Mastering Semantic Technology for Success with Ontotext Live Online Trainings

Mastering Semantic Technology for Success with Ontotext Live Online Trainings How It All Started Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.Albert EinsteinDecember 2016. This is when the first live online training in Semantic Technology organized by a bunch of enthusiasts at Ontotext took place. It was certainly not the first training on the subject in the world. But it was an important step in our efforts to proactively communicate the advantages of Semantic Technology.Ever since Ontotext started piling up knowledge in the field, we have been sharing our expertise through trainings. However, these have always been created as a result of specific requests from clients.But in the winter of 2016, we decided to change that. Instead of waiting for people to approach us, we wanted to be at the forefront of educating them about how certain semantic tools could help them solve various data analytics challenges. Here’s our story. A Closer Look at Who We AreFor more than 20 years, Ontotext has been in the business of developing and providing Semantic Technology-based solutions for various domains. As a result, we’ve accumulated (often after some trial-and-error) a lot of valuable experience. This has helped us understand which solutions would work best depending on specific domains and use cases.It has also made us aware of the major pain points that people could come across when adopting Semantic Technology solutions. So, it was almost a matter-of-course that the idea of organizing all this knowledge into a coherent and easy-to-grasp learning journey was born. The Challenge of Designing Have-it-all TrainingsThere are three things to remember when teaching: know your stuff, know whom you are stuffing, and then stuff them elegantly.Lola J. May, Mathematics EducatorOnce you know your destination, you just need to start walking, right? Wrong. Before we could share our experience, first we needed to clearly define the audience that would benefit from such broader training courses. To do that, we had to decide which Semantic Technology adoption pain points we wanted to focus on to best meet people’s needs.Equally important, we needed to determine the format and the kind of content coverage that would be most useful for it. We didn’t just want to go in front of people and talk about what we knew and found interesting. We wanted to shape our expertise to fit what people actually needed to know. And do it in a way that made it easy and intuitive for them to apply when dealing with their own use cases.The Matter at HandAfter some consi deration, we decided that we wanted to focus on two areas where we thought our impact on people’s needs would be most significant.The first was to improve people’s understanding of the importance and the practical advantages of using Semantic Technology when solving various knowledge management and data analytics problems. This is how our Designing a SemTech PoC training was born.The second was to provide the best (and quickest) way for people to delve in and start working with our leading semantic graph database, GraphDB. This is how our GraphDB for DevOps training came about.Ways and MeansOnce the scope of the new training courses was defined, we looked at the pros and cons of different formats.Based on our experience from the tailored trainings, we decided that the best setup for sharing our practical experience and nurturing a community of like-minded Semantic Technology enthusiasts was to offer a live online format to a small group of participants. In this way, we could have more space for interchange and we could keep a close eye on people’s progress.We also anticipated that if our guidance proved beneficial for people, we could establish a schedule of recurring trainings. As an additional benefit, having recurring courses would also allow us to check if we were on the right track.Shaping Our OfferTo teach is to learn twice over.Joseph JoubertWhen we designed the original curriculum for our training courses, we had a pretty good idea of what we wanted to demonstrate the content coverage, the exercises, the individual assignments, etc.However, each iteration of a training was a chance to change and, hopefully, improve important details from content to delivery. This was mostly thanks to people’s feedback, but also the selected format allowed us to see what worked best and what didn’t.The most important lesson we have learned is that a training is always a work in progress. Each following edition has the potential to be better than the previous one both in terms of what we teach and how we teach it.Eight Editions of Designing a SemTech