Towards Flexible, Rigorous Refinement in Metamodeling

EHRO-N provides the European Commission (EC) with essential data related to supply and demand for nuclear experts in the EU28 and the enlargement and integration countries based on bottom-up information from the nuclear industry. The objective is to assess how the supply of experts for the nuclear industry in the EU28 and the enlargement and integration countries responds to the needs for the same experts for the present and future nuclear projects in the region. Complementary to the bottom-up approach taken by the EHRO-N team at JRC-IET, a top-down modelling approach has been taken by Roelofs and Von Estorff (2013). In the current work, a similar top-down approach was taken with respect to a selected nuclear energy demand scenario to determine the influence of long term operation (LTO) on the HR requirements in the EU28 and enlargement and integration countries. Top down workforce demand from energy scenarios: Influence of Long Term Operation Ferry Roelofs Nuclear Research and Consultancy Group Ulrik von Estorff European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Institute for Energy and Transport

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to introduce an infrastructural approach to metadata modelling and a generalised meta-model for recordkeeping metadata. This meta-model is an attempt to support interoperability between disparate systems, and particularly, between sets of ostensibly incommensurate record documentation.Design/methodology/approachThe investigation used a reflective design-science investigation comprising interviews adaptive literature review, creation of conceptual models and the design and instantiation of a proof-of-concept system.FindingsThe investigation confirms that recordkeeping interoperability between disparate ontologies is achievable through a meta-model approach. In particular, the meta-model carefully defines relationships between entities with specific semantics that enable the development of interoperable domain schemas.Practical implicationsA meta-model for recordkeeping metadata facilitates the development of recordkeeping systems that possess interoperability-by-design.Social implicationsRecordkeeping systems that conform to the meta-model can, therefore, transcend the immediate transactional context and support participatory recordkeeping in terms of a plurality of stakeholder world views and agency in records.Originality/valueThis paper is one of the few reporting design-science approaches to recordkeeping informatics and one that has used a meta-model approach for recordkeeping metadata design. In contrast to most empirically determined metadata schemas, the top-down design approach has produced a schema from a wide variety of ontological sources.

A comparison of top-down and bottom-up approaches to benthic habitat mapping to inform offshore wind energy development

Integration of FMS performance evaluation models using patterns for an information system design

Structures assisting radical movements revealed

In industrial robotics - accurate - positioning of manipulators or end effectors is by far the most common application. The system is designed to meet the high mechanical stiffness and high feedback gains required, which improves the accuracy, the stability and the bandwidth of the position control. A typical DC-drive with gearbox and conventional feedback control often suits this purpose. New robotic technologies emerge, however, in which accurate positioning or trajectory tracking is not the primary design goal or unable to compensate for the many drawbacks- from this different point of view - that comes along with conventional electrical actuators, like high reflective inertia, high stiffness, low force-to-weight ratio. These new robotic applications can strongly benefit from compliant actuator technology. Instead of introducing compliance on the control level through application-specific software, this approach is based on inherent adaptable compliance on a purely mechanical level. In this way intrinsic compliance is assured at all time, enhancing system safety. The equivalent torsion spring stiffness of an actuated joint and the equilibrium position of its end effectors, i.e. the joint's configuration in which the actuator torque is zero, leaves us with two adaptable mechanical parameters to be set for each joint, which evidently increases the complexity of control. This is easily countered with the range of potential benefits, adding value to existing applications and also creating new applications in robotics. An overview of compliant actuator technologies developed by different research groups is given. Different robotic applications are outlined in which these compliant actuators are incorporated.

Our research group, interested in outdoor scenes, has developed a methodology to register a CAD model of a city, with images taken with video cameras installed in a car, while driving city streets. So, we can merge video captured data and the render of elements of the model into one image, forcing real and virtual camera points of view, orientations and parameters to coincide. Consequently, we generate real-video sequences and can insert, in real time, virtual objects congruently placed in relation to real objects of the scene. With the aim of increasing realistic likeness of inserted objects, we propose an alternate method that uses view synthesis techniques instead of render techniques. From a finite set of pictures of a real object, taken from different points of view, we are able to generate any point of view object projection, to be inserted in the physical coherent location.Key wordsOutdoor registrationtraffic scenesview synthesismixed reality.

