Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2000. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 43-50). Also available on the Internet.

Recently, there has been much effort in making biomedical knowledge, typically stored in scientific articles, more accessible and interoperable. As a matter of fact, the unstructured nature of such texts makes it difficult to apply  knowledge discovery and inference techniques. Annotating information units with semantic information in these texts is the first step to make the knowledge machine-analyzable.  In this work, we first study methods for automatic information extraction from natural language text. Then we discuss the main benefits and disadvantages of the state-of-art information extraction systems and, as a result of this, we adopt a machine learning approach to automatically learn extraction patterns in our experiments. Unfortunately, machine learning techniques often require a huge amount of training data, which can be sometimes laborious to gather. In order to face up to this tedious problem, we investigate the concept of weakly supervised or bootstrapping techniques. Finally, we show in our experiments that our machine learning methods performed reasonably well and significantly better than the baseline. Moreover, in the weakly supervised learning task we were able to substantially bring down the amount of labeled data needed for training of the extraction system.

Radiology departments utilize various visualization techniques of patients&rsquo / bodies, and narrative free text reports describing the findings in these visualizations are written by medical doctors. The information within these narrative reports is required to be extracted for medical information systems. Turkish is an highly agglutinative language and this poses problems in information retrieval and extraction from Turkish free texts. In this thesis one rule-based and one data-driven alternate methods for information retrieval and structured information extraction from Turkish radiology reports are presented. Contrary to previous studies in medical NLP systems, both of these methods do not utilize any medical lexicon or ontology. Information extraction is performed on the level of extracting medically related phrases from the sentence. The aim is to measure baseline performance Turkish language can provide for medical information extraction and retrieval, in isolation of other factors.

ITC/USA 2005 Conference Proceedings / The Forty-First Annual International Telemetering Conference and Technical Exhibition / October 24-27, 2005 / Riviera Hotel & Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada / Recent federal legislation (e.g. Sarbanes Oxley, Graham Leach Bliley) has introduced requirements for compliance including records retention and records integrity. Many industry sectors (e.g. Energy, under the North American Energy Reliability Council) are also introducing their own voluntary compliance mandates to avert possible additional federal regulation. A trusted computer appliance device dedicated to data auditing may soon be required in all corporate IT infrastructures to accommodate various compliance directives. Such an auditing device also may have application in telemetry post processing environments, as it maybe used to guarantee the integrity of post-processed telemetry data.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 18-21, 2004 / Town & Country Resort, San Diego, California / The use of hardware security for telemetry in satellites utilized for intelligence and defense applications is well known. Less common is the use of hardware security in ground-based computers hosting applications that post process telemetry data. Analysis reveals vulnerabilities in software only security solutions that can result in the compromise of telemetry data housed on ground-based computer systems. Such systems maybe made less susceptible to compromise with the use of hardware based security.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1969. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

CASTRO, Juscileide Braga de. A utilização de objetos de aprendizagem para a compreensão e construção de gráficos estatísticos. 2012. 218f. – Dissertação (Mestrado) – Universidade Federal do Ceará, Programa de Pós-graduação em Educação Brasileira, Fortaleza (CE), 2012. / Submitted by Márcia Araújo (marcia_m_bezerra@yahoo.com.br) on 2014-02-20T17:35:00Z No. of bitstreams: 1 2012-DIS-JBCASTRO.pdf: 6984183 bytes, checksum: 56c2778b32cf95bf9d164b226b785d7d (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Márcia Araújo(marcia_m_bezerra@yahoo.com.br) on 2014-02-20T19:14:43Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 2012-DIS-JBCASTRO.pdf: 6984183 bytes, checksum: 56c2778b32cf95bf9d164b226b785d7d (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2014-02-20T19:14:43Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 2012-DIS-JBCASTRO.pdf: 6984183 bytes, checksum: 56c2778b32cf95bf9d164b226b785d7d (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012 / The information processing is important for the citizen formation, since we are surrounded by data and facts that need to be understood. However, recent evaluations such as