ONTOLOGY BASED TECHNICAL SKILL SIMILARITY

Online job boards have become a major platform for technical talent procurement and job search. These job portals have given rise to challenging matching and search problems. The core matching or search happens between technical skills of the job requirements and the candidate\u27s profile or keywords. The extensive list of technical skills and its polyonymous nature makes it less effective to perform a direct keyword matching. This results in substandard job matching or search results which misses out a closely matching candidate on account of it not having the exact skills. It is important to use a semantic similarity measure between skills to improve the relevance of the results. This paper proposes a semantic similarity measure between technical skills using a knowledge based approach. The approach builds an ontology using DBpedia and uses it to derive a similarity score. Feature based ontology similarity measures are used to derive a similarity score between two skills. The ontology also helps in resolving a base skill from its multiple representations. The paper discusses implementation of custom ontology, similarity measuring system and performance of the system in comparing technical skills. The proposed approach performs better than the Resumatcher system in finding the similarity between skills. Keywords

Refurbishing Pacemakers: A Viable Approach

Cardiologists implant permanent pacemakers widely for indications like sick sinus syndrome and complete heart block. The guidelines for such implantations are well established1. However, in developing countries like India, all patients who need pacemakers do not receive them because of financial constraints. Even when such patients get a pacemaker, it is often a more affordable VVI pacemaker rather than the costly DDD pacemaker. The lack of a health insurance scheme and improper social support programs prevent the more widespread implantation of appropriate pacemakers. However, in the developed countries and in affluent pockets of developing countries like India, the pacemaker implantation rates are quite high. Often permanent pacemakers are implanted in the very old and people with predicted brief longevities, due to medico-legal and other social reasons. There are quite a few instances when pacemakers are explanted within a year or even within a few months. This is often due to the unfortunate death of the patient due to unrelated causes. Such pacemakers have battery lives, which are near normal. These can be explanted from the dead patient after taking consent from the relatives and “refurbished” for use in another needy patient. Refurbishing involves proper re-sterilization, checking of battery life, pacing mode and other parameters and re-labelling with the current parameters including predicted battery life. These refurbished pacemakers are a suitable alternative for the financially ‘no option’ group of patients who otherwise would not afford a pacemaker. These can last nearly as long as the original pacemakers. Even pulse generators whose shelf lives have expired can also be resterilised and used gainfully for the economically deprived

Sircling the Cquare

As we journey into an increasingly virtual and intangible reality, is there an opportunity for our tactile fabrics to journey with, and even reorient us? Can they exist in our future worlds to remind us of the value of current traditional, low-tech practices that we may soon forget? Referencing the fundamental fabric languages of knitted and woven structures, this collection of garments, that I term “Earthsuits,” embody the stages of metamorphosis as we adjust to a new phase of our perceptive reality. With an emphasis on circling, we loop through virtual squares like screens and pixels, to the circles of the physical world—organic life cycles and saris. Inspired by the transformation of the silkworm (from egg, through larva and cocoon, to moth) and the long tradition of woven saris in India (a flat, five-meter long rectangle wrapped around the body), I present these textile constructions as portable, nomadic objects for a speculative future

Cardiac involvement in systemic sclerosis- a hospital-based study in tertiary health care centre in Puducherry, India

Background: Systemic sclerosis (SSc) is a complex immune-mediated condition. Systemic sclerosis related cardiac pathologies can be detected in an early stage using various imaging techniques. Aim was to study cardiac involvement in patients with systemic sclerosis. Methods: The present study was carried out as a descriptive hospital-based study of 31 patients with systemic sclerosis above 13 years of age, of either sex or who fulfilled American Rheumatism Association (ARA) diagnostic criteria. A detailed profile of lab investigations and imaging including inflammatory markers, immunological parameters, ECG and ECHO were done. Data analysis was done using SPSS (statistical package for social sciences) version 21.0. A p value <0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: Median age of the study patients was 36 years and 90% females. Nearly 19% of the patients were classified as limited, 39% as early diffuse and 42% as late diffuse systemic sclerosis. Rheumatoid factor was positive in 19% of the patients, while antinuclear antibodies (ANA) was positive in all the patients. Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) was noted in 61%. Right ventricular systolic pressure (RVSP) was relatively higher in limited SSc patients. Patients with late diffuse SSc had higher RVSP than early diffuse SSc. RV systolic function assessed by tricuspid annular plane systolic excursion (TAPSE) showed abnormally low value (<18) in five patients. Conclusions: Considerable proportion of patients with systemic sclerosis present with cardiac involvement. Tissue Doppler imaging can help in diagnosing subclinical RV dysfunction by measuring TEI index of right ventricle, which can predict PAH