We analyze four different points of view in the teaching of computer science at school, taking into account the aims of institutions, i.e, computer sciences as a formative, operational, informative and pedagogical tool.We present a particular experience that links the four points of view proposed in a curriculum for primary and high school. This is the result of a two year work developed under a project between our research group, InE, and a private institution of our city. We believe our approach is quite original because these four points of view were traditionally considered as opposites.

IntroductionIndividuals with severe mental illnesses (SMI) often present the knowledge about a task but in real-time do not perform it fully, or not as efficient as planned. This performance gap may be explained by difficulties with Executive Functions (EF).ObjectivesThe aim of the presentation is to describe how people with and without SMI experience and perform grocery task. This, with considering this path from several directions including the subjects’ point of view using eye-tracking device during task performance.MethodsForty-three individuals had answered questions in regards to their shopping habits and performed the Test of Grocery Shopping Skills (TOGSS). The actual performance was accompanied by wearing an eye-tracking device which recorded the behavior and eye movement. We hypothesized that significant differences will be found between people with SMI and controls both in the routine grocery habits and in observed performance.ResultsNo significant differences in age or gender. The groups differed significantly only in education, with the SMI group having fewer years of education. As a weekly routine, SMI subjects perform less frequent shopping (40%) than control group subjects (67%). TOGSS sub-outcomes indicated performance efficiency (time and redundancy) were significantly higher in the research group than in the matched control group (p <.01), with the SMI group spending a longer time performing the task and entering more aisles than required – redundancy.ConclusionsThese preliminary findings indicate that individuals with SMI spend more time dwelling while selecting ingredients. Besides the path in the supermarket, it might explain their performance in other everyday activities.DisclosureNo significant relationships.

This study is concerned with semantic modelling of virtual environments (VEs). A semantic model of a VE provides an abstract and high level representation of main aspects of the environment: ontological structures, behaviours and interactions of entities, etc. Furthermore, such a semantic model can be explored by artificial agents to exhibit human-like behaviours or to assist users in the VE. Previous research focused on formalising a knowledge layer that is a conceptual representation of scene content or application's entities. However, there still lacks of a semantic representation of spatial knowledge. This paper proposes to integrate a semantic model of directional knowledge into VEs. Such a directional model allows to specify relationships such as left, right, above or north, south that are critical in many applications of VEs (e.g., VEs for training, navigation aid systems). We focus particularly on modelling, computing, and visualising directional relationships. First, we propose a theoretical model of direction in VEs that enables the specification of direction both from a first- and third-person perspective. Second, we propose a generic architecture for modelling direction in VEs using a meta-modelling approach. Directional relationships are described in a qualitative manner and at a conceptual level, and thus are abstract from metrical details of VEs. Finally, we show how our semantic model of direction can be used in a cultural heritage application to specify behaviours of artificial agents and to visualise directional constraints.

Recovery From Schizophrenia: A Concept in Search of Research

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Covers credit risk and credit derivatives. This book offers several points of view on credit risk when looked at from the perspective of Econometrics and Financial Mathematics. It addresses the challenge of modeling defaults and their correlations, and results on copula, reduced form and structural models, and the top-down approach.

This paper deals with the principle of tolerance in our contemporary society in the attempt to highlight limits and paradoxes in the various aspects of minority issues. From this point of view, the first part of the paper discusses Kymlicka’s contribution to multiculturalism with regard to national minorities and immigrant communities, while the second part confronts his Theory of Minority Rights with Antonio Gramsci’s theory of hegemony and circle of humanity. Therefore, this paper aims at shifting the discourse over tolerance-related minority issues from a top-down approach toward an analysis of how tolerance is allowed to be performed. Thus, Gramsci’s philosophy of praxis is employed to disentangle moral and cultural set of values and norms within which both principle of tolerance and performativity of toleration are established and, in parallel, to reflect on reasons why others are not allowed to be performed.

A review of applications of model–data fusion to studies of terrestrial carbon fluxes at different scales