Search results for: support function

Authors: Maria Janet, Anita David, P. Vijayasamundeeswarimaria

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Introduction: The main purpose of this study is to compare the effectiveness of web-based and blended learning on Paediatric Basic Life Support on competency among undergraduate nursing students in selected nursing colleges in Chennai. Materials and methods: A descriptive pre-test and post-test study design were used for this study. Samples of 100 Fourth year B.Sc., nursing students at Sri Ramachandra Faculty of Nursing SRIHER, Chennai, 100 Fourth year B.Sc., nursing students at Apollo College of Nursing, Chennai, were selected by purposive sampling technique. The instrument used for data collection was Knowledge Questionnaire on Paediatric Basic Life Support (PBLS). It consists of 29 questions on the general expansion of Basic Life Support and Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation, Prerequisites of Basic Life Support, and Knowledge on Paediatric Basic Life Support in which each question has four multiple choices answers, each right answer carrying one mark and no negative scoring. This questionnaire was formed with reference to AHA 2020 (American Heart Association) revised guidelines. Results: After the post-test, in the web-based learning group, 58.8% of the students had an inadequate level of objective performance score, while 41.1% of them had an adequate level of objective performance score. In the blended learning group, 26.5% of the students had an inadequate level of an objective performance score, and 73.4% of the students had an adequate level of an objective performance score. There was an association between the post-test level of knowledge and the demographic variables of undergraduate nursing students undergoing blended learning. The age was significant at a p-value of 0.01, and the performance of BLS before was significant at a p-value of 0.05. The results show that there was a significant positive correlation between knowledge and objective performance score of undergraduate nursing students undergoing web-based learning on paediatric basic life support.

Keywords: basic life support, paediatric basic life support, web-based learning, blended learning

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Authors: Teresa Leary Handy

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As awareness of the importance of diversity has increased in society, higher education has also begun to recognize the importance of supporting faculty of color. In the university setting, faculty women of color specifically encounter barriers that impact their level of job satisfaction, retention rates, and pedagogical practices. These barriers and challenges not only undermine faculty diversity efforts but also hinder the ability of colleges and universities to provide a supportive environment that fosters students' academic success and sense of belonging. Faculty who are marginalized and on the periphery in higher education institutions need support so that they can feel confident in building a student’s sense of belonging which can impact a student’s academic success and goal of earning a college degree. This study examined and sought to understand the importance of supporting faculty of color, specifically women faculty of color, and how this type of faculty support can impact student academic success and a student’s sense of belonging. The study furthered original research on strategies to move an institution forward on the equity spectrum to support belonging and inclusions as core culture elements.

Keywords: equity, inclusion, belonging, women, faculty support

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Authors: Florenda B. Cardinoza

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This study was conducted to determine the determinants of Grade III and grade VI pupils’ performance in the National Achievement Test in the Division of Cavite City, School Year 2011-2012. Specifically, the research aimed to: (1) describe the demographic profile of the respondents in terms of age, sex, birth order, family size, family income, and occupation of parents; (2) determine the level of attitude towards NAT; and (3) describe the degree of relationship between the following variables: school support, teachers’ support, and lastly family support for the pupils’ performance in 2012 NAT. The study used the descriptive-correlation research method to investigate the determinants of pupils’ performance in the National Achievement Test of Public Elementary Schools in the Division of Cavite City. The instrument used in data gathering was a self-structured survey. The NAT result for SY 2011-2012 provided by NETRC and DepEd Cavite City was also utilized. The statistical tools used to process and analyze the data were frequency distribution, percentage, mean, standard deviation, Kruskall Wallis, Mann-Whitney, t-test for independent samples, One-way ANOVA, and Spearman Rank Correlational Coefficient. Results revealed that there were more female students than males in the Division of Cavite City; out of 659 respondents, 345 were 11 years old and above; 390 were females; 283 were categorized as first child in the family; 371 of the respondents were from small family; 327 had Php5000 and below family income; 450 of the fathers’ respondents were non professionals; and 431 of the mothers respondents had no occupation. The attitude towards NAT, with a mean of 1.65 and SD of .485, shows that respondents considered NAT important. The school support towards NAT, with a mean of 1.89 and SD of .520, shows that respondents received school support. The pupils had a very high attitude towards teachers’ support in NAT with a mean of 1.60 and SD of .572. Family support, with t-test of 16.201 with a p-value of 0.006, shows significant at 5 percent level. Thus, the determinants of pupils’ performance in NAT in terms of family support for NAT preparation is not significant according to their family income. The grade level, with the t-test is 4.420 and a p-value of 0.000, is significant at 5 percent level. Therefore, the determinants of pupils’ performance in NAT in terms of grade level for NAT preparation vary according to their grade level. For the determinants of pupils’ performance of NAT sample test for attitude towards NAT, school support, teachers’ support, and family support were noted highly significant with a p value of 0.000.

