10 research outputs found
Next generation cross-sectoral data platform for the food system
Full text linkThe food system is a complex network encompassing various stakeholders, including primary producers, manufacturers, retailers, and consumers. Across all the stages of the food supply chain, a significant amount of data is produced, offering valuable insights crucial for ensuring the delivery of safe, high-quality, and cost-effective products to meet the needs of a growing global population. Recommender systems are commonly used in the food domain but often lack personalization, leading to generic recommendations. Enhancing user experience through explainability offers transparent reasoning behind recommendations, fostering trust and informed decision-making. Semantic reasoning can be enhanced through ontology-based user profiles. Moreover, the increased data sharing in the food sector has raised privacy and security concerns, prompting the development of privacy-preserving data platforms. This PhD project aims to address these challenges by (1) utilizing ontologies or enhancing semantic interoperability, (2) employing eXplainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) methods and semantic reasoning for enhancing the transparency of recommender systems, and (3) designing a privacy-preserving data platform that facilitates data sharing while ensuring the protection of sensitive information
Auditory and language development assessment in children at an early age (0-3 years) after cochlear implantation
No full textAudiologopēdijaVeselības aprūpeAudiologopaedicsHealth CareDarba tēma: Dzirdes un valodas attīstības izvērtēšana bērniem agrīnā vecumposmā (0-3 gadi) pēc kohleārās implantācijas.
Darba autors: Elza Donika
Darba vadītāja: Dr. med. Sandra Kušķe
Pētījuma jautājums: Kā attīstās dzirde un valoda pēc kohleārās implantācijas bērniem (0-3 gadi) ar prelingvālu dzirdes traucējumu?
Pētījuma mērķis: Noskaidrot vecāku vērtējumu, pamatojoties uz IT-MAIS testu, par bērna dzirdes prasmju attīstību prelingvāli nedzirdīgiem bērniem līdz 3 gadu vecumam.
Pētījuma metodes: Veikts kvantitatīvs šķērsgriezuma pētījums, kurā piedalījās gan sievietes, gan vīrieši. Pētījumā tika iekļauti deviņi Latvijas Bērnu Dzirdes centra pacienti, kuriem ir prelingvāls dzirdes traucējums un veikta kohleārā implantācija, kā arī pagājis vismaz viens gads kopš pirmreizējās kohleārā implanta pieslēgšanas. Tika pētīta bērnu dzirdes attīstība pēc vecāku sniegtajām atbildēm uz novērtēšanas instrumentu “IT-MAIS” testu. Dati tika pētīti izmantojot aprakstošo statistiku. Starp iegūtajiem datiem tika noteiktas korelācijas izmantojot Spīrmena rangu korelāciju.
Pētījuma rezultāti: Veicot Šapīro-Vilka testu tika secināts, ka dati par vecumu kohleārā implanta pirmreizējās pieslēgšanas brīdī ir statistiski ticami normāli sadalīti, jo p > 0,05 savukārt dati par iegūtajiem punktiem IT-MAIS testā nav statistiski ticami normāli sadalīti, jo p < 0,05. Pēc Spīrmena rangu korelācijas tika noteikts, ka pastāv pozitīva korelācija starp pirmo IT-MAIS testa sadaļu (1. un 2. jautājums) un vecumu kohleārā implanta pirmreizējās pieslēgšanas brīdī, jo r = 0,51, p = 0,17. Korelācija starp otro IT-MAIS testa sadaļu (3. – 6. jautājums) un vecumu KI pirmreizējās pieslēgšanas brīdī ir vāja pozitīva korelācija, jo r = 0,02, p = 0,97. Korelācija starp trešo IT-MAIS testa sadaļu (7. – 10. jautājums) un vecumu KI pirmreizējās pieslēgšanas brīdī ir vāja pozitīva korelācija, jo r = 0,21, p = 0,56 savukārt starp visiem IT-MAIS testa punktiem kopā un vecumu KI pirmreizējās pieslēgšanas brīdī bija vāja pozitīva korelācija, jo r = 0,06 un p = 0,78.
Secinājumi: Agrīna kohleārā implantācija ir nozīmīga, lai dzirdes un valodas attīstība būtu veiksmīgāka, kā arī ir nepieciešama intensīva apmācība un rehabilitācija, lai sasniegtu labus rezultātus. Pacienti, kuriem kohleārais implants ir lietots ilgāku laika periodu, IT-MAIS testā ieguva augstākus rezultātus. Veicot Spīrmena rangu korelāciju tika noskaidrots, ka ir vidēji stipra pozitīva korelācija (r = 0,51 un p = 0,17) starp IT-MAIS testa pirmās sadaļas jautājumiem un vecumu KI pirmreizējās pieslēgšanas brīdī savukārt starp visiem IT-MAIS testa punktiem kopā un vecumu KI pirmreizējās pieslēgšanas brīdī bija vāja pozitīva korelācija (r = 0,06 un p = 0.78). Visaugstākais punktu skaits visiem pacientiem kopā iegūts pirmajā IT-MAIS testa sadaļā, kas ir testa 1. un 2. jautājums.
