Dynamic Knowledge-Based Process Integration Portal for Collaborative Construction

There is a need to support collaborative coordinated construction through the integration of work processes across various stakeholders, disciplines, and projects. Due to the fast-growing complexities of domain-wide coordination and collaboration, coupled with the emerging opportunities of knowledge sharing, a knowledge-based approach is believed to be the way to go. Knowledge-based process integration takes into account explicit and formal semantics (meaning) of processes. It aims at supporting seamless integration of knowledge-carrying processes. This paper presents a prototype collaborative portal for domain-wide process integration. The portal is ontology-based: semantic process representation is enabled through ontologies, and knowledge-based process integration is facilitated through an ontology merger. The portal aims at offering an efficient value-adding collaboration platform through multidimensional process integration for producing a common workflow that goes beyond listing of processes to a knowledge-enabled view. The prototype was evaluated through a focus group.     

Recognition of posed and spontaneous dynamic smiles in young and older adults.

In 2 studies, we investigated age effects in the ability to recognize dynamic posed and spontaneous smiles. Study 1 showed that both young and older adult participants were above chance in their ability to distinguish between posed and spontaneous smiles in young adults. In Study 2, we found that young adult participant performance declined when judging a combination of both young and older adult target smiles, while older adult participants outperformed young adult participants in distinguishing between posed and spontaneous smiles. A synthesis of results across the 2 studies showed a small-to-medium age effect (d = ?0.40), suggesting that older adults have an advantage in discriminating between smile types. Mixed stimuli (i.e., a mixture of young and older adult faces) may impact accurate smile discrimination. In future research, both the sources (cues) and behavioral effects of age-related differences in the discrimination of positive expressions should be investigated. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Invited review: Reproducible research from noisy data: Revisiting key statistical principles for the animal sciences

Reproducible results define the very core of scientific integrity in modern research. Yet, legitimate concerns have been raised about the reproducibility of research findings, with important implications for the advancement of science and for public support. With statistical practice increasingly becoming an essential component of research efforts across the sciences, this review article highlights the compelling role of statistics in ensuring that research findings in the animal sciences are reproducible—in other words, able to withstand close interrogation and independent validation. Statistics set a formal framework and a practical toolbox that, when properly implemented, can recover signal from noisy data. Yet, misconceptions and misuse of statistics are recognized as top contributing factors to the reproducibility crisis. In this article, we revisit foundational statistical concepts relevant to reproducible research in the context of the animal sciences, raise awareness on common statistical misuse undermining it, and outline recommendations for statistical practice. Specifically, we emphasize a keen understanding of the data generation process throughout the research endeavor, from thoughtful experimental design and randomization, through rigorous data analysis and inference, to careful wording in communicating research results to peer scientists and society in general. We provide a detailed discussion of core concepts in experimental design, including data architecture, experimental replication, and subsampling, and elaborate on practical implications for proper elicitation of the scope of reach of research findings. For data analysis, we emphasize proper implementation of mixed models, in terms of both distributional assumptions and specification of fixed and random effects to explicitly recognize multilevel data architecture. This is critical to ensure that experimental error for treatments of interest is properly recognized and inference is correctly calibrated. Inferential misinterpretations associated with use of P-values, both significant and not, are clarified, and problems associated with error inflation due to multiple comparisons and selective reporting are illustrated. Overall, we advocate for a responsible practice of statistics in the animal sciences, with an emphasis on continuing quantitative education and interdisciplinary collaboration between animal scientists and statisticians to maximize reproducibility of research findings.     

Glycogen Synthase Kinase 3β Inhibition as a Therapeutic Approach in the Treatment of Endometrial Cancer

Alternative strategies beyond current chemotherapy and radiation therapy regimens are needed in the treatment of advanced stage and recurrent endometrial cancers. There is considerable promise for biologic agents targeting the extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) pathway for treatment of these cancers. Many downstream substrates of the ERK signaling pathway, such as glycogen synthase kinase 3β (GSK3β), and their roles in endometrial carcinogenesis have not yet been investigated. In this study, we tested the importance of GSK3β inhibition in endometrial cancer cell lines and in vivo models. Inhibition of GSK3β by either lithium chloride (LiCl) or specific GSK3β inhibitor VIII showed cytostatic and cytotoxic effects on multiple endometrial cancer cell lines, with little effect on the immortalized normal endometrial cell line. Flow cytometry and immunofluorescence revealed a G2/M cell cycle arrest in both type I (AN3CA, KLE, and RL952) and type II (ARK1) endometrial cancer cell lines. In addition, LiCl pre-treatment sensitized AN3CA cells to the chemotherapy agent paclitaxel. Administration of LiCl to AN3CA tumor-bearing mice resulted in partial or complete regression of some tumors. Thus, GSK3β activity is associated with endometrial cancer tumorigenesis and its pharmacologic inhibition reduces cell proliferation and tumor growth.     

