Expertise in expert systems: knowledge acquisition for biological expert systems

In this paper it is argued that an expert system requires morethan factual knowledge before it can display expertise in agiven domain. The additional knowledge consists of the heuristicsor ‘rules of thumb’ used by an expert to manipulateand interpret the factual knowledge. The knowledge acquisitionphase of an expert system project involves determining the factualknowledge (which may be obtained from published sources) andthe heuristics used by an expert to manipulate that knowledge-theseheuristics can only be obtained from an expert. In reviewingexisting biological expert systems it is apparent that manycontain only the factual knowledge relating to the domain, andlack the heuristics that enable such systems to show expertise.This paper reviews a number of knowledge acquisition techniqueswhich could be used for acquiring heuristic knowledge and discusseswhen their use is appropriate. The knowledge acquisition techniquesdiscussed are those suitable for the development of small-scaleexpert systems as these are most likely to be of interest tobiologists. The techniques include the use of questionnaires,interview techniques and protocol analysis; particular emphasisis placed on a mod cation to the ‘twenty questions’interview technique which was developed specifically to elicittaxonomic knowledge relating to water mite identification.     

Preparing for motherhood: authoritative knowledge and the undercurrents of shared experience in two childbirth education courses in Cagliari, Italy

This article compares the social settings and teaching organization of two differently structured childbirth education courses in Cagliari, Italy, in order to understand how social processes and contexts work to negotiate authoritative knowledge. Although the explicit goal of both courses was to transmit biomedical knowledge, knowledge based in women's experience nonetheless dominated some course sessions. Thus, I examine the social processes and interactions that enabled women's experiential knowledge to dominate discussions and subsequently share in the authority of biomedical knowledge in some situations. Because few existing studies do so, this article also addresses a gap in our current understanding by exploring not only how experiential knowledge comes to share authority with biomedical knowledge, but also, why it is important that it does. Focusing on the efficacy of differently structured courses, this article informs the planning of future childbirth education courses in similar settings.     

The forms of knowledge mobilized in some machine vision systems.

This paper describes a number of computer vision systems that we have constructed, and which are firmly based on knowledge of diverse sorts. However, that knowledge is often represented in a way that is only accessible to a limited set of processes, that make limited use of it, and though the knowledge is amenable to change, in practice it can only be changed in rather simple ways. The rest of the paper addresses the questions: (i) what knowledge is mobilized in the furtherance of a perceptual task?; (ii) how is that knowledge represented?; and (iii) how is that knowledge mobilized? First we review some cases of early visual processing where the mobilization of knowledge seems to be a key contributor to success yet where the knowledge is deliberately represented in a quite inflexible way. After considering the knowledge that is involved in overcoming the projective nature of images, we move the discussion to the knowledge that was required in programs to match, register, and recognize shapes in a range of applications. Finally, we discuss the current state of process architectures for knowledge mobilization.     

Women care about local knowledge, experiences from ethnomycology

ABSTRACT: Gender is one of the main variables that influence the distribution of local knowledge. We carried out a literature review concerning local mycological knowledge, paying special attention to data concerning women's knowledge and comparative gender data. We found that unique features of local mycological knowledge allow people to successfully manage mushrooms. Women are involved in every stage of mushroom utilization from collection to processing and marketing. Local mycological knowledge includes the use mushrooms as food, medicine, and recreational objects as well as an aid to seasonal household economies. In many regions of the world, women are often the main mushroom collectors and possess a vast knowledge about mushroom taxonomy, biology, and ecology. Local experts play a vital role in the transmission of local mycological knowledge. Women participate in the diffusion of this knowledge as well as in its enrichment through innovation. Female mushroom collectors appreciate their mycological knowledge and pursue strategies and organization to reproduce it in their communities. Women mushroom gatherers are conscious of their knowledge, value its contribution in their subsistence systems, and proudly incorporate it in their cultural identity.     

