Hypertext in the Semantic Web

The Semantic Web extends the current state of the Web with well-defined meaning. We advocate the use of ontological hypertext as an application of the Semantic Web to provide a principled and structured approach to navigating the resources on the Web. This paper demonstrates how we have applied this concept to two real-world scenarios

Hypertext in the Semantic Web

The Semantic Web extends the current state of the Web with well-defined meaning. We advocate the use of ontological hypertext as an application of the Semantic Web to provide a principled and structured approach to navigating the resources on the Web. This paper demonstrates how we have applied this concept to two real-world scenarios

Chinese heritage tourists to heritage sites: what are the effects of heritage motivation and perceived authenticity on satisfaction?

Much of the literature on authenticity is Western-centric, while little work addresses the concept in the Asian environment. The literature relating to authenticity from Asian tourists’ point of view is even underdeveloped. This study therefore aims to fill the knowledge gap by investigating Chinese tourists’ perspective of authenticity. It also examines tourists’ perceived authenticity as a multi-dimensional construct in a consumer-based model, the relationship with heritage motivation and tourist satisfaction. Findings indicate that Chinese tourists’ perceptions of authenticity are closely related to objective and constructive authenticity. The study demonstrates that heritage motivation has a significant positive influence on perceived authenticity and that perceived authenticity has a strong ability to predict tourist satisfaction

Toward an understanding of tourists’ authentic heritage experiences: Evidence from Hong Kong

Authenticity in tourism has been a topic of discussion since the 1960s, but the concept is still to be fully developed. This study focuses on tourists’ perceptions of authenticity, and in particular how they evaluate authentic heritage experiences. The appearance and physical settings of attractions were found to be the initial and most important indicators of authentic or inauthentic experiences. Other criteria for assessing the authenticity of heritage experiences include the presence of local culture and customs, constructed elements, commodification, and atmosphere

Process redesign for time-based emergency admission targets

Purpose: Hospitals have used process redesign to increase the efficiency of the emergency department (ED) to cope with increasing demand. While there are published studies suggesting a positive outcome, recent reviews have reported that it is difficult to conclude that these approaches are effective as a result of substandard research methodology. The purpose of this paper is to explore the perceptions of hospital staff on the impact of a process redesign initiative on quality of care. Design/methodology/approach: A retrospective qualitative case study examining a Lean Six Sigma (LSS) initiative in a large metropolitan hospital from 2009 to 2010. Non-probability sampling identified interview subjects who, through their participation in the redesign initiative, had a detailed understanding of the implementation and outcomes of the initiative. Between April 2012 and January 2013 26 in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted and analysed with thematic content analysis. Findings: There were four important findings. First, when asked to comment on the impact of the LSS implementation, without prompting the staff spoke of quality of care. Second, there was little agreement among the participants as to whether the project had been successful. Third, despite the recognition of the need for a coordinated effort across the hospital to improve ED access, the redesign process was not successful in reducing existing divides among clinicians and among managers and clinicians. Finally, staff expressed tension between production processes to move patients more quickly and their duty of care to their patients as individuals. Originality/value: One of the first studies to explore the impact of process redesign through in-depth interviews with participating staff, this study adds further evidence that organisation implementing process redesign must ensure the supporting management practices are in place

Effects of antiplatelet therapy on stroke risk by brain imaging features of intracerebral haemorrhage and cerebral small vessel diseases: subgroup analyses of the RESTART randomised, open-label trial

Background Findings from the RESTART trial suggest that starting antiplatelet therapy might reduce the risk of recurrent symptomatic intracerebral haemorrhage compared with avoiding antiplatelet therapy. Brain imaging features of intracerebral haemorrhage and cerebral small vessel diseases (such as cerebral microbleeds) are associated with greater risks of recurrent intracerebral haemorrhage. We did subgroup analyses of the RESTART trial to explore whether these brain imaging features modify the effects of antiplatelet therapy

The pesticidal Cry6Aa toxin from Bacillus thuringiensis is structurally similar to HlyE-family alpha pore-forming toxins