PoC LaterOur Designing a SemTech PoC training has evolved significantly from the first basic demonstration of what we considered to be the most important techniques. In the beginning, our live sessions focused on cramming as much useful information as possible about data integration (through OntoRefine) and data exploration (with SPARQL). We presented a sample workflow that illustrated how existing resources could benefit from Linked Open Datasets and how to best analyze the available data. As a successful PoC is, in our view, the result of efficient data analytics, we wanted to let the trainees get the feel of such a workflow with the help of some hands-on experience.However, we found that many people struggled with SPARQL. So, with the help of the participants’ feedback, we went through several iterations of redesigning the way we introduced it. We focused on the value of good technical skills in the process of solving an interesting problem. We also introduced a variety of means for data analysis. But most importantly, we decided to simplify the live session as much as possible to make it less difficult for trainees to follow what was c overed and give them more chances to interact.We reworked our use cases and interwove everything we demonstrated into a single story to engage our participants. This made all components of building a PoC easier to understand and refer to at a later stage.We also exported all non-interactive content to the off-line set of additional materials so that participants could study them at their own pace. Instead, we engaged everybody with quick quizzes and discussions on the covered topics.Now, we have a smooth workflow involving a real PoC design that covers all the necessary steps and demonstrates best practices. Shifting our focus to best practices around a single use case story and providing more space for exchange resulted in more lively and productive sessions and happier students.First Steps in GraphDB Training for DevOpsThe GraphDB Training for DevOps is a new course we have designed and started offering this year. It targets developers and operations specialists who interact with GraphDB on a daily basis and need a more in-depth understanding of our semantic graph database. So far, we’ve had only one internal and one public edition of this course, so it’s too early to talk about its progression. But already the internal training has contributed significantly to the improvement of the initial materials.The Bigger PictureA teacher is one who makes himself progressively unnecessary.Thomas CarruthersA year and a half later, Ontotext has offered a total of 14 training courses. This includes our two recurring courses: Designing Semantic Technologies PoC and GraphDB for DevOps. It also includes some custom courses for clients such as Semantic Technologies GATE; Linked Data Sources, Robust Text Analysis and Semantic Search; Gold Standard Corpora; etc.We’ve also collaborated with some universities. We’ve provided materials for the courses Knowledge Modelling and Representation and Knowledge Bases for FMI, University of Sofia. We’ve participated in the preparation of the course Knowledge Representation and Reasoning for the Uni versity of Aberdeen and we have contributed to ESSLLI 2018.Our training courses have had participants from many geographical locations. The use cases of the participants who came to improve their understanding of Semantic Technology in order to further their projects have also been quite diverse. Some were developing flexible data models for representing unstructured or semi-structured data from various domains. Others were working in the area of predictive analytics, or were trying to match and structure information across various sources, or were focused on cancer research.Or, as in the case of Culture Creates, the aim was to make cultural events in Canada findable for voice-powered and AI-powered search assistants. This is possible thanks to metadata enrichment, integrating and linking data from various data sources and, ultimately, dumping, structuring and querying that data with Ontotext’s GraphDB.All Roads Lead to the ClassroomAll in all, our experience has shown that by sharing our expertise in Semantic Technology, we can make a difference. Accommodating all types of busy schedules and non-work related commitments, our training courses allow you to join us from any location.The only disadvantage is that you don’t get to have any of our fragrant coffee and delicious cakes while you follow our demos on your screen at home, but, hey, maybe that’s not such a bad deal either?Interested? Go to our training page where you can learn details  or contact the team for specific questions.

