Search results for: regression training

Authors: Ci Lin, Tet Yeap, Iluju Kiringa

Abstract:

This paper introduces the subspace rotation algorithm (SRA) to train the Restricted Hopfield Network (RHN) as an auto-associative memory. Subspace rotation algorithm is a gradient-free subspace tracking approach based on the singular value decomposition (SVD). In comparison with Backpropagation Through Time (BPTT) on training RHN, it is observed that SRA could always converge to the optimal solution and BPTT could not achieve the same performance when the model becomes complex, and the number of patterns is large. The AUTS case study showed that the RHN model trained by SRA could achieve a better structure of attraction basin with larger radius(in general) than the Hopfield Network(HNN) model trained by Hebbian learning rule. Through learning 10000 patterns from MNIST dataset with RHN models with different number of hidden nodes, it is observed that an several components could be adjusted to achieve a balance between recovery accuracy and noise resistance.

Keywords: hopfield neural network, restricted hopfield network, subspace rotation algorithm, hebbian learning rule

Procedia PDF Downloads 111

Authors: Masood Monjezi

Abstract:

The English teachers’ pedagogical identity construction is the way teachers go through the process of becoming teachers and how they maintain their teaching selves. The pedagogical identity of teachers is influenced by several factors within the individual and the society. The purpose of this study was to compare the imagined social world of the pre-service teachers with the real experiences the in-service teachers had in the context of Iran to see how prepared the pre-service teachers are with a view to their identity being. This study used a qualitative approach to collection and analysis of the data. Structured and semi-structured interviews, focus groups and process logs were used to collect the data. Then, using open coding, the data were analyzed. The findings showed that the imagined world of the pre-service teachers partly corresponded with the real world experiences of the in-service teachers leaving the pre-service teachers unprepared for their real world teaching profession. The findings suggest that the current approaches to English teacher training are in need of modification to better prepare the pre-service teachers for the future that expects them.

Keywords: imagined professional world, in-service teachers, pre-service teachers, real experiences, community of practice, identity

Procedia PDF Downloads 331

Authors: Collins Ekpiwre Augustine

Abstract:

Taking into account the impact of teacher training on primary and secondary teachers’ classroom competencies and practices, as revealed by many empirical studies, this study investigated the impact of teacher qualifications on the pedagogical competencies of university teachers in Northwest Nigeria.Four research questions were answered while four hypotheses were tested. Both descriptive statistic of frequencies/arithmetic mean and inferential statistic oft-test were used to analyze the data collected. In order to provide a focus to the study,an observational rating scale titled “University Teachers’ Pedagogical Competency Observation Rating Scale” (UTPCORS) was used to collect data for the study. The population for the study comprised all the university teachers in the three Federal Universities in Northwest Nigeria totaling about 3,401. However, this pilot study was administered on 8 teachers - with 4 participants in each comparison group in Bayero University, Kano.The findings of the study revealed that there was no significant difference in the four hypotheses postulated for the study.

Keywords: impact, university teachers, teachers' qualifications, competencies

Procedia PDF Downloads 508

Authors: Armineh Nourbakhsh, Sameena Shah, Carolyn Rose

Abstract:

Layout-aware language models have been used to create multimodal representations for documents that are in image form, achieving relatively high accuracy in document understanding tasks. However, the large number of parameters in the resulting models makes building and using them prohibitive without access to high-performing processing units with large memory capacity. We propose an alternative approach that can create efficient representations without the need for a neural visual backbone. This leads to an 80% reduction in the number of parameters compared to the smallest SOTA model, widely expanding applicability. In addition, our layout embeddings are pre-trained on spatial and visual cues alone and only fused with text embeddings in downstream tasks, which can facilitate applicability to low-resource of multi-lingual domains. Despite using 2.5% of training data, we show competitive performance on two form understanding tasks: semantic labeling and link prediction.