Automatic Background Knowledge Selection for Matching Biomedical Ontologies

Ontology matching is a growing field of research that is of critical importance for the semantic web initiative. The use of background knowledge for ontology matching is often a key factor for success, particularly in complex and lexically rich domains such as the life sciences. However, in most ontology matching systems, the background knowledge sources are either predefined by the system or have to be provided by the user. In this paper, we present a novel methodology for automatically selecting background knowledge sources for any given ontologies to match. This methodology measures the usefulness of each background knowledge source by assessing the fraction of classes mapped through it over those mapped directly, which we call the mapping gain. We implemented this methodology in the AgreementMakerLight ontology matching framework, and evaluate it using the benchmark biomedical ontology matching tasks from the Ontology Alignment Evaluation Initiative (OAEI) 2013. In each matching problem, our methodology consistently identified the sources of background knowledge that led to the highest improvements over the baseline alignment (i.e., without background knowledge). Furthermore, our proposed mapping gain parameter is strongly correlated with the F-measure of the produced alignments, thus making it a good estimator for ontology matching techniques based on background knowledge.     

Clean and Green: Indigenous Knowledge and Cultural Models in a Philippine Community

This article demonstrates how the study of indigenous knowledge can be enhanced by paying attention to the forms in which this knowledge is organized and the way it is embedded in a wider cultural matrix. The empirical setting is a community of small-scale farmers on the Philippine island of Bohol, where much agricultural knowledge is organized in a cultural model built around a concept of cleanliness. The main part of the article is concerned with analyzing this symbolic model of cleanliness. I examine how it is applied within agriculture as well as in other domains; its esthetic, moral and practical dimensions; and how it can be said to embody a particular vision of the nature-culture opposition. In conclusion, I suggest that the cultural models approach may also facilitate the analysis of how indigenous knowledge changes over time.     

How to Create and Use Analogies Effectively in the Teaching of Science Concepts

Effective teaching is the art of getting information to the students' memory in an organized manner to facilitate later retrieval. Thanks to advances in cognitive science, one can talk of the science of teaching. A metaphor that captures the work of effective teachers is "teachers as knowledge engineers," which connotes that effective teachers understand the nature of knowledge and, by extrapolation, the nature of teaching and learning. When teachers take charge of knowledge, view it as a process, and understand how to work with it, they take charge of the knowledge-construction process and better help their students. This article discusses how science teachers use analogies as a means of organizing knowledge in their students' memory.     

Knowledge representation of signal transduction pathways

MOTIVATIONS: Signal transduction is the common term used to define a diverse topic that encompasses a large body of knowledge about the biochemical mechanisms. Since most of the knowledge of signal transduction resides in scientific articles and is represented by texts in natural language or by diagrams, there is the need of a knowledge representation model for signal transduction pathways that can be as readily processed by a computer as it is easily understood by humans. RESULTS: A signal transduction pathway representation model is presented. It is based on a compound graph structure and is designed to handle the diversity and hierarchical structure of pathways. A prototype knowledge base was implemented on a deductive database and a number of biological queries are demonstrated on it.     

Beyond Trust: Plagiarism and Truth

Academic misconduct distorts the relationship between scientific practice and the knowledge it produces. The relationship between science and the knowledge it produces is, however, not something universally agreed upon. In this paper I will critically discuss the moral status of an act of research misconduct, namely plagiarism, in the context of different epistemological positions. While from a positivist view of science, plagiarism only influences trust in science but not the content of the scientific corpus, from a constructivist point of view both are at stake. Consequently, I argue that discussions of research misconduct and responsible research ought to be explicitly informed by the authors’ views on the relationship between science and the knowledge it produces.     

