Papers by Rodrigo Martinez
Expert Systems With Applications, 2006
The aim of this work is to present a developed knowledge-based approach for breast cancer treatme... more The aim of this work is to present a developed knowledge-based approach for breast cancer treatment. This Decision Support System (DSS) uses an incremental knowledge acquisition technique called Multiple Classification Ripple Down Rules (MCRDR) and a breast cancer treatments knowledge base. This system integrate MCRDR inference engine and use knowledge bases to reach advanced reasoning level during the decision making process. The knowledge base will be built from clinical protocols, and its content will be updated by the doctor using the MCRDR component. This DSS infers a cancer treatment from the (clinical or pathological) input data supplied by the physician and it also allows the maintenance of the knowledge base. q
Expert Systems With Applications, 2005
This paper presents a framework that merges various advanced information technologies for develop... more This paper presents a framework that merges various advanced information technologies for developing electronic commerce (e-commerce) applications. The use of e-commerce utilities provides several advantages to businesses. Intelligent agents can be used to facilitate some tasks from those that take place in a commercial transaction moving to a second generation of e-commerce applications. We present a prototype which integrates a multiagent system (composed by buyer and seller agents) with a Web application. q
Expert Systems With Applications, 2009
Intelligent agents and semantic web services are two technologies with great potential. Striking ... more Intelligent agents and semantic web services are two technologies with great potential. Striking new applications can be developed by using the tools and techniques they provide. However, semantic web services need for an upper software entity able to deal with them and, on the other hand agent technology has historically suffered from a number of drawbacks that must be addressed. Integrating these two technologies in a joint environment can overcome their problems while strengthening their advantages. In this paper, the necessity for integrating these technologies and the potential benefits of their combination are analyzed. Based on this study, we present SEM-MAS, an ontology-based framework for seamlessly integrating Intelligent Agents and Semantic Web Services. The basics of the framework are detailed and a proof-of-concept implementation described.
Expert Systems With Applications, 2006
Nowadays, employment has a huge social importance. Current tools for facilitating job searches la... more Nowadays, employment has a huge social importance. Current tools for facilitating job searches lack in providing intelligent matching between employer advertisements and the curriculum vitae of the candidates. The objective of this research work was to develop an intelligent web portal to serve as service provider in recruitment tasks. This portal aims at helping people living in the region of the South-east of Spain to find a job. For this purpose, the knowledge of the recruitment domain has been represented by means of ontology, which has been used to guide the design of the application and to supply the system with semantic capabilities. Furthermore, the ontological component allows for defining an ontology-guided search engine which provides more intelligent matches between job offers and candidates' curricula. Finally, this work covers the design of the ontology and the development of the web portal. Both issues are discussed and some validation results are presented. q
Expert Systems With Applications, 2009
The essential elements of effective learning are control of students' skills and feedback between... more The essential elements of effective learning are control of students' skills and feedback between students and their tutor. The main idea behind the approach presented here is that a domain ontology is not only useful as a learning instrument but it can also be employed to assess students' skills. For it, each student is prompted to express his/her beliefs by building her/his own discipline-related ontology and then it is compared to a reference one. The analysis of students' mistakes allows to propose them personalized recommendations and to improve the course materials in general. In this work, we present a Semantic Web technologies-based multi-agent system that allows to automatically control students' acquired knowledge in e-learning frameworks.
Journal of Biomedical Informatics, 2008
The increasing volume and diversity of information in biomedical research is demanding new approa... more The increasing volume and diversity of information in biomedical research is demanding new approaches for data integration in this domain. Semantic Web technologies and applications can leverage the potential of biomedical information integration and discovery, facing the problem of semantic heterogeneity of biomedical information sources. In such an environment, agent technology can assist users in discovering and invoking the services available on the Internet. In this paper we present SEMMAS, an ontology-based, domain-independent framework for seamlessly integrating Intelligent Agents and Semantic Web Services. Our approach is backed with a proof-of-concept implementation where the breakthrough and efficiency of integrating disparate biomedical information sources have been tested.
