Organizations turn to technology as a possible solution to improve efficiency and reduce waste in... more Organizations turn to technology as a possible solution to improve efficiency and reduce waste in their operating processes. Most of their ineffi- ciencies and opportunities for improvement are hiding in their process level da- ta. This experience paper describes the information needs in a hospital setting and the journey of delivering a business intelligence program that was designed to address those needs. The core focus in our business intelligence work was to deliver relevant and actionable information to the front line staff to assist them in their work. There are two story lines in this experience paper. One is about the value of information and evidence in solving business problems. The second is about the information systems methods toolbox we utilized in establishing an effective business intelligence program in an operating organization. As budgets in the not-for-profit sector are under continuous pressure, organizations and governments turn to technology as a possible sol...
There are more than two hundred biological data repositories available for public access, and a v... more There are more than two hundred biological data repositories available for public access, and a vast number of applications to process and interpret biological data. A major challenge for bioinformaticians is to extract and process data from multiple data sources using a variety of query interfaces and analytical tools. In this paper, we describe tools that respond to this challenge by providing support for cross-database queries and for integrating analytical tools in a query processing environment. In particular, we describe two alternative methods for integrating biological data processing within traditional database queries: (a) "light-weight" application integration based on Application Specific Data Types (ASDTs) and (b) "heavy-duty" integration of analytical tools based on mediators and wrappers. These methods are supported by the Object-Protocol Model (OPM) suite of tools for managing biological databases.
This paper investigates the problem of reasoning about imprecise spatial information. As a repres... more This paper investigates the problem of reasoning about imprecise spatial information. As a representation scheme we assume haze-points that are points surrounded by an area, the haze, denoting the imprecision that is associated with them. Haze-points are related by haze and precedence relations. Using these notions we can build higher dimension objects and relations Top94a]. This paper focuses on reasoning about spatial imprecision which is formalized as a constraint satisfaction problem over networks of constraints expressed in the language of haze-orders. The main contributions of this paper are (a) a set of preprocessing transformations that decrease the ambiguity which is introduced from unconditional transitivity over the haze relation, and (b) a graph-based data structure which is suitable for ee-cient inferencing of order relations. 1 Introduction It is generally accepted that neither human perception nor measurement instruments are precise in the information they provide. Th...
Proceedings International Conference on Intelligent Systems For Molecular Biology Ismb International Conference on Intelligent Systems For Molecular Biology, Feb 1, 1998
Abstract In this paper we propose a circle of care (COC) ontology that specifies concepts and rel... more Abstract In this paper we propose a circle of care (COC) ontology that specifies concepts and relations necessary to capture a patient's circle of care and allows one to make inferences about who is in a patient's circle of care. The ontology can improve current access control systems in making decisions regarding access events in real time and help identify past cases of illegitimate access through the access log. We validate the ontology by augmenting the Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) data model with our COC ontology and presenting an example of access logs from FHIR that is extended to answer circle of care queries.
In this paper we present a language for expressing \approximate" spatial relations on points... more In this paper we present a language for expressing \approximate" spatial relations on points and regions in space. Space is assumed to be two dimensional, orthogonal and discrete. Initially, we present a rst-order theory of one-dimensional approximate space. We axiomatize the theory of space in terms of points and the haze and precedence relations. We then study the models of this theory and we show that in the one dimensional case the theory has a unique model up to isomorphism. This result allows us to aarm that our theory is complete and decidable. Secondly, we propose a conservative two-dimensional extension of the theory which retains its completeness property. In the two-dimensional case, we deene a complete set of topolog-ical and directional relations that are useful for practical reasoning about space. The derived relations are related to existent formalisms for spatial relations such as Egen-hofer's 3-intersection model, for which they provide an alternative semantical account. The developed formalism is strictly qualitative with a built-in concept for imprecision. An axiomatization of varying the degree of detail is brieey discribed and discussed as a conclusion of the present work.
The control of enzyme activity by reversible phosphorylation and the role of protein kinases in s... more The control of enzyme activity by reversible phosphorylation and the role of protein kinases in signal transduction illustrate well the pivotal role of protein phosphorylation in cell regulation. There are numerous examples of the role of protein kinases and ...