Keywords: achievement, determinants, national, performance, public, pupils', test

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Authors: Birgit Reime, Sonja Gscheidle, Toni Hübener, Lara Hübener

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Suicide in individuals under 30 years is a global public health concern. The objective of this study was to identify strategies for the prevention of suicide and suicidal behavior preferred by adolescents and young adults who are vulnerable to suicidal behavior and by relevant experts. Using semi-structured interviews with n= 17 adolescents and young adults (18-25 years of age) and with n= 11 experts from relevant fields, we have applied an inductive approach and applied thematic content analysis. Six strategies for suicide prevention in young individuals were reported. These were digital solutions with appealing designs, anonymous support, trained peer support, spiritual support, improving existing structures, and raising suicide literacy. Accessibility of anonymous digital support may contribute to suicide prevention in young people.

Keywords: suicide prevention, adolescents, E-health, Germany

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Authors: Fedorova Elena

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In this article, we draw a distinction between two important functions of public policy in private international law. The first function is widely recognized and relates to the prevention of application of foreign laws and enforcement of foreign court judgments whenever their effects are incompatible with the domestic legal system of the forum. This effectively protects sovereign rights of the forum state as it allows to resist against the undesirable effects of foreign law-making and law-enforcement policies. The second function is less obvious, but not less important. As the internal private legal relationships, international private relationships are usually governed by rules of public policy, to which the parties can not derogate by mutual agreement. Thefore, for international private law relations public policy has a different function than previously mentioned: in this case, the public policy acts as a defense against unacceptable effects of the party autonomy. Thus, this second function of public policy consists in the limitation of the party autonomy wich effects would be unacceptable for the local legal system. In the frame of this second function the author will analyse two types of public policy which can limit the party autonomy: « substantial » public policy (which regulates the substance of international legal relationship) and « conflictual » public policy (which regulates the party autonomy to choose the law applicable for the substance of relationship). The author provides an analysis of these functions of the public policy in the field of international contract law because of the important role of the principle of party autonomy for international contract relations.

Keywords: public policy, general theory of private international law, substantial public policy, conflictual public policy

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Authors: Muhammad Saqib Manzoor, Camille Dickson-Deane, Prashan Karunaratne

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Cobb-Douglas production (utility) function is a fundamental function widely used in economics teaching and research. The key reason is the function's characteristics to describe the actual production using inputs like labour and capital. The characteristics of the function like returns to scale, marginal, and diminishing marginal productivities are covered in the introductory units in both microeconomics and macroeconomics with a 2-dimensional static visualisation of the function. However, less insight is provided regarding three-dimensional surface, changes in the curvature properties due to returns to scale, the linkage of the short-run production function with its long-run counterpart and marginal productivities, the level curves, and the constraint optimisation. Since (freshman) learners have diverse prior knowledge and cognitive skills, the existing “one size fits all” approach is not very helpful. The aim of this study is to bridge this gap by introducing technological intervention with interactive animations of the three-dimensional surface and sequential unveiling of the characteristics mentioned above using Python software. A small classroom intervention has helped students enhance their analytical and visualisation skills towards active and authentic learning of this topic. However, to authenticate the strength of our approach, a quasi-Delphi study will be conducted to ask domain-specific experts, “What value to the learning process in economics is there using a 2-dimensional static visualisation compared to using a 3-dimensional dynamic visualisation?’ Here three perspectives of the intervention were reviewed by a panel comprising of novice students, experienced students, novice instructors, and experienced instructors in an effort to determine the learnings from each type of visualisations within a specific domain of knowledge. The value of this approach is key to suggesting different pedagogical methods which can enhance learning outcomes.