What Is a Reach School Which Reach Schools Should I Choose

What Is a Reach School Which Reach Schools Should I Choose SAT / ACT Prep Online Guides and Tips For those of you who have started researching college admissions, you may have heard the term â€Å"reach school.† What is a reach school? Simply, a reach school is one that you shouldn't expect to be admitted to. It would be a reach to get in. In this article, I will define and explain the concept of a reach school. Furthermore, I will discuss how to identify your reach schools and determine the number of reach schools you should apply to. What Is a Reach School? A reach school is a college that is unlikely to offer you admission. A particular college qualifies as a reach school for you if your high school GPA and standardized test scores are significantly below those of the college's average student. Also, you should consider a college a reach school if it is one of the most selective colleges. For example, MIT, Stanford, and Ivy League colleges are reach schools for everyone due to their extremely low acceptance rates. In general, you should consider a college a reach school if you have less than a 30% chance of gaining admission. Here are some hypothetical examples to give you a better understanding of a reach school. Example #1 Joe has a 3.6 weighted GPA, a 1700 SAT score, and wants to go to UCLA. Joe's GPA is well below UCLA's average GPA of 4.29 and average SAT score of 1941. Furthermore, UCLA only admits 20% of its applicants. Therefore, Joe shouldn't expect to get into UCLA; he should consider UCLA a reach school. Typically, the only students who are offered admission with well below average numbers are highly recruited athletes in major sports, legacy students with donor parents, students from extraordinary backgrounds or circumstances, and students with amazing accomplishments. Even though colleges review your recommendations, personal essays, and extracurricular activities, gaining admission to a college is difficult with subpar grades and standardized test scores. Example #2 Regardless of your GPA and standardized test scores, for any student who wants to apply to Harvard, Harvard is a reach school. Harvard's admissions rate is only 6%. Obviously, that's an amazingly low percentage. Among Harvard students, the average high school GPA is 4.04 and the average SAT score is 2260. The 75th percentile SAT score is a perfect 2400. Even if you have a perfect GPA and perfect SAT score, Harvard is so selective that it's still a reach school. Harvard is a reach school for everyone. How to Identify Your Reach Schools Let's go through how to curate your list of schools to apply to, step-by-step. Step #1: Create Your List of Dream Schools Initially, don't consider your odds of getting in when creating your list of dream schools.Learn how to choose a collegeand use as many sources as possible to identify the colleges you want to go to. The most prestigious schools are likely to be reach schools. Use the best college search websites to help create your list. If necessary, you can also use guide books like Fiske Guide to Colleges and The Best 379 Colleges for in-depth college profiles and comparisons. Seek advice from others. Talk to your teachers, counselors, friends, and parents about colleges. Don't just blindly accept their college recommendations, but research the schools they recommend, and then determine whether or not those schools would be a good fit for you. After doing your research and consulting these various sources, you should be able to compile your list of dream schools. I recommend having about 8-15 schools on this list. If you have fewer schools, you may not be giving yourself enough options. If you have more, you probably haven't done enough to narrow down your college search and the application and selection process may end up being too costly and tedious. Step #2: Determine Which of the Schools From Your List Are Reach Schools The next step in identifying your reach schools is to determine which schools on your list of dream schools qualify as reach schools for you. How do you do this? I recommend using the PrepScholar school database. You can google â€Å"(name of school) prepscholar admissions requirements† to find a school profile for each college on your list. On the school profile, use the admissions calculator to get a rough idea of your chances of admission. The admissions calculator combines your GPA and standardized test scores with the admissions rate to approximate your chances of getting into the school. If, according to the admissions calculator, you have less than a 30% of gaining admission or the school has an admissions rate of less than 15%, then you should categorize the college as a reach school for you. Keep in mind that your GPA and SAT scores are only two components that determine whether you’re accepted to a school. Your extracurricular activities, recommendations, essays, and background play a role, too. However, GPA and SAT scores are the most important factors and they’re the most objective available statistics. How Many Reach Schools Should You Apply to? You may be wondering how many reach schools you should apply to. The number you should apply to depends on a few of different factors. Keep in mind that the college application process can be costly, if you don't qualify for application fee waivers. Also, it can be very time-consuming, especially if you apply to schools that don't use the Common Application. A general rule is to apply to 1/3 reach schools out of all the schools you apply to. If you follow this formula, then if you apply to 10 schools, no more than 3 should be considered reaches. Also, 1/3 of the schools you apply to should be safety schools, schools that typically admit students with your qualifications. The remaining 1/3 should be schools that are in the middle, colleges that give you about a 30%-80% chance of admission based on your qualifications. If the cost and time you spend on your applications doesn't matter as much to you, you can apply to more reach schools. However, you do want to make sure that you apply to enough other schools to ensure that you give yourself choices. If you're likely to get rejected by most of the schools you apply to, your options may be limited when you're selecting a college to attend. If you're not even close to the average GPA or 25th percentile SAT score at a selective college, you may be wasting your time applying. Your chances of getting in are probably close to zero unless there's something else truly extraordinary in your application or there's a building on campus named after one of your immediate family members. Quick Review A reach school is a college that is not likely to admit you, generally offering you less than a 30% chance of admission. Use the admissions rate of a college and its average GPA and standardized test scores to determine if its a reach school for you. The most selective colleges are reach schools for everyone. Apply to roughly 1/3 reach schools to ensure that you have options during the college selection process. Give yourself college options. What's Next? If you want to make yourself competitive for college admission, learn how to build the most versatile college application. For those of you who need to improve your standardized test scores, find out how to get a 2400 on the SAT or a 36 on the ACT. Want to improve your SAT score by 160 points or your ACT score by 4 points?We've written a guide for each test about the top 5 strategies you must be using to have a shot at improving your score. Download it for free now:

Top 8 Free Online Style Guides in English

Top 8 Free Online Style Guides in English Sensible is probably the highest praise that can be given to a style guide. Neither a comprehensive documentation manual (such as the MLA or APA guides) nor a self-improvement book (along the lines of Strunk and Whites The Elements of Style), a publishers style guide should provide practical and consistent advice about matters ranging from abbreviations and preferred spellings to punctuation standards and acceptable terminology. If youre not already committed to one particular code of conventions- such as The Associated Press Stylebook, the journalists bible- consider befriending one of these free online style guides. Each has its eccentricities and limitations, and no two of them agree on every fine point of usage. But theyre all sensible and reasonably consistent.   American Styles National Geographic Style Manual  Online since 1995 and frequently updated by a team of editors, this is an alphabetically arranged guide to preferred National Geographic Society style and usage.​The Tameri Guide for Writers: Generalized Stylebook  Maintained by Susan D. Schnelbach and Christopher Scott Wyatt, the Tameri Stylebook is based on the Associated Press Stylebook, which is the primary style guide for reporters and editors at daily newspapers and many periodicals.​Wikipedia: Manual of Style  This style guide for all Wikipedia articles is intended to help editors write articles with consistent, clear, and precise language, layout, and formatting. British Styles The BBC News Styleguide (pdf) Written by John Allen, a BBC reporter and editor for the past 40 years, this popular manual is not a do and dont list but a guide that invites you to explore some of the complexities of modern English usage.​Economist.com Style Guide  John Grimonds online guide is based on the stylebook followed by journalists at The Economist magazine. The 11th edition of the paperback version of the guide will be published in 2015.​The Guardian and Observer Style Guide  Edited by David Marsh and Amelia Hodsdon, this is the online version of Guardian Style. The third edition of this witty handbook was published in December 2010.​Telegraph Style Book  Augmented by monthly style notes from associate editor Simon Heffer, this is the official guide to house style for The Daily Telegraph, The Sunday Telegraph, and Telegraph.co.uk. Canadian Styles The Canadian Style  Compiled by the Canadian governments Translation Bureau, Canadian Style includes useful advice for drafting letters, memos, reports, indexes and bibliographies along with concise answers to questions concerning written English in the Canadian context.