Hearing Research, 2007
Stem cells in various mammalian organs retain the capacity to renew themselves and may be able to... more Stem cells in various mammalian organs retain the capacity to renew themselves and may be able to restore damaged tissue. Their existence has been proven by genetic tracer studies that demonstrate their differentiation into multiple tissue types and by their ability to self-renew through proliferation. Stem cells from the adult nervous system proliferate to form clonal floating colonies called spheres in vitro, and recent studies have demonstrated sphere formation by cells in the cochlea in addition to the vestibular system and the auditory ganglia, indicating that these tissues contain cells with stem cell properties. The presence of stem cells in the inner ear raises the hope of regeneration of mammalian inner ear cells but is difficult to correlate with the lack of spontaneous regeneration seen in the inner ear after tissue damage. Loss of stem cells postnatally in the cochlea may correlate with the loss of regenerative capacity and may limit our ability to stimulate regeneration. Retention of sphere forming ability in adult vestibular tissues suggests that the limited capacity for repair may be attributed to the continued presence of progenitor cells. Future strategies for regeneration must consider the distribution of endogenous stem cells in the inner ear and whether the tissue retains cells with the capacity for regeneration.
Journal of Neurobiology, 2006
Hearing loss can be caused by primary degeneration of spiral ganglion neurons or by secondary deg... more Hearing loss can be caused by primary degeneration of spiral ganglion neurons or by secondary degeneration of these neurons after hair cell loss. The replacement of auditory neurons would be an important step in any attempt to restore auditory function in patients with damaged inner ear neurons or hair cells. Application of β-bungarotoxin, a toxin derived from snake venom, to an explant of the cochlea eradicates spiral ganglion neurons while sparing the other cochlear cell types. The toxin was found to bind to the neurons and to cause apoptotic cell death without affecting hair cells or other inner ear cell types as indicated by TUNEL staining, and, thus, the toxin provides a highly specific means of deafferentation of hair cells. We therefore used the denervated organ of Corti for the study of neuronal regeneration and synaptogenesis with hair cells and found that spiral ganglion neurons obtained from the cochlea of an untreated newborn mouse reinnervated hair cells in the toxin-treated organ of Corti and expressed synaptic vesicle markers at points of contact with hair cells. These findings suggest that it may be possible to replace degenerated neurons by grafting new cells into the organ of Corti. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Neurobiol, 2006
Developmental Neurobiology, 2008
Inner ear stem cells can be isolated by neurosphere formation from the vestibular organs and the ... more Inner ear stem cells can be isolated by neurosphere formation from the vestibular organs and the cochlea. The cells are pluripotent, with the potential to become hair cells and neurons, the cochlear cell types whose loss causes deafness. Here we describe the control of cell fate decisions that determine the phenotype adopted by these progenitors, and we determine whether differentiation to sensory neurons is preferred over other types of neurons. Differentiation of progenitor cells recapitulated developmental pathways of embryonic sensory neurons. Based on marker expression, retinoic acid increased the yield of neurons and the percentage of sensory neurons obtained and caused a sharp increase in Pax2, a key transcription factor of cranial placodes. Markers of embryonic auditory and other sensory neurons, GATA3, Brn3a, and islet1, could be detected after 3 days of differentiation of the cells, and markers of the sensory phenotype, peripherin, calretinin, TrkC, and TrkB were expressed after 10 days. The differentiated cells had tetrodotoxin-sensitive sodium currents and fired action potentials, and recordings revealed functional AMPA type-glutamate receptors, further indicating that these cells had developed neuronal features. Neurons differentiated from these stem cells grew processes to hair cells in vitro. Development of functional activity in cells with the markers of sensory neurons suggested that the inner ear stem cells might have the capacity to replace cells lost due to neural degeneration. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Develop Neurobiol 2008
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Papers by Rodrigo Martinez