Keywords: cobb-douglas production function, quasi-Delphi method, effective teaching and learning, 3D-visualisations

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Authors: Zunaira Asif, Zhi Chen

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The sustainable measures on air quality management are recognized as one of the most serious environmental concerns in the mining region. The mining operations emit various types of pollutants which have significant impacts on the environment. This study presents a stochastic control strategy by developing the air pollution control model to achieve a cost-effective solution. The optimization method is formulated to predict the cost of treatment using linear programming with an objective function and multi-constraints. The constraints mainly focus on two factors which are: production of metal should not exceed the available resources, and air quality should meet the standard criteria of the pollutant. The applicability of this model is explored through a case study of an open pit metal mine, Utah, USA. This method simultaneously uses meteorological data as a dispersion transfer function to support the practical local conditions. The probabilistic analysis and the uncertainties in the meteorological conditions are accomplished by Monte Carlo simulation. Reasonable results have been obtained to select the optimized treatment technology for PM_2.5, PM₁₀, NO_x, and SO₂. Additional comparison analysis shows that baghouse is the least cost option as compared to electrostatic precipitator and wet scrubbers for particulate matter, whereas non-selective catalytical reduction and dry-flue gas desulfurization are suitable for NO_x and SO₂ reduction respectively. Thus, this model can aid planners to reduce these pollutants at a marginal cost by suggesting control pollution devices, while accounting for dynamic meteorological conditions and mining activities.

Keywords: air pollution, linear programming, mining, optimization, treatment technologies

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Authors: Amanpreet Kaur

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Wavelet transform (WT) is a powerful statistical tool used in applied mathematics for signal and image processing. The different mother, wavelet basis function, has been compared to select the optimal wavelet function that represents the electromyogram signal characteristics of upper limb amputees. Four different EMG electrode has placed on different location of shoulder muscles. Twenty one wavelet functions from different wavelet families were investigated. These functions included Daubechies (db1-db10), Symlets (sym1-sym5), Coiflets (coif1-coif5) and Discrete Meyer. Using mean square error value, the significance of the mother wavelet functions has been determined for teres, pectorals, and infraspinatus around shoulder muscles. The results show that the best mother wavelet is the db3 from the Daubechies family for efficient classification of the signal.

Keywords: Daubechies, upper limb amputation, shoulder muscles, Symlets, Coiflets

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Authors: Matthew Fleet, Savannah Elliott

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Background: This study investigates the use of teaching and learning to meet the needs of deaf children in the UK PE curriculum. Research has illustrated that deaf students in mainstream schools do not receive sufficient support from teachers in lessons. This research examines the impact of different types of hearing loss and its implications within Physical Education (PE) in secondary schools. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to highlight challenges PE teachers face and make recommendations for more inclusive learning environments for deaf students. The aims and objectives of this research are: to critically analyse the current situation for deaf students accessing the PE curriculum, by identifying barriers deaf students face; to identify the challenges for PE teachers in providing appropriate support for deaf students; to provide recommendations for deaf awareness training, to enhance PE teachers’ understanding and knowledge. Method: Semi-structured interviews collected data from both PE teachers and deaf students, to examine: the support available and coping mechanisms deaf students use when they do not receive support; strategies PE teachers use to provide support for deaf students; areas for improvement and potential strategies PE teachers can apply to their practice. Results & Conclusion: The findings from the study concluded that PE teachers were inconsistent in providing appropriate support for deaf students in PE lessons. Evidence illustrated that PE teachers had limited exposure to deaf awareness training. This impacted on their ability to support deaf students effectively. Communication was a frequent barrier for deaf students, affecting their ability to retain and learn information. Also, the use of assistive technology was found to be compromised in practical PE lessons.

Keywords: physical education, deaf, inclusion, education

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Authors: Rizky Oktaviana

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The main purpose of studying lies in improving students’ understanding. Teachers usually use written test to measure students’ understanding about learning material especially mathematical learning material. This common method actually has a lack point, such that in mathematics content, written test only show procedural steps to solve mathematical problems. Therefore, teachers unable to see whether students actually understand about mathematical concepts and the relation between concepts or not. One of the best tools to observe students’ understanding about the mathematical concepts is concept map. The goal of this research is to describe junior high school students understanding about mathematical concepts through Concept Maps based on the difference of mathematical ability. There were three steps in this research; the first step was choosing the research subjects by giving mathematical ability test to students. The subjects of this research are three students with difference mathematical ability, high, intermediate and low mathematical ability. The second step was giving concept mapping training to the chosen subjects. The last step was giving concept mapping task about the function to the subjects. Nodes which are the representation of concepts of function were provided in concept mapping task. The subjects had to use the nodes in concept mapping. Based on data analysis, the result of this research shows that subject with high mathematical ability has formal understanding, due to that subject could see the connection between concepts of function and arranged the concepts become concept map with valid hierarchy. Subject with intermediate mathematical ability has relational understanding, because subject could arranged all the given concepts and gave appropriate label between concepts though it did not represent the connection specifically yet. Whereas subject with low mathematical ability has poor understanding about function, it can be seen from the concept map which is only used few of the given concepts because subject could not see the connection between concepts. All subjects have instrumental understanding for the relation between linear function concept, quadratic function concept and domain, co domain, range.