We present a design process for incorporating data quality requirements into database schemas tha... more We present a design process for incorporating data quality requirements into database schemas that is rooted in goal-oriented requirements analysis techniques, developed in the Requirement Engineering community over last 15 years. Goal-oriented approaches (i) offer a body of notations, techniques and processes for modeling, analyzing and operationalizing quality requirements; (ii) support representation and evaluation of alternatives in goal fulfillment; and
Organizations turn to technology as a possible solution to improve efficiency and reduce waste in... more Organizations turn to technology as a possible solution to improve efficiency and reduce waste in their operating processes. Most of their ineffi- ciencies and opportunities for improvement are hiding in their process level da- ta. This experience paper describes the information needs in a hospital setting and the journey of delivering a business intelligence program that was designed to address those needs. The core focus in our business intelligence work was to deliver relevant and actionable information to the front line staff to assist them in their work. There are two story lines in this experience paper. One is about the value of information and evidence in solving business problems. The second is about the information systems methods toolbox we utilized in establishing an effective business intelligence program in an operating organization. As budgets in the not-for-profit sector are under continuous pressure, organizations and governments turn to technology as a possible sol...
There are more than two hundred biological data repositories available for public access, and a v... more There are more than two hundred biological data repositories available for public access, and a vast number of applications to process and interpret biological data. A major challenge for bioinformaticians is to extract and process data from multiple data sources using a variety of query interfaces and analytical tools. In this paper, we describe tools that respond to this challenge by providing support for cross-database queries and for integrating analytical tools in a query processing environment. In particular, we describe two alternative methods for integrating biological data processing within traditional database queries: (a) "light-weight" application integration based on Application Specific Data Types (ASDTs) and (b) "heavy-duty" integration of analytical tools based on mediators and wrappers. These methods are supported by the Object-Protocol Model (OPM) suite of tools for managing biological databases.
This paper investigates the problem of reasoning about imprecise spatial information. As a repres... more This paper investigates the problem of reasoning about imprecise spatial information. As a representation scheme we assume haze-points that are points surrounded by an area, the haze, denoting the imprecision that is associated with them. Haze-points are related by haze and precedence relations. Using these notions we can build higher dimension objects and relations Top94a]. This paper focuses on reasoning about spatial imprecision which is formalized as a constraint satisfaction problem over networks of constraints expressed in the language of haze-orders. The main contributions of this paper are (a) a set of preprocessing transformations that decrease the ambiguity which is introduced from unconditional transitivity over the haze relation, and (b) a graph-based data structure which is suitable for ee-cient inferencing of order relations. 1 Introduction It is generally accepted that neither human perception nor measurement instruments are precise in the information they provide. Th...
Proceedings International Conference on Intelligent Systems For Molecular Biology Ismb International Conference on Intelligent Systems For Molecular Biology, Feb 1, 1998
Abstract In this paper we propose a circle of care (COC) ontology that specifies concepts and rel... more Abstract In this paper we propose a circle of care (COC) ontology that specifies concepts and relations necessary to capture a patient's circle of care and allows one to make inferences about who is in a patient's circle of care. The ontology can improve current access control systems in making decisions regarding access events in real time and help identify past cases of illegitimate access through the access log. We validate the ontology by augmenting the Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) data model with our COC ontology and presenting an example of access logs from FHIR that is extended to answer circle of care queries.
In this paper we present a language for expressing \approximate" spatial relations on points... more In this paper we present a language for expressing \approximate" spatial relations on points and regions in space. Space is assumed to be two dimensional, orthogonal and discrete. Initially, we present a rst-order theory of one-dimensional approximate space. We axiomatize the theory of space in terms of points and the haze and precedence relations. We then study the models of this theory and we show that in the one dimensional case the theory has a unique model up to isomorphism. This result allows us to aarm that our theory is complete and decidable. Secondly, we propose a conservative two-dimensional extension of the theory which retains its completeness property. In the two-dimensional case, we deene a complete set of topolog-ical and directional relations that are useful for practical reasoning about space. The derived relations are related to existent formalisms for spatial relations such as Egen-hofer's 3-intersection model, for which they provide an alternative semantical account. The developed formalism is strictly qualitative with a built-in concept for imprecision. An axiomatization of varying the degree of detail is brieey discribed and discussed as a conclusion of the present work.
The control of enzyme activity by reversible phosphorylation and the role of protein kinases in s... more The control of enzyme activity by reversible phosphorylation and the role of protein kinases in signal transduction illustrate well the pivotal role of protein phosphorylation in cell regulation. There are numerous examples of the role of protein kinases and ...
We present a design process for incorporating data quality requirements into database schemas tha... more We present a design process for incorporating data quality requirements into database schemas that is rooted in goal-oriented requirements analysis techniques, developed in the Requirement Engineering community over last 15 years. Goal-oriented approaches (i) offer a body of notations, techniques and processes for modeling, analyzing and operationalizing quality requirements; (ii) support representation and evaluation of alternatives in goal fulfillment; and
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