The Case of Enron and Arthur Andersen Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

The Case of Enron and Arthur Andersen - Essay Example The greed that was evident did not benefit any one party at all. When the company shares lost ground in trading, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Texas State Board of Public Accountancy and the US congress were on hand to instigate reforms that had the aim of ensuring that occurrences like those at Enron could not occur again. Arthur Andersen, the auditor at Enron, could be said to have received what it deserved in terms of being forced out of the market place due to bankruptcy. Additionally, the audit firm became a template of negative audit firms. The US federal government crafted regulatory legislation that is being taken up by other countries to prevent such occurrences in the future. For example, Mexico adopted those regulations in 2006 popularly referred to as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Discussion Enron as a corporate entity was not guilty of any major crimes that were blatantly obvious. On the most part, the company was indicted for misleading the outside forces charged with consulting for it and also misrepresented its financial situation1. These misrepresentations and falsehoods cannot entirely be considered as crimes. On the contrary, fraud can be considered as a crime but the very act of proving a criminal intent to defraud is very difficult. On the other hand, Arthur Andersen was convicted of a repeated single crime which entailed the obstruction of justice. This was largely due to the destruction of Enron documents that the audit firm continuously did. The shredding of those documents, which the accounting firm was well aware could be used in an SEC investigation, was in itself a crime. The case of Enron led to a number of individuals that were charged with different tasks to be charged with serious crimes with some of them pleading guilty to some. Mostly, many pleaded guilty with conspiracy to mislead that they did by presenting unfair reports on the company finances. Both Enron and Andersen had total disregard for any ethical conduc t that was expected of them. There is no need for detailed presentation of the breaches in ethics as they were pretty blatant. This discussion is not focused on ethics despite the fact that legal ethics, financial analysis ethics and banking ethics were totally disregarded. Since the breach of ethics is not a crime, it is not pertinent to dwell on it. Enron is clearly in violation of the guidelines that are laid out in the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP)2. There are three instances of the breach of GAAP that are notable in the conduct of Enron. The first is that the Special Purpose Entities? (SPEs) accounts were incorrect. The equity method of accounting was selectively utilized in the SPE accounting as well as the failure of consolidation and failure of the elimination of the impacts associated with the transactions carried among the entities. The second is that there was partial disclosure of accounts and the last is that the financial reporting was not fair. In do ing the above, Enron and Andersen can be thought of having viewed GAAP as being merely rules and not regulations. They also leaned towards the interpretation of GAAP in a more aggressive manner than normally envisaged. Additionally, they disregarded the fairness principle that is central to GAAP and in doing this, they ignored the fact that fairness is emphasized more that rules as well as accounting that focuses on the economic

Relationship between Different Components of an Airport Research Paper

Relationship between Different Components of an Airport - Research Paper Example Landside portion; this portion consists of the arrival and departure enclosures, passenger handling area, baggage handling area, cargo handling, and processing area, retail, and catering area.  Landside portion; this portion consists of the arrival and departure enclosures, passenger handling area, baggage handling area, cargo handling, and processing area, retail, and catering area.  Airside portion; this portion consists of the runway, taxiway and the area where the aircraft stands before and after takeoff and landing respectively.  The above figure shows that an ideal airport should be having one side for its ‘departure’ functions while the other side is kept for ‘arrival’ functions. Both of these converge into the front or the urban access portion for seamless integration.  Suppose at present the airport handles 2.5 million passengers and it is being estimated that by 2016 it would have to handle 5 million passengers annually. The airport would h ave to go for expansion in the context of runways, terminals, taxiways, and allied services. The airport is important for the adjoining area from the perspective of economy, business, tourism, and social development.  Ã¢â‚¬ ¢ Points of consideration: Land issues: The existing airport when going for expansion would require a huge amount of land. There could be scientific, social, environmental as well as political issues in the context of acquiring land, which have to be taken into account. Runway-taxiway: Runways and taxiways should ideally run parallel. The dimensions of the former would depend on the number, size, and type of aircraft being handled.   The size and dimensions of taxiways would depend on the number of passengers being handled and the probable increase in the number in the future.