Keywords: concept map, concept mapping, mathematical concepts, understanding

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Authors: K. R. Balabiyev, A. O. Kaipbayeva

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The article discusses the legal framework of the government’s environmental function and analyzes the role of the national policy in protection of wetlands. The problem is of interest for it deals with the most important branch of economy–utilization of Kazakhstan’s natural resources, protection of health and environmental well being of the population. Development of a long-term environmental program addressing the protection of wetlands represents the final stage of the government’s environmental policy, and is a relatively new function for the public administration system. It appeared due to the environmental measures that require immediate decisions to be taken. It is an integral part of the effort in the field of management of state-owned natural resource, as well as of the measures aimed at efficient management of natural resources to avoid their early depletion or contamination.

Keywords: environmental focus, government’s environmental function, protection of wetlands, Kazakhstan

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Authors: Baha Eddine Aissou, Aichouche Belhadj Aissa

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Light detection and ranging (LiDAR) is an active remote sensing technology used for several applications. Airborne LiDAR is becoming an important technology for the acquisition of a highly accurate dense point cloud. A classification of airborne laser scanning (ALS) point cloud is a very important task that still remains a real challenge for many scientists. Support vector machine (SVM) is one of the most used statistical learning algorithms based on kernels. SVM is a non-parametric method, and it is recommended to be used in cases where the data distribution cannot be well modeled by a standard parametric probability density function. Using a kernel, it performs a robust non-linear classification of samples. Often, the data are rarely linearly separable. SVMs are able to map the data into a higher-dimensional space to become linearly separable, which allows performing all the computations in the original space. This is one of the main reasons that SVMs are well suited for high-dimensional classification problems. Only a few training samples, called support vectors, are required. SVM has also shown its potential to cope with uncertainty in data caused by noise and fluctuation, and it is computationally efficient as compared to several other methods. Such properties are particularly suited for remote sensing classification problems and explain their recent adoption. In this poster, the SVM classification of ALS LiDAR data is proposed. Firstly, connected component analysis is applied for clustering the point cloud. Secondly, the resulting clusters are incorporated in the SVM classifier. Radial basic function (RFB) kernel is used due to the few numbers of parameters (C and γ) that needs to be chosen, which decreases the computation time. In order to optimize the classification rates, the parameters selection is explored. It consists to find the parameters (C and γ) leading to the best overall accuracy using grid search and 5-fold cross-validation. The exploited LiDAR point cloud is provided by the German Society for Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing, and Geoinformation. The ALS data used is characterized by a low density (4-6 points/m²) and is covering an urban area located in residential parts of the city Vaihingen in southern Germany. The class ground and three other classes belonging to roof superstructures are considered, i.e., a total of 4 classes. The training and test sets are selected randomly several times. The obtained results demonstrated that a parameters selection can orient the selection in a restricted interval of (C and γ) that can be further explored but does not systematically lead to the optimal rates. The SVM classifier with hyper-parameters is compared with the most used classifiers in literature for LiDAR data, random forest, AdaBoost, and decision tree. The comparison showed the superiority of the SVM classifier using parameters selection for LiDAR data compared to other classifiers.

Keywords: classification, airborne LiDAR, parameters selection, support vector machine

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Authors: Salah R. Al Zaidee, Ali S. Mahdi

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Except for simple problems of statically determinate structures, optimum design problems in structural engineering have implicit objective functions where structural analysis and design are essential within each searching loop. With these implicit functions, the structural engineer is usually enforced to write his/her own computer code for analysis, design, and searching for optimum design among many feasible candidates and cannot take advantage of available software for structural analysis, design, and searching for the optimum solution. The meta-model is a regression model used to transform an implicit objective function into objective one and leads in turn to decouple the structural analysis and design processes from the optimum searching process. With the meta-model, well-known software for structural analysis and design can be used in sequence with optimum searching software. In this paper, the meta-model has been used to develop an explicit objective function for plane steel frames subjected to dead, live, and seismic forces. Frame topology is assumed as predefined based on architectural and functional requirements. Columns and beams sections and different connections details are the main design variables in this study. Columns and beams are grouped to reduce the number of design variables and to make the problem similar to that adopted in engineering practice. Data for the implicit objective function have been generated based on analysis and assessment for many design proposals with CSI SAP software. These data have been used later in SPSS software to develop a pure quadratic nonlinear regression model for the explicit objective function. Good correlations with a coefficient, R², in the range from 0.88 to 0.99 have been noted between the original implicit functions and the corresponding explicit functions generated with meta-model.

