In the era of "big data," science is increasingly information driven, and the potential for computers to store, manage, and integrate massive amounts of data has given rise to such new disciplinary ...fields as biomedical informatics. Applied ontology offers a strategy for the organization of scientific information in computer-tractable form, drawing on concepts not only from computer and information science but also from linguistics, logic, and philosophy. This book provides an introduction to the field of applied ontology that is of particular relevance to biomedicine, covering theoretical components of ontologies, best practices for ontology design, and examples of biomedical ontologies in use.After defining an ontology as a representation of the types of entities in a given domain, the book distinguishes between different kinds of ontologies and taxonomies, and shows how applied ontology draws on more traditional ideas from metaphysics. It presents the core features of the Basic Formal Ontology (BFO), now used by over one hundred ontology projects around the world, and offers examples of domain ontologies that utilize BFO. The book also describes Web Ontology Language (OWL), a common framework for Semantic Web technologies. Throughout, the book provides concrete recommendations for the design and construction of domain ontologies.
Barry D. Smith studies the salvation-historical meaning of Jesus' death (commonly known as the atonement) in the New Testament. Smith works his way through the four theories of the doctrine of the ...atonement that have emerged in the history of Christian theology: moral influence, governmental, satisfaction and Christus victor theories. Smith works from the premise that, for a theory of the atonement to be successful, no biblical data may be omitted or distorted, and the generalized concepts used to comprehend the biblical data must be easily seen as implicit in the data. From this vantage point, Smith advances a formulation of the atonement that is best supported by the biblical text itself. The conclusion Smith reaches is that the biblical data supports both the penal-substitutionary version of the satisfaction theory and the Christus victor theory of the atonement, each of which should be viewed as two parts of a more inclusive theory of atonement present in the New Testament.
Background Qualitative olfactory (smell) dysfunctions are a common side effect of post-viral illness and known to impact quality of life and health status. Evidence is emerging that taste and smell ...loss are common symptoms of Covid-19 that may emerge and persist long after initial infection. The aim of the present study was to document the impact of post Covid-19 alterations to taste and smell. Methods We conducted exploratory thematic analysis of user-generated text from 9000 users of the AbScent Covid-19 Smell and Taste Loss moderated Facebook support group from March 24 to 30th September 2020. Results Participants reported difficulty explaining and managing an altered sense of taste and smell; a lack of interpersonal and professional explanation or support; altered eating; appetite loss, weight change; loss of pleasure in food, eating and social engagement; altered intimacy and an altered relationship to self and others. Conclusions Our findings suggest altered taste and smell with Covid-19 may lead to severe disruption to daily living that impacts on psychological well-being, physical health, relationships and sense of self. More specifically, participants reported impacts that related to reduced desire and ability to eat and prepare food; weight gain, weight loss and nutritional insufficiency; emotional wellbeing; professional practice; intimacy and social bonding; and the disruption of people’s sense of reality and themselves. Our findings should inform further research and suggest areas for the training, assessment and treatment practices of health care professionals working with long Covid.
This paper describes, in detail, the development of a novel, low-cost, and flexible drift tube (DT) along with an associated ion mobility spectrometer system. The DT is constructed from a flexible ...printed circuit board (PCB), with a bespoke “dog-leg” track design, that can be rolled up for ease of assembly. This approach incorporates a shielding layer, as part of the flexible PCB design, and represents the minimum dimensional footprint conceivable for a DT. The low thermal mass of the polyimide substrate and overlapping electrodes, as afforded by the dog-leg design, allow for efficient heat management and high field linearity within the tube–achieved from a single PCB. This is further enhanced by a novel double-glazing configuration which provides a simple and effective means for gas management, minimizing thermal variation within the assembly. Herein, we provide a full experimental characterization of the flexible DT ion mobility spectrometer (Flex-DT-IMS) with corresponding electrodynamic (Simion 8.1) and fluid dynamic (SolidWorks) simulations. The Flex-DT-IMS is shown to have a resolution >80 and a detection limit of low nanograms for the analysis of common explosives (RDX, PETN, HMX, and TNT).