The Pritting Press Essay -- essays research papers

In 1440 a man by the man of Johannes Gutenberg invented movable type, or as we know it, a printing press. Prior to 1440 everything read in Europe was copied by hand or copied from wooden blocks carved from hand. This was very expensive and time consuming. The only people who were literate were those of the church and a small percentage of nobility. Since the printing press came out, how would this effect European culture and the way things worked?   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The printing press had many effects on Europe. Very few peasants could read and besides that there wasn’t much to read but scriptures. The things that were being read were hand written and of course this took a long time and so not many people wanted to take the time to do it. Monks spent there days and nights copying and writing scriptures in solitude. At the time Latin was the only language the bible was written in, this was about to change.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The time the printing press was invented was the era of the Renaissance. The Renaissance era is known for inventions and art and new ideas. The printing press was just one of the many inventions that came out of the Renaissance era. I believe this to be one of the biggest inventions to come out around this time because it changed everything and the way we read now. I am sure that someone else later would have thought of this but for the time if brought on new ideas.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Some of the ideas that came about we...

Angles and Demons by Dan Brown Essay

Angles and Demons by Dan Brown was a reading choice out of curiosity rather than real interest because of the Da Vinci Code by the same author. I wanted to see what other works of fiction Dan Brown came up with before his controversial book. This book had me raising my eyebrows more than a few times with story line but that did not stop me from turning the pages until I got to the end. Angels and Demons basically follows the same formula as the Da Vinci Code. It begins with a murder which only Robert Langdon seems capable of solving with his knowledge of religious iconology and history; a strong female character, Vittoria Vetra, daughter to the murder victim Leonardo Vetra, assists Langdon in his â€Å"quest†; a hired assassin who is delusional, a fanatic and has unquestionable loyalty to his belief carries out an unforeseen but well-crafted plan; an ancient secret society, the Illuminati, is out to get revenge on the Church; finally, an unexpected mastermind who calls himself as Janus, works behind the curtains. An anti-matter canister was stolen from CERN when Leonardo Vetra was murdered and this is assumed to have a life span of 24 hours before the batteries die and it explodes. Brown remains true to using archaic bits of knowledge to leave a trail for Robert Langdon and Vittoria Vetra to follow from Switzerland to the Vatican City in order to find the missing anti-matter canister and find the murderer of Leonardo Vetra. The plot thickens when the anti-matter canister bomb threatens the Vatican and the conclave in the process of choosing the new Pope. The book ends dramatically with a seemingly miraculous event followed by the declaration of a new Pope. Though I enjoyed the chase more from Angels and Demons rather than the Da Vinci Code, I must say that, as a priest, Brown seems have some issues with the Church to come up with troubling concepts for his books. First you have Leonardo Vetra, a priest who turns away from the Church. He becomes a leading physicist of CERN and, together with his adopted daughter, tries to find God through science and research. They seem to be successful with the development of the anti-matter, which was stolen when Vetra was murdered. You also have a Pope who sired a child with a nun, though through artificial means. The child later becomes his camerlengo, the Pope’s Chamberlain. The camerlengo, Carlo Ventresca, unaware of his paternal parentage, murders the Pope upon knowing his dark secret with the belief that he is both cleansing and protecting the Church. Though the book is admittedly a work of fiction, it borders on tarnishing how Catholics and non-Catholics may view the Church and its priests. Brown puts into question the honesty and loyalty of priests to the Mother Church and their commitment to the vow of celibacy, as seen with the Pope. It is appalling to think that Jesus’ surrogates on Earth would be the first ones to violate their vows. Brown also pits religion versus science. Leonardo Ventra is murdered for his research on anti-matter which can supposedly prove the beginning of life, that science can prove God’s existence. I’d like to think that religion is a matter of faith and science is a matter of fact, the two just can’t mix when it comes to explaining God. Then you have the camerlengo who is himself delusional and a fanatic in his belief that the Church, and not science, is the saving power of the world with himself at the wheel of salvation. He goes to great lengths to get the world’s attention, discredit Science and put the Church on a pedestal for the world to see. Angels and Demons made me uncomfortable with the image of the Church that it created – a divided, secretive, vindictive and vulnerable body. Readers, both Catholics and non-Catholics should be discriminating of the events in this book, lest they forget that this is only a work of fiction.