Semantic classification of a cognate construction field: Expressions of the “U Vasi gripp” type in the Russian language

This paper analyzes Russian constructions of the type U X-a Y (X has Y) whose semantics can be reduced neither to existentivity, nor to possessivity in pure form. The paper describes the general semantic and syntactic characteristics of these constructions, as well as the semantic subclasses which this constructions field can be divided into. Analysis of a corpus (about 400 examples) built on the basis of the National Corpus of the Russian language shows that the general characteristics of all the constructions are diven by their common discursive function to communicate new information about X. The common function of all the constructions also motivates the division into the subclasses we have established for the given construction field.     

Gravitating to rigidity: Patterns of schema evolution – and its absence – in the lives of tables

Like all software maintenance, schema evolution is a process that can severely impact the lifecycle of a data-intensive software projects, as schema updates can drive depending applications crushing or delivering incorrect data to end users. In this paper, we study the schema evolution of eight databases that are part of larger open source projects, publicly available through open source repositories. In particular, the focus of our research was the understanding of which tables evolve and how. We report on our observations and patterns on how evolution related properties, like the possibility of deletion, or the amount of updates that a table undergoes, are related to observable table properties like the number of attributes or the time of birth of a table.A study of the update profile of tables, indicates that they are mostly rigid (without any updates to their schema at all) or quiet (with few updates), especially in databases that are more mature and heavily updated. Deletions are significantly outnumbered by table insertions, leading to schema expansion. Delving deeper, we can highlight four patterns of schema evolution. The Γ pattern indicating that tables with large schemata tend to have long durations and avoid removal, the Comet pattern indicating that the tables with most updates are the ones with medium schema size, the Inverse Γ pattern, indicating that tables with medium or small durations produce amounts of updates lower than expected, and, the Empty Triangle pattern indicating that deletions involve mostly early born, quiet tables with short lives, whereas older tables are unlikely to be removed. Overall, we believe that the observed evidence strongly indicates that databases are rigidity-prone rather than evolution-prone. We call the phenomenon gravitation to rigidity and we attribute it to the implied impact to the surrounding code that a modification to the schema of a database has.     

Semantic interoperability of controlled vocabularies in medicine: A case study of the International Statistical Classification of Diseases ‘Tuberculosis’ subset

Controlled vocabularies have been promoted for the achievement of semantic interoperability in e-health. However, the current implementations of healthcare information systems struggle with the remaining encoded semantics inside each particular data model. Multilevel modelling has been proposed for overcoming the challenges of semantic interoperability in healthcare, with different approaches for binding domain models to standard vocabularies; however, proofs of concept are still needed. This paper presents the fundamentals of knowledge modelling with standard vocabularies using the Multilevel Healthcare Information Modelling (MLHIM) specifications. The implementation of one term subset (‘Tuberculosis’) of the 10th Revision of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10) in MLHIM domain models, the Concept Constraint Definitions (CCD), is described, using the Brazilian mortality and hospital information systems as use cases. Technical details of the semantic validation of data instances generated according to the XML instances that include this ICD-10 term set, as well as the correspondent migration of the original databases to MLHIM-compliant databases, are presented.     

Threat or Opportunity? The Politicization of Focusing Events in the Parliamentary Arena

Focusing events, that is, crises and catastrophes, provide an opportunity for political change, learning and evaluation of governmental performance. The aim of this study was to analyse the politicization of four focusing events in the parliamentary arena, concerning framing, blame attribution, emotional appeal and solutions presented. Are there any differences between events with a varying degree of strength (stronger vs. weaker) and origin (human‐made vs. natural disasters) concerning the debate in the plenary sessions? The findings show that a stronger degree of focus results in more tendencies to portray the event as an opportunity for change. Moreover, concerning origin, natural disasters are more often discussed in terms of anger, with debate contributions posed by the opposition parties.     

Determining the number of postal units in the network – Fuzzy approach,Serbia case study

One of the main, current, goals of the public postal operators in developing countries is to define the model for proper postal network design and access. The access to the postal network represents a set of different elements that interact with each other and have a common aim of providing continuous, of high quality, reliable and sustainable universal postal service. Worldwide experience suggests different approaches in defining the components and criteria for establishing the system of access to the postal network of the public operator. In this paper we present two different approaches. The first one is based on criteria determined in previous study and, here, we develop proper mathematical formulation. The second one is new, general, method created to generate fuzzy rules from numerical data, well known as Wang–Mendel’s method. The authors apply both methods on real data collected from Serbian municipalities and finally, compare results obtained by them.     