SAEB and INAF indicated the difficulties that children and adults from several Brazilian regions have been in the understanding of the processes related to data representation in graphs and tables, as well as understand involved mathematical concepts. Research have showed that the study of graphs by using of technological devices such as computer and another digital technologies, favoring the development of statistical concepts learning since these strategies help the visualization and exploration of many activities, providing new ways of thinking and act. Thus, the current study investigated as a didactic sequence, using learning objects (LO), could help in the understanding of concepts related to information processing as the construction and interpretation of bar and sectors graphs. The work was conducted in a Brazilian public school located in Fortaleza city using two classes of 5th grade of elementary school, with 26 students each ones. The school classes were divided in control group (CG) and experimental group (EG) and all students were previously evaluated through a pre-test. Posteriorly an intervention using a didactic sequence including mathematical aspects of graphs and tables, problem situations with classification and proportionality and research activities was performed only with EG. The GC was not exposed to any formal education beyond the classroom received. Thereafter a post test was applied to both groups (CG and EG). The data were analyzed by student performance before and after the performed activities taking into account the evolution of strategies and information processing. Was observed a improviment in the strategies used by children for GE group after intervention. These activities give the integration of different technologies employed in school curriculum (laptop and digital and analogic technologies). Thus, the use of digital technologies provided didatic experiences in processing information by students as a to visualize and simulate different situations; process information; work with real situations, with investigative contexts and explore the produced data. Therefore, the results of current study contribute to better understand the graphs learning as well as for further development of new resources and activities. / O tratamento da informação é importante para a formação do cidadão, pois estamos cercados de dados e fatos que precisam ser compreendidos. Contudo, avaliações recentes do Sistema de Avaliação da Educação Básica (SAEB) e do Instituto Nacional de Alfabetismo Funcional (INAF) indicam as dificuldades de estudantes e até de adultos das diversas regiões do país, apresentam no entendimento da representação de dados em gráficos e em tabelas e em compreender os conceitos matemáticos envolvidos. Pesquisas revelam que o estudo de gráficos através de recursos tecnológicos como computador e tecnologias digitais, favorece o desenvolvimento da aprendizagem de conceitos estatísticos, pois, na maioria das vezes, auxiliam a visualização e a exploração de um conjunto de atividades, propiciando novas formas de pensar e agir. Dessa forma, realizou-se uma intervenção com um conjunto de atividades baseada no uso de objetos de aprendizagem (OA), a fim de verificar como o uso de tecnologias digitais contribui na aprendizagem de conceitos envolvidos no tratamento da informação como construção e interpretação de gráficos de barras e de setores. A pesquisa foi realizada em uma escola pública municipal de Fortaleza participante do Projeto Um Computador por Aluno - UCA, com duas turmas do 5º ano do Ensino Fundamental, com 26 alunos em cada uma. As turmas foram divididas em: Grupo Controle (GC) e Grupo Experimental (GE). A investigação foi dividida em três etapas: pré-teste, intervenção e pós-teste. Todos os alunos participaram do pré-teste e do pós-teste, aplicados individualmente e sem uso do computador. Todavia, ao GC não foi ministrado nenhuma instrução formal além da recebida em sala de aula. O GE foi submetido à intervenção que contemplou: aspectos matemáticos de gráficos e tabela, situações-problema com classificação e proporcionalidade e atividades de investigação. Os dados foram analisados de modo a conhecer e compreender o desempenho dos alunos antes e após as atividades, a evolução de estratégias e o tratamento da informação. Os estudantes que foram submetidos à intervenção apresentaram, estatisticamente, um desempenho superior quando comparado aos estudantes do GC. Constatou-se a evolução das estratégias das crianças do GE, a partir de atividades desenvolvidas durante pesquisa. Essas atividades proporcionaram a integração das diferentes tecnologias existentes na escola ao currículo escolar (laptop, tecnologias digitais e analógicas). Assim, o uso de tecnologias digitais permitiu a vivência de experiências didáticas de tratamento da informação das quais possibilitou: visualizar e simular diferentes situações (representação de gráficos diferentes, de coleta e análise de dados); tratar a informação; trabalhar com situações reais e com contextos investigativos e explorar os dados produzidos. Logo, os resultados deste estudo contribuem para melhor compreender a aprendizagem de gráficos, assim como para o desenvolvimento de novos recursos e atividades.