Keywords: meta-modal, objective function, steel frames, seismic analysis, design

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Authors: Arunima Datta, Prathama Guha Chaudhuri, Ashis Mukhopadhyay

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Background: Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) is one of the newer forms (third wave) therapy. This therapy helps a cancer patient to increase acceptance level about their disease as well as their present situation. Breast cancer patients are known to suffer from depression and mild cognitive impairment; both affect their quality of life. Objectives:The present study had assessed effect of structured ACT intervention on cognitive function and acceptance level among breast cancer patients who were undergoing chemotherapy. Method: Data was collected from 123 breast cancer patients those who were undergoing chemotherapy were willing to undergo psychological treatment, with no history of past psychiatric illness. Their baseline of cognitive function and acceptance levels were assessed using validated tools. The effect of sociodemographic factors and clinical factors on cognitive function was determined at baseline.The participants were randomly divided into two groups: experimental (ACT, 4 sessions over 2 months) and control group. Cognitive function and acceptance level were measured during post intervention on 2months follow-up. Appropriate statistical analyses were performed to determine the effect on cognitive function and acceptance level in two groups. Result: At baseline, the factors that significantly influenced slower speed of task performance were ER PR HER2 status; number of chemo cycle, treatment type (Adjuvant and neo-adjuvant) was related with that. Sociodemographic characteristics did not show any significant difference between slow and fast performance. Per and post intervention analysis showed that ACT intervention resulted in significant difference both in terms of speed of cognitive performance and acceptance level. Conclusion: ACT is an effective therapeutic option for treating mild cognitive impairment and improve acceptance level among breast cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy.

Keywords: acceptance and commitment therapy, breast cancer, quality of life, cognitive function

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Authors: Feride Eskin Bacaksiz, Aytolan Yildirim

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Practices voluntarily performed by organizations for their employees well-being, create an emotional imperative for employees in accordance with reciprocity norm. Changes in desired course occur in organizational outputs and attitudes towards organization among employees perceiving their organizations as virtuous and supportive. The aim of this study was to examine the effect of organizational virtuousness on performance and organizational identification levels of employees and mediating role of perceived organizational support in this relationship. The data of this descriptive and methodological study were collected from 336 nurses working in a public university hospital in 2015. Participant information form, Organizational Virtuousness, Perceived Organizational Support, Organizational Identification, and Employee Performance scales were used to collect the data. Descriptive, correlative, psychometric analyses and Structural Equation Modeling were performed for the data analysis. Most of the participants were female, under 30 years of age, graduated degrees and staff nurse. Mean scores obtained by the participants from scales were calculated as 3.43(SD=.99) for organizational virtuousness, 2.99 (SD=1.16) for perceived organizational support, 3.18 (SD=1.03) for organizational identification and 3.84 (SD=0.66) for employee performance. It was found that correlation between organizational virtuousness and employee performance regressed from r=0.64 to r=-0.01 and correlation between organizational virtuousness and organizational identification regressed from r=0.55 to r=-0.16 and became statistically non-significant (p < 0.05) via mediating role of perceived organizational support. According to the results, perceived organizational support assumes full mediation on the impact of organizational virtues of employee performance and organizational identification levels. Therefore, organizations, which intend to positively affect employees attitudes towards organization and their performance, should both extend organizational virtuous activities and affect perceptions of employees; whereas, employees should perceive that they are supported by their organization.

Keywords: employee performance, organizational identification, organizational virtuousness, perceived organizational support

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Authors: Arindam Chaudhuri

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The research presents epsilon- hierarchical fuzzy twin support vector regression (epsilon-HFTSVR) based on epsilon-fuzzy twin support vector regression (epsilon-FTSVR) and epsilon-twin support vector regression (epsilon-TSVR). Epsilon-FTSVR is achieved by incorporating trapezoidal fuzzy numbers to epsilon-TSVR which takes care of uncertainty existing in forecasting problems. Epsilon-FTSVR determines a pair of epsilon-insensitive proximal functions by solving two related quadratic programming problems. The structural risk minimization principle is implemented by introducing regularization term in primal problems of epsilon-FTSVR. This yields dual stable positive definite problems which improves regression performance. Epsilon-FTSVR is then reformulated as epsilon-HFTSVR consisting of a set of hierarchical layers each containing epsilon-FTSVR. Experimental results on both synthetic and real datasets reveal that epsilon-HFTSVR has remarkable generalization performance with minimum training time.