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Poorly formulated probiotic supplements intended for oral administration often fail to protect bacteria from the challenges of human digestion, meaning bacteria do not reach the small ...intestine in a viable state. As a result, the ability of probiotics to influence the human gut microbiota has not been proven. Here we show how (i) considered formulation of an aqueous probiotic suspension can facilitate delivery of viable probiotic bacteria to the gut and (ii) quantitate the effect of colonisation and proliferation of specific probiotic species on the human gut microbiota, using an in-vitro gut model. Our data revealed immediate colonisation and growth of three probiotic species in the luminal and mucosal compartments of the proximal and distal colon, and growth of a fourth species in the luminal proximal colon, leading to higher proximal and distal colonic lactate concentrations. The lactate stimulated growth of lactate-consuming bacteria, altering the bacterial diversity of the microbiota and resulting in increased short-chain fatty acid production, especially butyrate. Additionally, an immunomodulatory effect of the probiotics was seen; production of anti-inflammatory cytokines (IL-6 and IL-10) was increased and production of inflammatory chemokines (MCP-1, CXCL 10 and IL-8.) was reduced. The results indicate that the probiotic species alone do not result in a clinical effect; rather, they facilitate modulation of the gut microbiota composition and metabolic activity thereby influencing the immune response.
Since 2002 we have been testing and refining a methodology for ontology development that is now being used by multiple groups of researchers in different life science domains. Gary Merrill, in a ...recent paper in this journal, describes some of the reasons why this methodology has been found attractive by researchers in the biological and biomedical sciences. At the same time he assails the methodology on philosophical grounds, focusing specifically on our recommendation that ontologies developed for scientific purposes should be constructed in such a way that their terms are seen as referring to what we call
universals
or
types
in reality. As we show, Merrill’s critique is of little relevance to the success of our realist project, since it not only reveals no actual errors in our work but also criticizes views on universals that we do not in fact hold. However, it nonetheless provides us with a valuable opportunity to clarify the realist methodology, and to show how some of its principles are being applied, especially within the framework of the OBO (Open Biomedical Ontologies) Foundry initiative.
Immunology researchers are beginning to explore the possibilities of reproducibility, reuse and secondary analyses of immunology data. Open-access datasets are being applied in the validation of the ...methods used in the original studies, leveraging studies for meta-analysis, or generating new hypotheses. To promote these goals, the ImmPort data repository was created for the broader research community to explore the wide spectrum of clinical and basic research data and associated findings. The ImmPort ecosystem consists of four components-Private Data, Shared Data, Data Analysis, and Resources-for data archiving, dissemination, analyses, and reuse. To date, more than 300 studies have been made freely available through the Shared Data portal (www.immport.org/immport-open), which allows research data to be repurposed to accelerate the translation of new insights into discoveries.
It is only by fixing on agreed meanings of terms in biomedical terminologies that we will be in a position to achieve that accumulation and integration of knowledge that is indispensable to progress ...at the frontiers of biomedicine. Standardly, the goal of fixing meanings is seen as being realized through the alignment of terms on what are called ‘concepts.’ Part I addresses three versions of the concept-based approach—by Cimino, by Wüster, and by Campbell and associates—and surveys some of the problems to which they give rise, all of which have to do with a failure to anchor the terms in terminologies to corresponding referents in reality. Part II outlines a new, realist solution to this anchorage problem, which sees terminology construction as being motivated by the goal of alignment not on concepts but on the universals (kinds, types) in reality and thereby also on the corresponding instances (individuals, tokens). We outline the realist approach and show how on its basis we can provide a benchmark of correctness for terminologies which will at the same time allow a new type of integration of terminologies and electronic health records. We conclude by outlining ways in which the framework thus defined might be exploited for purposes of diagnostic decision-support.
We begin by describing recent developments in the burgeoning discipline of applied ontology, focusing especially on the ways ontologies are providing a means for the consistent representation of ...scientific data. We then introduce Basic Formal Ontology (BFO), a top‐level ontology that is serving as domain‐neutral framework for the development of lower level ontologies in many specialist disciplines, above all in biology and medicine. BFO is a bicategorial ontology, embracing both three‐dimensionalist (continuant) and four‐dimensionalist (occurrent) perspectives within a single framework. We examine how BFO‐conformant domain ontologies can deal with the consistent representation of scientific data deriving from the measurement of processes of different types, and we outline on this basis the first steps of an approach to the classification of such processes within the BFO framework.1
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