CoordenaÃÃo de AperfeiÃoamento de Pessoal de NÃvel Superior / O tratamento da informaÃÃo à importante para a formaÃÃo do cidadÃo, pois estamos cercados de dados e fatos que precisam ser compreendidos. Contudo, avaliaÃÃes recentes do Sistema de AvaliaÃÃo da EducaÃÃo BÃsica (SAEB) e do Instituto Nacional de Alfabetismo Funcional (INAF) indicam as dificuldades de estudantes e atà de adultos das diversas regiÃes do paÃs, apresentam no entendimento da representaÃÃo de dados em grÃficos e em tabelas e em compreender os conceitos matemÃticos envolvidos. Pesquisas revelam que o estudo de grÃficos atravÃs de recursos tecnolÃgicos como computador e tecnologias digitais, favorece o desenvolvimento da aprendizagem de conceitos estatÃsticos, pois, na maioria das vezes, auxiliam a visualizaÃÃo e a exploraÃÃo de um conjunto de atividades, propiciando novas formas de pensar e agir. Dessa forma, realizou-se uma intervenÃÃo com um conjunto de atividades baseada no uso de objetos de aprendizagem (OA), a fim de verificar como o uso de tecnologias digitais contribui na aprendizagem de conceitos envolvidos no tratamento da informaÃÃo como construÃÃo e interpretaÃÃo de grÃficos de barras e de setores. A pesquisa foi realizada em uma escola pÃblica municipal de Fortaleza participante do Projeto Um Computador por Aluno - UCA, com duas turmas do 5 ano do Ensino Fundamental, com 26 alunos em cada uma. As turmas foram divididas em: Grupo Controle (GC) e Grupo Experimental (GE). A investigaÃÃo foi dividida em trÃs etapas: prÃ-teste, intervenÃÃo e pÃs-teste. Todos os alunos participaram do prÃ-teste e do pÃs-teste, aplicados individualmente e sem uso do computador. Todavia, ao GC nÃo foi ministrado nenhuma instruÃÃo formal alÃm da recebida em sala de aula. O GE foi submetido à intervenÃÃo que contemplou: aspectos matemÃticos de grÃficos e tabela, situaÃÃes-problema com classificaÃÃo e proporcionalidade e atividades de investigaÃÃo. Os dados foram analisados de modo a conhecer e compreender o desempenho dos alunos antes e apÃs as atividades, a evoluÃÃo de estratÃgias e o tratamento da informaÃÃo. Os estudantes que foram submetidos à intervenÃÃo apresentaram, estatisticamente, um desempenho superior quando comparado aos estudantes do GC. Constatou-se a evoluÃÃo das estratÃgias das crianÃas do GE, a partir de atividades desenvolvidas durante pesquisa. Essas atividades proporcionaram a integraÃÃo das diferentes tecnologias existentes na escola ao currÃculo escolar (laptop, tecnologias digitais e analÃgicas). Assim, o uso de tecnologias digitais permitiu a vivÃncia de experiÃncias didÃticas de tratamento da informaÃÃo das quais possibilitou: visualizar e simular diferentes situaÃÃes (representaÃÃo de grÃficos diferentes, de coleta e anÃlise de dados); tratar a informaÃÃo; trabalhar com situaÃÃes reais e com contextos investigativos e explorar os dados produzidos. Logo, os resultados deste estudo contribuem para melhor compreender a aprendizagem de grÃficos, assim como para o desenvolvimento de novos recursos e atividades. / The information processing is important for the citizen formation, since we are surrounded by data and facts that need to be understood. However, recent evaluations such as SAEB and INAF indicated the difficulties that children and adults from several Brazilian regions have been in the understanding of the processes related to data representation in graphs and tables, as well as understand involved mathematical concepts. Research have showed that the study of graphs by using of technological devices such as computer and another digital technologies, favoring the development of statistical concepts learning since these strategies help the visualization and exploration of many activities, providing new ways of thinking and act. Thus, the current study investigated as a didactic sequence, using learning objects (LO), could help in the understanding of concepts related to information processing as the construction and interpretation of bar and sectors graphs. The work was conducted in a Brazilian public school located in Fortaleza city using two classes of 5th grade of elementary school, with 26 students each ones. The school classes were divided in control group (CG) and experimental group (EG) and all students were previously evaluated through a pre-test. Posteriorly an intervention using a didactic sequence including mathematical