Keywords: regression, epsilon-TSVR, epsilon-FTSVR, epsilon-HFTSVR

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Authors: Jian-Jun Gao

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Repetition is used for a variety of functions in conversation. When young children first learn to speak, they often repeat words from the adult’s recent utterance with the learning and social function. The objective of this study was to ascertain whether the repetitions are equivalent in indicating attention to new words and the initial repeat of information in conversation. Based on the observation of naturally occurring language use in Taiwan Corpus of Child Mandarin (TCCM), the results in this study provided empirical support to the previous findings that children are more likely to repeat new words they are offered than to repeat new information. When children get older, there would be a drop in the repetition of both new words and new information.

Keywords: acquisition, corpus, mandarin, new words, new information, repetition

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Authors: Mogale Sabone, Thabiso Ntlole

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The pressure from globalization has made manufacturing organizations to move towards three major competitive arenas: quality, cost, and responsiveness. Quality is a universal value and has become a global issue. In order to survive and be able to provide customers with good products, manufacturing organizations’ supporting systems, tools, and structures it uses must grow or evolve. The majority of quality management concepts and strategies that are practiced recently are aimed at detecting and correcting problems which already exist and serve to limit losses. In agile manufacturing environment there is no room for defect and error so it needs a quality management which is proactively directed at problem prevention. This proactive quality management avoids losses by focusing on failure prevention, virtual elimination of the possibility of premature failure, mistake-proofing, and assuring consistently high quality in the definition and design of creation processes. To achieve this, a decision support tool for quality control and management is suggested. Current decision support tools/methods used by most manufacturing companies in Botswana for quality management and control are not integrated, for example they are not consistent since some tests results data is recorded manually only whilst others are recorded electronically. It is only a set of procedures not a tool. These procedures cannot offer interactive decision support. This point brings to light the aim of this research which is to develop a framework which will help manufacturing companies in Botswana build a decision support tool for quality control and management.

Keywords: decision support tool, manufacturing, quality control, quality management

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Authors: S. Yaman, S. Rostami

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In this study, a black box modeling of the coupled-tank system is obtained by using fuzzy sets. The derived model is tested via adaptive neuro fuzzy inference system (ANFIS). In order to achieve a better control performance, the parameters of three different controller types, classical proportional integral controller (PID), fuzzy PID and function tuner method, are tuned by one of the evolutionary computation method, genetic algorithm. All tuned controllers are applied to the fuzzy model of the coupled-tank experimental setup and analyzed under the different reference input values. According to the results, it is seen that function tuner method demonstrates better robust control performance and guarantees the closed loop stability.

Keywords: function tuner method (FTM), fuzzy modeling, fuzzy PID controller, genetic algorithm (GA)

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Authors: Gizelle K. Vianna, Gustavo S. Oliveira, Gabriel V. Cunha

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The use of decision support systems in agriculture may help monitoring large fields of crops by automatically detecting the symptoms of foliage diseases. In our work, we designed and implemented a decision support system for small tomatoes producers. This work investigates ways to recognize the late blight disease from the analysis of digital images of tomatoes, using a pair of multilayer perceptron neural networks. The networks outputs are used to generate repainted tomato images in which the injuries on the plant are highlighted, and to calculate the damage level of each plant. Those levels are then used to construct a situation map of a farm where a cellular automata simulates the outbreak evolution over the fields. The simulator can test different pesticides actions, helping in the decision on when to start the spraying and in the analysis of losses and gains of each choice of action.

Keywords: artificial neural networks, cellular automata, decision support system, pattern recognition

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Authors: V. Vargas-Alejo, L. E. Montero-Moguel

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Understanding the concept of function has been important in mathematics education for many years. In this study, the models built by a group of five business administration and accounting undergraduate students when carrying out a population growth activity are analyzed. The theoretical framework is the Models and Modeling Perspective. The results show how the students included tables, graphics, and algebraic representations in their models. Using technology was useful to interpret, describe, and predict the situation. The first model, the students built to describe the situation, was linear. After that, they modified and refined their ways of thinking; finally, they created exponential growth. Modeling the activity was useful to deep on mathematical concepts such as covariation, rate of change, and exponential function also to differentiate between linear and exponential growth.

