at anything approaching the needed scale and that, ultimately, a meaningful government and international response to climate change is required. The challenge is finding the way forward to achieve this outcome. In a first‐best scenario, the global community would simply negotiate an effective international climate agreement. For more than 35 years, individual countries have collaborated to pursue this first‐best scenario, starting with the first World Climate Conference in 1979 and continuing with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Kyoto Protocol. But this “top‐down” approach has yielded little success and even less hope, with global carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions increasing by more than 50% since adoption of the UNFCCC in 1992. While countries agree on the need for an international agreement, “there is disagreement on almost every aspect of the climate change problem. Countries approach the problem in different stages of development and from different development paths, and thus with different perspectives” (Cherry et al. 2014, 23).     

目标设定：促进糖尿病患者行为改变的方法

目标设定是将患者的自我管理和行为改变意图转换为目标的过程,是一种常见的、行之有效的行为干预策略。本文介绍了目标的种类、目标设定的原则、方法及利用目标设定的方法进行糖尿病教育的效果,分析了目标设定在实际应用中存在的问题,为以后更好地利用目标设定的方法进行糖尿病教育,从而达到改变患者行为的目的提供了理论依据。