aspects of graphs and tables, problem situations with classification and proportionality and research activities was performed only with EG. The GC was not exposed to any formal education beyond the classroom received. Thereafter a post test was applied to both groups (CG and EG). The data were analyzed by student performance before and after the performed activities taking into account the evolution of strategies and information processing. Was observed a improviment in the strategies used by children for GE group after intervention. These activities give the integration of different technologies employed in school curriculum (laptop and digital and analogic technologies). Thus, the use of digital technologies provided didatic experiences in processing information by students as a to visualize and simulate different situations; process information; work with real situations, with investigative contexts and explore the produced data. Therefore, the results of current study contribute to better understand the graphs learning as well as for further development of new resources and activities.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-08-17T16:54:32Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Tese Carla.pdf: 23507425 bytes, checksum: b08fca6c8eacdc0fd5d075a385f235e5 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-06-05 / Knowledge systems are a suitable computational approach to solve complex problems and to provide decision support. Ontologies are an approach for knowledge representation about an application domain, allowing the semantic processing of information and, through more precise interpretation of information, turning systems more effective and usable. Ontology Population looks for instantiating the constituent elements of an ontology, like properties and non-taxonomic relationships. Manual population by domain experts and knowledge engineers is an expensive and time consuming task. Fast ontology population is critical for the success of knowledge-based applications. Thus, automatic or semi-automatic approaches are needed. This work proposes a generic process for Automatic Ontology Population by specifying its phases and the techniques used to perform the activities on each phase. It also proposes a domain-independent process for automatic population of ontologies (DIAOPPro) from text that applies natural language processing and information extraction techniques to acquire and classify ontology instances. This is a new approach for automatic ontology population that uses an ontology to automatically generate rules to extract instances from text and classify them in ontology classes. These rules can be generated from ontologies of any domain, making the proposed process domain independent. To evaluate DIAOP-Pro four case studies were conducted to demonstrate its effectiveness and feasibility. In the first one we evaluated the effectiveness of phase "Identification of Candidate instances" comparing the results obtained by applying statistical techniques with those of purely linguistic techniques. In the second experiment we evaluated the feasibility of the phase "Construction of a Classifier", through the automatic generation of a classifier. The last two experiments evaluated the effectiveness of DIAOP-Pro into two distinct domains: the legal and the tourism domains. The results indicate that our approach can extract and classify instances with high effectiveness with the additional advantage of domain independence. / A demanda por sistemas baseado em conhecimento é crescente considerando suas aptidões para a solução de problemas complexos e para a tomada de decisão. As ontologias são formalismos para a representação de conhecimento de um dado domínio, que permitem o processamento semântico das informações e, através de interpretações mais precisas das informações, os sistemas apresentam maior efetividade e usabilidade. O povoamento de ontologias visa a instanciação de propriedades e relacionamentos não taxonômicos de classes de ontologias. Entretanto, o povoamento manual de ontologias por especialistas de domínio e engenheiros do conhecimemto é uma tarefa cara e que consome muito tempo. O povoamento de ontologias rápido e com baixo custo é crucial para o sucesso de aplicações baseadas em conhecimento. Portanto, torna-se fundamental uma semi-automatização ou automatização