Background The Cry6 family of proteins from Bacillus thuringiensis represents a group of powerful toxins with great potential for use in the control of coleopteran insects and of nematode parasites of importance to agriculture. These proteins are unrelated to other insecticidal toxins at the level of their primary sequences and the structure and function of these proteins has been poorly studied to date. This has inhibited our understanding of these toxins and their mode of action, along with our ability to manipulate the proteins to alter their activity to our advantage. To increase our understanding of their mode of action and to facilitate further development of these proteins we have determined the structure of Cry6Aa in protoxin and trypsin-activated forms and demonstrated a pore-forming mechanism of action. Results The two forms of the toxin were resolved to 2.7 Å and 2.0 Å respectively and showed very similar structures. Cry6Aa shows structural homology to a known class of pore-forming toxins including hemolysin E from Escherichia coli and two Bacillus cereus proteins: the hemolytic toxin HblB and the NheA component of the non-hemolytic toxin (pfam05791). Cry6Aa also shows atypical features compared to other members of this family, including internal repeat sequences and small loop regions within major alpha helices. Trypsin processing was found to result in the loss of some internal sequences while the C-terminal region remains disulfide-linked to the main core of the toxin. Based on the structural similarity of Cry6Aa to other toxins, the mechanism of action of the toxin was probed and its ability to form pores in vivo in Caenorhabditis elegans was demonstrated. A non-toxic mutant was also produced, consistent with the proposed pore-forming mode of action. Conclusions Cry6 proteins are members of the alpha helical pore-forming toxins – a structural class not previously recognized among the Cry toxins of B. thuringiensis and representing a new paradigm for nematocidal and insecticidal proteins. Elucidation of both the structure and the pore-forming mechanism of action of Cry6Aa now opens the way to more detailed analysis of toxin specificity and the development of new toxin variants with novel activities

Decentering the Dancing Text: From Dance Intertext to Hypertext

This paper explains and draws together two projects from different disciplines: dance studies and hypertext writing. Each project sets out to examine the processes and practices of hypertextuality, and to develop new ways of writing using electronic technology and the Internet. The dance studies project seeks to link the critical theory of intertextuality (as a means of dance interpretation) with the theoretical and practical concerns of hypertextuality. It hopes to show a convergence of the two into a working system for analysing dance in a network of people, institutions and information. The Associative Writing Framework (AWF) project seeks to explore how writers could best be supported in representing and exploring hypertextuality in a Web environment, and in producing new hypertexts which integrate or 'glue together' existing Web resources (ideas, concepts, data, descriptions, experiences, claims, theories, suggestions, reports, etc). Following the combining of the two projects we report on some initial evaluation of the AWF system by dance experts, and discuss where the relationship might lead and potential future outcomes of the collaboration

Bringing the semantic web to the office desktop

Many Semantic Web applications address the needs of human readers of the Web (e.g. searching, annotating), but these technologies can also address the needs of human writers of the Web. The WiCK project has explored the application of knowledge bases and services to the Office desktop, in order to assist document production, culminating in the WiCKOffice environment. This aim of this demonstration is to showcase the most recent offshoot of the WiCKOffice development, WiCKLite: a lightweight component for connecting knowledge services to document templates in order to deliver targeted assistance to end users

Urban heritages: how history and housing finance matter to housing form and homeownership rates

Contemporary Western cities are not uniform but display a variety of different housing forms and tenures, both between and within countries. We distinguish three general city types in this paper: low rise, single-family dwelling cities where owner-occupation is the most prevalent tenure form; multi-dwelling building cities where tenants comprise the majority and; multi-dwelling building cities where owner occupation is the principal tenure form. We argue that historical developments beginning in the nineteenth century are crucial to understanding this diversity in urban form and tenure composition across Western cities. Our path-dependent argument is twofold. First, we claim that different housing finance institutions engendered different forms of urban development during the late-nineteenth century and had helped to establish the difference between single-family dwelling cities and multi-dwelling building cities by 1914. Second, rather than stemming from countries’ welfare systems or ‘variety of capitalism’, we argue that these historical distinctions have a significant and enduring impact on today’s urban housing forms and tenures. Our argument is supported by a unique collection of data of 1095 historical cities across 27 countries