Atslēgas vārdi: kohleārais implants, kohleārā implantācija, prelingvāls dzirdes traucējums, IT-MAIS tests.Bachelor thesis: Assessment of auditory and language development in young children (0-3 years) after cochlear implantation.
Author: Elza Donika
Scientific supervisor: Dr. med. Sandra Kušķe
Research question: How do hearing and language develop after cochlear implantation in children (0-3 years) with prelingual hearing loss?
Aim of the study: To find out parents assessment, based on the IT-MAIS test, of their child's auditory development in prelingually deaf children up to 3 years of age.
Materials and methods: Nine patients of the Latvian Children's hearing centre with prelingual hearing loss, cochlear implantation and at least one year since first cochlear implantation were included in the study. The children's hearing development was investigated according to their parents' responses to the IT-MAIS assessment tool. The data were analysed using descriptive statistics. Correlations between the data were determined using Spearman's rank correlation.
Results: The Shapiro-Wilk test revealed that the data on age at first cochlear implant insertion were statistically significantly normally correlated at p>0,05, whereas the data on scores on the IT-MAIS were not statistically significantly normally correlated at p<0.,05. Spearman's rank correlation revealed a positive correlation between the first section of the IT-MAIS (questions 1 and 2) and age at first cochlear implant connection, r = 0,51, p = 0,17. The correlation between the second section of the IT-MAIS (questions 3 to 6) and age at first CI connection is a weak positive correlation, r = 0,02, p = 0,97. The correlation between the third section of the IT-MAIS test (questions 7 to 10) and age at first connection to the CI is a weak positive correlation, as r = 0,21, p = 0,56, while the correlation between all IT-MAIS test items combined and age at first connection to the CI is a weak positive correlation, as r = 0,06 and p = 0,78.
Conclusions: Early cochlear implantation is important for successful hearing and language development, and intensive training and rehabilitation are necessary to achieve good outcomes. Patients who have had a cochlear implant for a longer period of time scored higher on the IT-MAIS test. Spearman rank correlation showed that there was a moderately strong positive correlation (r = 0,51 and p = 0,17) between the first section of the IT-MAIS and age at first CI connection, whereas there was a weak positive correlation (r = 0,06 and p = 0,78) between all IT-MAIS test items combined and age at first CI connection. The highest scores for all patients combined were obtained in the first section of the IT-MAIS test, questions 1 and 2.
Key words: cochlear implant, cochlear implantation, prelingual hearing loss, IT-MAIS test
Breaking it down, to build it back up: Attacks and Defenses for RPKI
Full text linkThe Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) is the glue that holds the Internet together and enables packets to reach their destinations. However, BGP is not secure by design. It is vulnerable to hijacking attacks and route leaks, and the community has tried for decades to find a solution for this design error.
The Resource Public Key Infrastructure (RPKI) has emerged as the only currently feasible solution to BGP's woes. It is an intuitive, flexible infrastructure that allows any BGP security protocol that relies on distributed, cryptographically verifiable data, to get incorporated and effectively deployed across BGP routers. RPKI already covers over 50% of network prefixes and is deployed by at least 27% of networks in the world. It has already proven its benefits over the past few years due to many BGP hijacks, which went unnoticed by those deploying RPKI, but caused severe consequences for those who didn't. RPKI has proven itself so successful, that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) published a recommendation on routing security, where they suggested mandating the use of RPKI for all major ISP providers in the US. However, not all that glitters is gold. While RPKI is an excellent approach to solving the security issues of BGP, it is not perfect.
In this work, the author evaluates the security of the RPKI ecosystem as a whole, and that of all RPKI software components individually. The author discovers a range of attacks that lead to the silent downgrade of RPKI protection, or the Denial-of-Service (DoS) of RPKI components, and evaluates current RPKI deployment practices only to discover trends that are concerning when extrapolated to full RPKI deployment. Finally, this work also provides the first attempt to mitigate all above mentioned RPKI issues through a distributed infrastructure that enhances RPKI component security and efficiency, and is backwards compatible with the current RPKI environment.