desse processo. Esta tese propõe um processo genérico para o problema do Povoamento Automático de Ontologias, especificando suas fases e técnicas que podem ser aplicadas em cada uma delas. É também proposto um Processo Independente de Domínio para o Povoamento Automático de Ontologias (DIAOP-Pro) a partir de fontes textuais, que aplica técnicas de processamento da linguagem natural e extração de informação para adquirir e classificar instâncias de ontologias. O DIAOP-Pro se constitui em uma abordagem original uma vez que propõe o povoamento automático de ontologias utilizando uma ontologia para a geração automática de regras para extrair instâncias a partir de textos e classifica-as como instâncias de classes da ontologia. Estas regras podem ser geradas a partir de ontologias específicas de qualquer domínio, tornando o processo independente de domínio. Para avaliar o processo DIAOP-Pro foram conduzidos quatro estudos de caso de modo a demonstrar a sua efetividade e viabilidade. O primeiro estudo de caso foi realizado para avaliar a efetividade da fase Identificação de Instâncias Candidatas , no qual foram comparados os resultados obtidos com a aplicação de técnicas estatísticas e de técnicas puramente lingüísticas. O segundo estudo de caso foi realizado para avaliar a viabiliadade da fase Construção de um Classificador , através da experimentação com a geração automática do classificador. O terceiro e o quarto estudo de caso foram realizados para avaliar a efetividade do processo proposto em dois domínios distintos, o jurídico e o turístico. Os resultados indicam que o processo DIAOP-Pro povoa ontologias específicas de qualquer domínio com boa efetividade e com a vantagem adicional da independência do domínio.

The main archive of life sciences literature currently contains more than 18,000,000 references, and it is virtually impossible for any human to stay up-to-date with this large number of papers, even in a specific sub-domain. Not every fact that is reported in the literature is novel and distinct. Scientists report repeat experiments, or refer to previous findings. Given the large number of publications, it is not surprising that information on certain topics is repeated over a number of publications. From consensus to contradiction, there are all shades of agreement between the claimed facts in the literature, and considering the volume of the corpus, conflicting findings are not unlikely. Finding such claims is particularly interesting for scientists, as they can present opportunities for knowledge consolidation and future investigations. In this thesis we present a method to extract and contextualise statements about molecular events as expressed in the biomedical literature, and to find those that potentially conflict each other. The approach uses a system that detects event negations and speculation, and combines those with contextual features (e.g. type of event, species, and anatomical location) to build a representational model for establishing relations between different biological events, including relations concerning conflicts. In the detection of negations and speculations, rich lexical, syntactic, and semantic features have been exploited, including the syntactic command relation. Different parts of the proposed method have been evaluated in a context of the BioNLP 09 challenge. The average F-measures for event negation and speculation detection were 63% (with precision of 88%) and 48% (with precision of 64%) respectively. An analysis of a set of 50 extracted event pairs identified as potentially conflicting revealed that 32 of them showed some degree of conflict (64%); 10 event pairs (20%) needed a more complex biological interpretation to decide whether there was a conflict. We also provide an open source integrated text mining framework for extracting events and their context on a large-scale basis using a pipeline of tools that are available or have been developed as part of this research, along with 72,314 potentially conflicting molecular event pairs that have been generated by mining the entire body of accessible biomedical literature. We conclude that, whilst automated conflict mining would need more comprehensive context extraction, it is feasible to provide a support environment for biologists to browse potential conflicting statements and facilitate data and knowledge consolidation.