Network neutrality in the era of 5G – a matter of faith,hope, and design?

The article addresses the relationship of network neutrality (NN) and 5G, while abandoning technological determinism. Contrary to recent developments in the US, current EU law includes NN rules which imply non-discrimination and equal treatment of all internet traffic with specific exceptions, including in the case of congestion prevention. For their part, visions of 5G include tailored solutions for individual use cases, while prioritisation or guarantees for time-critical applications, such as autonomous vehicles, will become crucial. This means that differentiation rather than equality lies at the core of 5G. At the outset, NN and 5G seem to collide and contradict. Indeed, telecom operators have expressed concerns on the feasibility of EU regulation in terms of investments and innovation. However, viewed from the perspective of end-to-end (E2E) design principles, NN and 5G are not inevitably (merely) at odds. Moreover, network design, including the principle of neutrality, is a matter of choice. For its part, embracing diversity presents an alternative to promoting neutrality. The article thus promotes a societal debate on NN in the era of 5G which considers various dimensions from technology and economics to law and policy.     

Gothic Construction and the Traça of a Heptagonal Apse: The Problem of the Heptagon

The heptagonal shape and its geometric layout have been the subject of a great deal of speculation. Because some apses in Gothic cathedrals are heptagonal, there must be a methodology implicit in the layout of the geometric shape. Two particularly important sources help us arrive at an understanding: the exceptional of the capitular archive of the Cathedral of Tortosa, which contains the main neo-Platonic sources among its codices dating from thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and the parchment known as la traça de Guarc (c.1345-1380), which shows the layout of the non-constructed cathedral. These sources show a heptagonal apse with an arithmetical and geometric dimension, based on a metrological and tonal musical proportion of 9/8, which is perfectly compatible with the bases of the quadrivium. The lateral and radial chapel, as the basic unit and feature element in fourteenth-century Gothic cathedral design, can be used as a pattern, and its measurement established as the basic unit for the overall proportions of the cathedral.     

Concerning the knowledge domain of anticipation – awareness of early contributions in the context of defining the field

The knowledge domain of anticipation is still in the process of being defined, and is therefore subject to controversies. Science was never an endeavour of consensus but rather of debate. This additional argument to the debate integrates awareness of the early Soviet/Russian contributions to a science of anticipation. From this awareness derives the understanding of why anticipation faces opposition from established viewpoints. This article ascertains that anticipation advances a fundamental view of the living. Within this view, anticipation is always expressed in action. Short of this definitory condition, anticipation fades into the grey mass of speculative predictive methods.     

Nomadicity and the Care of Place—on the Aesthetic and Affective Organization of Space in Freelance Creative Work

While information and communication technology enables freelancers to work “anytime anywhere”, it has become apparent that not all places seem to be equally suitable for their work. Drawing from CSCW literature on the practical accomplishment of mobile work and theoretical literature on creativity, insights from ethnographic studies in New York, Berlin and Wiesbaden are discussed. The paper follows workers in their everyday attempts to seek out and enact work environments, which enable them to be creative and productive. In these processes, mobility features both as a problem and a resource. The search for the right place makes these workers restless, but sometimes restlessness and nomadicity can inspire creativity. Similarly, new mobile, social and collaborative technologies allow a new balancing of solitude and sociality. I call this emerging nexus of practices which entails aesthetic, affective, social and socio-political dimensions the care of place. A conjoint theoretical and empirical analysis aims to draw attention to everyday lived practices of nomadicity and the care of place in a wider discursive and socio-political context to inform CSCW design.     

Disruptive factors in the evaluation of perceived quality aspects – consideration of the brand influence

The implementation of evaluation methods with the aim to gain knowledge of the perceived quality aspects is a challenging task because of versatile disruptive factors on the users’ cognition. Commonly known disruptive factors like the different level of experience in the usage of a system or the publicity of a brand name are considered in research approaches only marginally. This becomes even more important when the evaluated system stays in direct interaction with the evaluator and an increase of external influences can be expected. On the example of a system with strong user interaction, a research approach for an objective evaluation of quality aspects was developed with cordless drills. An experiment has been carried out with 50 craftsmen which are divided into two groups, whereby the first of which will be given original labeled and the other blinded cordless drills for rating the application quality. Evaluation was divided into a preliminary test and a practical test phase, in which selected applications were performed. Results for the preliminary evaluation of the cordless drills indicate a significant brand influence with a strong positive effect on well-known (p<.001, r=0.492, +30.7%) and a negative effect on unknown brands (p=0.029, r=0.309, -17.2%). Practical usage of the devices leads to a significant change of ratings (well-know brand: p=0.007, r=0.378, +1.9%; unknown brand: p=0.053, r=0.274, +12%). Using paired sample t-test it can be shown that the practical use of cordless drills reduces variances in evaluation and ratings become more precise.Relevance for industry: Given approaches can be used in industry to conduct field studies with real users and benchmark systems to identify new development goals (quality aspects) for user-optimized products that are not affected by disruptive factors such as the brand name.     