Keywords: covariation reasoning, exponential function, modeling, representations

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Authors: Haji Ali Haji, Hussein Suleman, Ulrike Rivett

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This paper presents the design, development and evaluation of an application prototype developed to support tuberculosis (TB) patients’ treatment adherence. The system makes use of graphics and voice reminders as opposed to text messaging to encourage patients to follow their medication routine. To evaluate the effect of the prototype applications, participants were given mobile phones on which the reminder system was installed. Thirty-eight people, including TB health workers and patients from Zanzibar, Tanzania, participated in the evaluation exercises. The results indicate that the participants found the mobile graphic-based application is useful to support TB treatment. All participants understood and interpreted the intended meaning of every image correctly. The study findings revealed that the use of a mobile visual-based application may have potential benefit to support TB patients (both literate and illiterate) in their treatment processes.

Keywords: ICT4D, mobile technology, tuberculosis, visual-based reminder

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Authors: Changho Han, Jaemin Lee, Li Hua, Seokkwon Jeong

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Design of membership function ranges in fuzzy logic control (FLC) is presented for robust control of a variable speed refrigeration system (VSRS). The criterion values of the membership function ranges can be carried out from the static experimental data, and two different values are offered to compare control performance. Some simulations and real experiments for the VSRS were conducted to verify the validity of the designed membership functions. The experimental results showed good agreement with the simulation results, and the error change rate and its sampling time strongly affected the control performance at transient state of the VSRS.

Keywords: variable speed refrigeration system, fuzzy logic control, membership function range, control performance

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Authors: Sagri Sharma

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Analysis of diseases integrating multi-factors increases the complexity of the problem and therefore, development of frameworks for the analysis of diseases is an issue that is currently a topic of intense research. Due to the inter-dependence of the various parameters, the use of traditional methodologies has not been very effective. Consequently, newer methodologies are being sought to deal with the problem. Supervised Learning Algorithms are commonly used for performing the prediction on previously unseen data. These algorithms are commonly used for applications in fields ranging from image analysis to protein structure and function prediction and they get trained using a known dataset to come up with a predictor model that generates reasonable predictions for the response to new data. Gene expression profiles generated by DNA analysis experiments can be quite complex since these experiments can involve hypotheses involving entire genomes. The application of well-known machine learning algorithm - Support Vector Machine - to analyze the expression levels of thousands of genes simultaneously in a timely, automated and cost effective way is thus used. The objectives to undertake the presented work are development of a methodology to identify genes relevant to Hepatocellular Carcinoma (HCC) from gene expression dataset utilizing supervised learning algorithms and statistical evaluations along with development of a predictive framework that can perform classification tasks on new, unseen data.

Keywords: artificial intelligence, biomarker, gene expression datasets, hepatocellular carcinoma, machine learning, supervised learning algorithms, support vector machine

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Authors: Amy M. Kwon

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Support vector machine (SVM) is a well-known algorithm in machine learning due to its superior performance, and it also functions well in multiple-instance (MI) problems. Our study proposes a schematic algorithm to select instances based on Hausdorff distance, which can be adapted to SVMs as input vectors under the MI setting. Based on experiments on five benchmark datasets, our strategy for adapting representation outperformed in comparison with original approach. In addition, task execution times (TETs) were reduced by more than 80% based on MissSVM. Hence, it is noteworthy to consider this representation adaptation to SVMs under MI-setting.

Keywords: support vector machine, Margin, Hausdorff distance, representation selection, multiple-instance learning, machine learning

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Authors: Murzabekova Gulden

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Directional implicit functions for underdetermined nonsmooth systems in terms of the new tool of the Nonsmooth analysis - exhausters are considered. A method for finding an implicit function for underdetermined nonsmooth systems is proposed.

Keywords: implicit function, exhauster, nonsmooth systems

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Authors: Ya-Mei Chang

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This research is intended to apply spatio-temporal point process methods to the dengue fever data in Tainan. The spatio-temporal intensity function of the dataset is assumed to be separable. The kernel estimation is a widely used approach to estimate intensity functions. The intensity function is very helpful to study the relation of the spatio-temporal point process and some covariates. The covariate effects might be nonlinear. An nonparametric smoothing estimator is used to detect the nonlinearity of the covariate effects. A fitted parametric model could describe the influence of the covariates to the dengue fever. The correlation between the data points is detected by the K-function. The result of this research could provide useful information to help the government or the stakeholders making decisions.