Recognising and Translating Knowledge: Navigating the Political,Epistemological, Legal and Ontological

What does it mean to call something ‘knowledge’ today? What does this recognition or translation require? And what does it entrain? This introduction makes a novel synthesis of contributions to the Special Issue and advances observations regarding the ‘mythic’ qualities of intellectual property law, the precipitation of ‘nature’, and the importance of attending to what is lost when things and practices are also called ‘knowledge’. The papers cohere around a timely set of observations and critiques: critiques of the way the knowledge economy makes demands and defines expectations about value; of how intellectual property law lies behind and shapes exclusions, inclusions, and inequalities; of the ‘mythic’ status of assumptions informing laws about ownership; and the implicit hierarchy contained within types of knowledge as understood through the categories of western epistemology. By taking up effect rather than veracity and certainty, contributors leave the definition of knowledge to ethnographic subjects. That is, they attend to where and how things come to be called knowledge, and for what reasons, noticing how equivalences across practices, made for the purpose of creating the possibility of exchange value (and thus of encouraging circulation) does its work at the expense of multiple aspects, values, and relations that are also discernable in social processes that produce ‘knowledge’.     

Methodological issues unsaid in medical research

Methodology consitutes the study of methods considered as < manners of leading its thought, of establishing or of showing truths according to certain principles and with a certain order >. We will see that medical < truths >, knowledge, could be of an extremely different nature: factual knowledge is a simple observation, often with operational vocation\; theoretical knowledge belongs to a coherent whole, it fascines and facilitates our representations of pathologies\; the causal knowledge is often the subject of extreme interrogations in medical practice\; it is of primarily metaphysical nature. These distinctions are not without consequence in methodological terms. Theories are useful because they facilitate the choice of the assumptions to be tested, the variables to be measured and the interpretation of the results of experiments. The risk however exists to be unable to think apart from their framework, and thus to neglect any source of knowledge which they could not integrate. The cause is inaccessible to science\; it will be necessary, in practice, to be limited to the search for variables of upstream on which action of prevention or cure could be undertaken. To establish, to show this medical knowledge, it is necessary to resort to the scientific method by formulating refutable assumptions by reproducible experiments, and that this process involves a belief in the found results. It appears thus that for the same experimental plan, the level of belief and thus the level of proof of the results is a function of the type of measurement carried out (commonplace measurement or of high technicality), of the medical discipline and the media character or not of studied pathology, even of stakes of being able. The medical reproducibility of experiments is problematic since results of these experiments are in general random. This results from the considerable number of variables entering in the determination of human pathologies, and that the majority of these variables are either unknown, or impossible to control. Randomisation makes it possible to give a probabilistic character to this risk: it is then possible to resort to mathematics to carry out statistical tests, to calculate confidence intervals and to profit from a possibility of making inferences with a known margin of error. In the absence of randomisation, it is possible to resort to models\; they imply however the knowledge of statistical methods, reserve, experience and a great intellectual honesty during the interpretation of the results, finally a replication of the experiments is here, more than elsewhere, essential.     

Diversity and use of palms in Zahamena, eastern Madagascar

Madagascar's palm flora is very diverse (171 species) and has a high degree of endemism (97%). Palm products make an important contribution to the household economy of many rural families, especially in the palm-rich eastern escarpments. Many palms are, however, threatened by overexploitation and habitat destruction. We investigated which palm species were found and used in three villages on the eastern escarpments of Madagascar. The importance local people accorded to each species was compared to the number of its uses, number of people using it, and other aspects of its use. From this comparison it was concluded that even if important palms are used for more purposes than less important palms, they owe their importance to one or two of their main uses. We also investigated if there were any patterns in the distribution of informants' knowledge and whether such patterns could be related to socio-economic factors. There was a positive relationship between knowledge about palms and personal wealth and a negative relationship between distance to the forest and amount of knowledge. The latter can be a sign of an ongoing knowledge erosion. Sustainable use of native palms should be encouraged as it may contribute positively to village economy and knowledge preservation, and may provide incentives for preservation of remaining forest tracts.     