Designer’s Optimal Decisions to Fit Cross-Section Squares of the Supports of a Construction Platform in Overestimations of Uncertainties in the Generalized Model

The author considers an antagonistic model of fitting cross-sectional areas of the supports of construction platform, where the total load on the platform is normalized to unity. The generalized model under study is generated by interval uncertainties as the evaluations of the normalized squares of support cross-sections. The author proves the assertions on the designer’s optimal decisions in such model by overestimation of uncertainties, where the conditions of the last assertion are obtained by inducing the conditions of the two first assertions.     

Work Stress: Studies of the Context,Content and Outcomes of Stress – A Book of Readings

Worringham and Beringer (1989, 1998) developed a very important principle relating compatibility of movement of horizontally moving translational controls to display movements when the operator's view of the display is in a plane different to that of the control. On the basis of past data of the current authors, it is shown that the visual field principle also applies to the operation of vertically moving translational controls and to rotary controls. These additions make the Worringham and Beringer principle the most powerful design principle available for situations where the operator is viewing a display that is not in the same plane as the control.     

The Semantic Web: Apotheosis of Annotation, but What Are Its Semantics?

This article discusses what kind of entity the proposed semantic Web is, principally by reference to the relationship of natural language structure to knowledge representation. The concept of the SW has two distinct origins, and this, bifurcation persists in two differing lines of SW research: one closely allied to notions of documents and natural language processing (NLP) and one not. These differences of emphasis or content carry with them different commitments about what it is to interpret a KR and what the interpretation method has to do with meaning in natural language.     

Reverse engineering in the design of turbine blades – a case study in applying the MAMDP

This paper presents a case study on the reverse engineering of turbine blades used in nuclear power generators. Reverse engineering has been widely recognised as a crucial step in the product design cycle. However, major problems with current reverse engineering technology are the inefficient surface reconstruction process, lack of digitising accuracy control in the data digitisation process, and bottlenecks resulted from huge amounts of digitised surface points in the surface modeling process. Moreover, under this limitation, modern concurrent engineering concepts are difficult to implement to obtain optimal product design. This study applies a developed reverse engineering approach – the modified adaptive model-based digitizing process (MAMDP) to the 3D geometric design of turbine blades. The approach integrates surface digitising and modeling processes of turbine blades into a single surface reconstruction process. Using the approach, accurate product CAD models can be efficiently generated and the product design cycle of turbine blades can be successfully linked.     

Livelihood security in face of drought – Assessing the vulnerability of pastoral households

Livestock grazing in drylands supports pastoral livelihoods but is facing multiple changes including shocks such as severe droughts. Herdsmen specifically cite drought events as a reason for the abandonment of their transhumance practices. The purpose of this study is to assess the relevance of drought as a driving force for losses of livelihood security leading to a specific systemic change – households abandoning transhumant pastoralism.We present and apply a framework for systematic analyses of the social–ecological functioning of pastoral resource use that consists of the following components: (1) A spatially-explicit social–ecological model for analyzing the system dynamics, especially in face of severe drought in connection with other driving forces of variability, (2) an operationalized measure for assessing livelihood security, and (3) a strategy for systematic vulnerability assessments of pastoral households by scenario comparison. This approach is applied to the land use system of the transhumant pastoralists in the High Atlas Mountains of Morocco.The results indicate that drought is the main threat to livelihood security in only a few cases, eventually forcing households to abandon their transhumant lifestyle. Instead, other (endogenous and exogenous) sources of variability were found to be the main driving force for vulnerability, depending on the household characteristics such as income needs and the level of pastoral mobility. We discuss implications on the role of severe drought in connection with other processes of global change such as social change and land use change for livelihood security in pastoral systems.Moreover, on the basis of these findings, we discuss how the relevance of shocks as a driving force of systemic changes in coupled human-nature-systems may be adequately explored. These conclusions concern the interplay of exogenous and endogenous factors, and unintended side-effects of intended changes.