Automated in-service damage identification

Service damage for mechanical components includes surface delamination, impact damage, crack, wear and corrosion. Automated service damage identification for better analysis of a component remaining life in order to reduce the service cost is increasingly necessary for industrial product-service systems, e.g. power-by-hour contracts. This paper presents a novel approach to apply active thermography and image processing techniques for damage identification and measurement. The study presents experimental results to assess the shape, size and depth of sub-surface damage features on test and real life components. Industrial requirements for the non-destructive inspection for a class of aerospace components are also presented.     

Amaranth seed varieties. A chemometric approach

In this work, the amino acid and fatty acid profiles were determined in two advanced lines of amaranth seeds: Amaranthus hypochondriacus × Amaranthus cruentus AH17a and Amaranthus cruentus AcG6/17a; as well as in two new varieties: Amaranthus cruentus var. Candil and Amaranthus hypochondriacus var. Dorado. The following contents were found: protein (18.76–26.00 %), dietary fiber (15.91–17.80 %) and total lipids (10.62–11.44 %), high concentrations of unsaturated fatty acids (77.80–82 % of total lipids), linoleic acid (41.94–55.50 % of total lipids) and lysine (47.3–68.6 mg g^?1 of protein) were also found. Based on these composition data, chemometric tools were used to classify these new varieties and lines by unsupervised methods—principal component analysis and cluster analysis; as well as by supervised methods—sequential discriminant analysis (DA) and partial least squares DA. It was possible to correctly classify all varieties and lines using 11 variables. In conclusion, it was found that new varieties and advanced lines of amaranth show proper nutritional quality, which reveals the potential of this genus as agro-food. Also, a complete chemometric assessment allowed us to distinguish between these new varieties and lines.     

Multiplex real-time PCR for the detection and quantification of DNA from duck, goose, chicken, turkey and pork

Meat products made from liver of poultry like duck and goose are popular and often sold as specialities for high prices. As the prices for the basic raw material are high, fraud may be attractive for producers. To prevent consumers from fraud, official control authorities survey such products. In this work, a quantitative multiplex PCR was developed determining the proportion of DNA and meat fractions of turkey, chicken, duck, goose and pork. The precision and accuracy of the PCR system was investigated. To examine the possibility of determining the meat fractions according to the recipe, reference material was produced and different liver–meat products from the market were analysed. For major components, the measurement uncertainty revealed to be at 39 %. For minor components, it was estimated to be 124 %. The results showed that this pentaplex real-time-PCR system is suitable to control the meat properties of such products although measurement uncertainty may be high.     

Psychology’s role in mathematics and science education.

Improving mathematics and science education in the United States has been a matter of national concern for over half a century. Psychology has a vital role to play in this enterprise. In this article, the authors review the kinds of contributions that psychology can make in four areas: (a) early understanding of mathematics, (b) understanding of science, (c) social and motivational aspects of involvement in mathematics and science, and (d) assessment of learning in mathematics and science. They also examine challenges to psychology’s playing a central and constructive role and make recommendations for overcoming those challenges. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Insertions and deletions in the RNA sequence–structure map

Genotype–phenotype maps link genetic changes to their fitness effect and are thus an essential component of evolutionary models. The map between RNA sequences and their secondary structures is a key example and has applications in functional RNA evolution. For this map, the structural effect of substitutions is well understood, but models usually assume a constant sequence length and do not consider insertions or deletions. Here, we expand the sequence–structure map to include single nucleotide insertions and deletions by using the RNAshapes concept. To quantify the structural effect of insertions and deletions, we generalize existing definitions for robustness and non-neutral mutation probabilities. We find striking similarities between substitutions, deletions and insertions: robustness to substitutions is correlated with robustness to insertions and, for most structures, to deletions. In addition, frequent structural changes after substitutions also tend to be common for insertions and deletions. This is consistent with the connection between energetically suboptimal folds and possible structural transitions. The similarities observed hold both for genotypic and phenotypic robustness and mutation probabilities, i.e. for individual sequences and for averages over sequences with the same structure. Our results could have implications for the rate of neutral and non-neutral evolution.