Information retrieval and knowledge discovery utilising a biomedical Semantic Web

Although various ontologies and knowledge sources have been developed in recent years to facilitate biomedical research, it is difficult to assimilate information from multiple knowledge sources. To enable researchers to easily gain understanding of a biomedical concept, a biomedical Semantic Web that seamlessly integrates knowledge from biomedical ontologies, publications and patents would be very helpful. In this paper, current research efforts in representing biomedical knowledge in Semantic Web languages are surveyed. Techniques are presented for information retrieval and knowledge discovery from the Semantic Web that extend traditional keyword search and database querying techniques. Finally, some of the challenges that have to be addressed to make the vision of a biomedical Semantic Web a reality are discussed.     

A self-healing technique using reusable component-level operation knowledge

Although autonomic computing reduces traditional operational cost, it introduces another cost factor related to operation knowledge. This paper focuses on self-healing functionality and proposes a technique which uses reusable component-level operation knowledge. To achieve reusability, the operation knowledge used by the proposed technique excludes system specific information. Such knowledge becomes independent of a specific system structure, and therefore, self-healing systems can share the operation knowledge across organizations and can adapt to changes. A problem on achieving reusability by excluding system specific information is treatment of dependency among components. To cope with this problem, a dependency injection mechanism is introduced. The dependency injection mechanism works out needed recovery actions by relating component-level operation knowledge and system-specific information. Furthermore, this paper describes an implemented prototype together with an application example.     

临床决策支持知识库研究

目的 运用知识管理的理念和方法,探讨切合实际应用的临床决策支持知识库概念模型,使医院能够通过知识管理提升其核心竞争力。方法 收集国内外相关资料,系统化研究及分析具有人工智能的临床决策支持知识库的框架。结果 实施医院知识管理的关键就是必须建立一个动态的,并具有自我学习能力的临床决策支持知识库,该知识库不仅需要通过医院信息系统收集传统的医学知识,而且需要建立用于临床指南等的标准医学知识收集的引擎和隐性知识转化模型,并嵌入智能化工具,通过知识库的自我学习功能,保证其动态更新和智能化的临床决策支持能力。结论 医院知识库创建过程实质也是医院价值的创造过程,智能化的临床决策支持知识库开发不仅涉及知识的收集和处理, 还包括知识的表达,人工智能技术的嵌入和各种规则、条件及分类方法等的应用,有待进一步研究。     

Is knowledge in various domains needed to understand bioethical issues?

Abstract

Researchers agree that an interdisciplinary approach should be taken to address bioethical issues at school. Little is known about the knowledge students need to be able to understand and take part in discussions about these issues. We investigate the relationship between 79 students’ prior knowledge in various domains and their ability to recall and produce arguments about a bioethical issue. Our results partially confirm theoretical assumptions presented in, and findings from, related studies. Knowledge in various domains facilitates understanding of bioethical issues and facilitates recall and development of related arguments. Addressing bioethical issues at school has numerous benefits for students, for example, it allows them to develop and employ knowledge in various domains and to see how it interconnects.     

Sensory-perceptual episodic memory and its context: autobiographical memory

Episodic memory is reconceived as a memory system that retains highly detailed sensory perceptual knowledge of recent experience over retention intervals measured in minutes and hours. Episodic knowledge has yet to be integrated with the autobiographical memory knowledge base and so takes as its context or referent the immediate past of the experiencing self (or the 'I'). When recalled it can be accessed independently of content and is recollectively experienced. Autobiographical memory, in contrast, retains knowledge over retention intervals measured in weeks, months, years, decades and across the life span. Autobiographical knowledge represents the experienced self (or the 'me'), is always accessed by its content and, when accessed, does not necessarily give rise to recollective experience. Instead, recollective experience occurs when autobiographical knowledge retains access to associated episodic memories. In this reworking of the 'episodic memory' concept autobiographical memory provides the instantiating context for sensory-perceptual episodic memory.     

The Psychology of Acquiring Factual Knowledge by Schoolchildren

The learning of factual knowledge is a central problem in psychology and pedagogy; and study of the principles governing this process and of methods for organizing it is directly related to one of the chief tasks of schooling — imparting complete and solid factual knowledge to children.