Keywords: dengue fever, spatial point process, kernel estimation, covariate effect

Procedia PDF Downloads 330

Authors: Sasibhushan Yengala, Nelson Muthu, Subramani Kanagaraj

Abstract:

The abstract reports on the design related to a modular and affordable standing cum sitting device to meet the requirements of paraplegic patients of the different physiques. Paraplegic patients need the assistance of an external arrangement to the lower limbs and trunk to help patients adopt the correct posture while standing abreast gravity. This support can be from a tilt table or a standing frame which the patient can use to stay in a vertical posture. Standing frames are devices fitting to support a person in a weight-bearing posture. Commonly, these devices support and lift the end-user in shifting from a sitting position to a standing position. The merits of standing for a paraplegic patient with a spinal injury are numerous. Even when there is limited control on muscles that ordinarily support the user using the standing frame in a vertical position, the standing stance improves the blood pressure, increases bone density, improves resilience and scope of motion, and improves the user's feelings of well-being by letting the patient stand. One limitation with standing frames is that these devices are typically function definitely; cannot be used for different purposes. Therefore, users are often compelled to purchase more than one of these devices, each being purposefully built for definite activities. Another concern frequent in standing frames is manoeuvrability; it is crucial to provide a convenient adjustment scope for all users. Thus, there is a need to provide a standing frame with multiple uses that can be economical for a larger population. There is also a need to equip added readjustment means in a standing frame to lessen the shear and to accommodate a broad range of users. The proposed Versatile Standing cum Sitting Device (VSD) is designed to change from standing to a comfortable sitting position using a series of mechanisms. First, a locking mechanism is provided to lock the VSD in a standing stance. Second, a dampening mechanism is provided to make sure that the VSD shifts from a standing to a sitting position gradually when the lock mechanism gets disengaged. An adjustment option is offered for the height of the headrest via the use of lock knobs. This device can be used in clinics for rehabilitation purposes irrespective of patient's anthropometric data due to its modular adjustments. It can facilitate the patient's daily life routine while in therapy and giving the patient the comfort to sit when tired. The device also provides the availability of rehabilitation to a common person.

Keywords: paraplegic, rehabilitation, spinal cord injury, standing frame

Procedia PDF Downloads 188

Authors: K. Verlinden

Abstract:

Being the first family member to study is challenging due to the lack of intergenerational support, financial challenges, etc. The often very deficit-oriented view of these first-generation students (FGS) is challenged by assuming that precisely these students have a high degree of resilience, which will be demonstrated by comparing individual resilience factors. First-generation students are disproportionately often found in courses of social work. Correspondingly, this study compares two samples from social work (FGS vs. non-FGS) with regard to certain determinants of resilience, such as grit, social support, self-efficacy, sense of coherence, and emotional intelligence. An online questionnaire was generated from valid psychological instruments and handed out to the sample. The results portray a double mediation model in which gender and being an FGS associate with lower levels of individual resources, which in then associate with social support. This tiered model supports the possibility that individual resources facilitate the recruitment and use of social support and perhaps other related social resources to better cope with academic challenges.

Keywords: resilience, first generation students, grit, self-efficacy

Procedia PDF Downloads 105

Authors: Songwu Shen, Garrett Drysdale, Veerendranath Mannepalli, Qihua Dai, Yuan Wang, Yuli Chen, David Qian, Utkarsh Kakaiya

Abstract:

Hardware accelerator has been a promising solution to reduce the cost of cloud data centers. This paper investigates the QoS enhancement of the acceleration of an important datacenter workload: the webserver (or proxy) that faces high computational consumption originated from secure sockets layer (SSL) or transport layer security (TLS) procession in the cloud environment. Our study reveals that for the accelerator maintenance cases—need to upgrade driver/firmware or hardware reset due to hardware hang; we still can provide cryptography services by switching to software during maintenance phase and then switching back to accelerator after maintenance. The switching is seamless to server application such as Nginx that runs inside a VM on top of the server. To achieve this high availability goal, we propose a comprehensive fallback solution based on Intel® QuickAssist Technology (QAT). This approach introduces an architecture that involves the collaboration between physical function (PF) and virtual function (VF), and collaboration among VF, OpenSSL, and web application Nginx. The evaluation shows that our solution could provide high reliability, availability, and scalability (RAS) of hardware cryptography service in a 7x24x365 manner in the cloud environment.

Keywords: accelerator, cryptography service, RAS, secure sockets layer/transport layer security, SSL/TLS, virtualization fallback architecture

Procedia PDF Downloads 127