This thesis is based on work published in 6 full papers and 2 posters in international academic conferences. This work resulted in the discovery of 18 vulnerabilities in RPKI code, and the issuance of 5 Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVEs)
Framing the subject in Natasha Trethewey's Bellocq’s Ophelia
No full textIn the early 1900s Ernest J. Bellocq photographed anonymous, mostly mixed-race prostitutes in the legalized vice district of Storyville in New Orleans. In Bellocq’s Ophelia, Natasha Trethewey creates a narrative that seeks to privilege both the material objects—Ernest Bellocq’s Storyville photographs—and one of his historically anonymous subjects, whom Trethewey names Ophelia. Trethewey begins her recuperation of the silent, anonymous prostitute by exercising her power as author to name the subject, and in naming her, Trethewey situates her within a prestigious, but literary history. In this paper, I suggest that Trethewey’s interrogation of the art object, either as subject and/or object, reveals that complex negotiations between morality and subjectivity are necessary endeavors in unpacking the history and role of representational in the shaping of how black bodies, specifically southern black bodies are read
XMLPO: An Ontology for Explainable Machine Learning Pipeline
Full text linkMachine Learning (ML) models often operate as black-boxes, lackingtransparency in their decision-making processes. Explainable Artificial Intelligence(XAI) aims to address the rationale behind these decisions, thereby enhancing thetrustworthiness of ML models. In this paper, we propose an extension of the ExplainableML Workflows ontology, which was designed as a reference ontologywith OntoUML, and implemented as an operational ontology with OWL. The ExplainableML workflows ontology reuses ML-Schema, which is a core ontologyfor representing ML algorithms.We have identified four main issues in the conceptualizationof this ontology, namely the lack of feature categorization, the lack ofdata pre-processing methods, the shallow description of metadata related to trainingand testing, and the lack of detailed representation of XAI approaches and metrics.We addressed these four issues in the so-called Explainable ML Pipeline Ontology(XMLPO), which aims to provide a comprehensive description of the MLpipeline for XAI. XMLPO offers a deeper understanding of the entire ML pipeline,encompassing data input, pre-processing, model training and testing, and explanationprocesses. XMLPO was validated through a case study on the prediction ofspecific performance indicators in a manufacturing company, and the results of thisvalidation showed that the ontology helps data scientists to better comprehend aML pipeline and the features that influence the ML prediction model the most
Agricultural data Privacy:Emerging platforms & strategies
No full textBackground: In today's world, grappling with the dual challenges of energy scarcity and climate change, the agricultural and food supply chains are at a crucial juncture for transformation. Data privacy within these sectors is increasingly significant, as the integration of advanced digital platforms becomes essential for improving efficiency and sustainability. Scope and Approach: This systematic literature review (SLR) explores the development and application of privacy-preserving data platforms specifically tailored to the agricultural and food supply chains. The review focuses on the evolving landscape of data architectures, data sovereignty, and advanced privacy-preserving techniques. Techniques such as anonymization, encryption, differential privacy, and federated learning are examined, along with the legal and ethical considerations surrounding data sharing in the context of global energy and climate-related challenges. Key Findings and Conclusions: The review synthesizes findings from a broad spectrum of studies published over the last decade, uncovering significant advancements in privacy-preserving technologies which may show their benefit for the agricultural and food sectors. It identifies dominant research trends and promising future directions for enhancing data security and sustainability. The key findings underscore the vital importance of safeguarding data privacy in these sectors, highlighting the potential of advanced privacy techniques to protect sensitive agricultural data while balancing the need for transparency and operational effectiveness. The review concludes that adopting these innovative privacy methods is crucial for fostering a more sustainable and secure future for agriculture and food systems, contributing to the global Sustainable Development Goals such as SDG 2 (Zero Hunger) and SDG 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production) by improving precision agriculture, optimizing yields (crop and animal) and reducing food waste.</p
Prevalence of chronic cough, its risk factors and population attributable risk in the Burden of Obstructive Lung Disease (BOLD) study: a multinational cross-sectional study
No full text© 2024 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)Background: Chronic cough is a common respiratory symptom with an impact on daily activities and quality of life. Global prevalence data are scarce and derive mainly from European and Asian countries and studies with outcomes other than chronic cough. In this study, we aimed to estimate the prevalence of chronic cough across a large number of study sites as well as to identify its main risk factors using a standardised protocol and definition.
Methods: We analysed cross-sectional data from 33,983 adults (≥40 years), recruited between Jan 2, 2003 and Dec 26, 2016, in 41 sites (34 countries) from the Burden of Obstructive Lung Disease (BOLD) study. We estimated the prevalence of chronic cough for each site accounting for sampling design. To identify risk factors, we conducted multivariable logistic regression analysis within each site and then pooled estimates using random-effects meta-analysis. We also calculated the population attributable risk (PAR) associated with each of the identifed risk factors.
Findings: The prevalence of chronic cough varied from 3% in India (rural Pune) to 24% in the United States of America (Lexington,KY). Chronic cough was more common among females, both current and passive smokers, those working in a dusty job, those with a history of tuberculosis, those who were obese, those with a low level of education and those with hypertension or airflow limitation. The most influential risk factors were current smoking and working in a dusty job.
Interpretation: Our findings suggested that the prevalence of chronic cough varies widely across sites in different world regions. Cigarette smoking and exposure to dust in the workplace are its major risk factors.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