Keywords: layout understanding, form understanding, multimodal document understanding, bias-augmented attention

Procedia PDF Downloads 143

Authors: Muhammad Tariq, Hammad Tahir, Fawwad Mahmood Butt

Abstract:

Purpose: This study attempts to examine the best forecasting methodologies in the time series. The time series forecasting models such as VAR, ARCH and the ARMA are considered for the analysis. Methodology: The Bench Marks or the parameters such as Adjusted R square, F-stats, Durban Watson, and Direction of the roots have been critically and empirically analyzed. The empirical analysis consists of time series data of Consumer Price Index and Closing Stock Price. Findings: The results show that the VAR model performed better in comparison to other models. Both the reliability and significance of VAR model is highly appreciable. In contrary to it, the ARCH model showed very poor results for forecasting. However, the results of ARMA model appeared double standards i.e. the AR roots showed that model is stationary and that of MA roots showed that the model is invertible. Therefore, the forecasting would remain doubtful if it made on the bases of ARMA model. It has been concluded that VAR model provides best forecasting results. Practical Implications: This paper provides empirical evidences for the application of time series forecasting model. This paper therefore provides the base for the application of best time series forecasting model.

Keywords: forecasting, time series, auto regression, ARCH, ARMA

Procedia PDF Downloads 337

Authors: Karen Trimmer, Raelene Ward, Linda Wondunna-Foley

Abstract:

Within Australian tertiary institutions, the subject of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander education has been a major concern for many years. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander teachers are significantly under-represented in Australian schools and universities. High attrition rates in teacher education and in the teaching industry have contributed to a minimal growth rate in the numbers of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander teachers in previous years. There was an increase of 500 Indigenous teachers between 2001 and 2008 but these numbers still only account for one percent of teaching staff in government schools who identified as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians (Ministerial Council for Education, Early Childhood Development and Youth Affairs 2010). Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander teachers are paramount in fostering student engagement and improving educational outcomes for Indigenous students. Increasing the numbers of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander teachers is also a key factor in enabling all students to develop understanding of and respect for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories, cultures, and language. An ambitious reform agenda to improve the recruitment and retention of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander teachers will be effective only through national collaborative action and co-investment by schools and school authorities, university schools of education, professional associations, and Indigenous leaders and community networks. Whilst the University of Southern Queensland currently attracts Indigenous students to its teacher education programs (61 students in 2013 with an average of 48 enrollments each year since 2010) there is significant attrition during pre-service training. The annual rate of exiting before graduation remains high at 22% in 2012 and was 39% for the previous two years. These participation and retention rates are consistent with other universities across Australia. Whilst aspirations for a growing number of Indigenous people to be trained as teachers is present, there is a significant loss of students during their pre-service training and within the first five years of employment as a teacher. These trends also reflect the situation where Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander teachers are significantly under-represented, making up less than 1% of teachers in schools across Australia. Through a project conducted as part the nationally funded More Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Teachers Initiative (MATSITI) we aim to gain an insight into the reasons that impact Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander student’s decisions to exit their program. Through the conduct of focus groups and interviews with two graduating cohorts of self-identified Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students, rich data has been gathered to gain an understanding of the barriers and enhancers to the completion of pre-service qualification and transition to teaching. Having a greater understanding of these reasons then allows the development of collaborative processes and procedures to increase retention and completion rates of new Indigenous teachers. Analysis of factors impacting on exit decisions and transitions has provided evidence to support change of practice, redesign and enhancement of relevant courses and development of policy/procedures to address identified issues.

Keywords: graduation, indigenous, pre-service teacher education, retention

Procedia PDF Downloads 463

Authors: Abraham Rotich

Abstract:

The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of relationship banking on the financial performance of SMEs. The paper attempted to establish the link between the constructs of relationship banking and SME performance. The study was guided by relationship lending, relationship monitoring, relationship risk sharing and bundle of products as independent variables while financial performance will be the dependent variable. The study used a quasi experimental design with population being the 620 SMEs who have a relationship banking arrangement with banks in Nairobi. The study used stratified sampling to pick a sample of 235. The population of interest will be the CEOs of the respective companies. The basis of stratification is the sectors in which the SMEs operate in. The study will use a questionnaire to collect data. The questionnaire will have both open and close ended questions. A pilot study will be conducted to test reliability and validity of questionnaire. The data was analyzed using descriptive statistics. Regression analysis was employed to test if there is a relationship between the dependent and the independent variable. The study found evidence that relationship banking positively impacts on financial performance of SMEs. Specifically, the study established that each component of relationship banking in this study i.e relationship lending, monitoring, bundle of products and risk sharing positively affects financial performance.

Keywords: relationship banking, SMEs, financial performance, entrepreneurial orientation

Procedia PDF Downloads 310

Authors: M. Sadoughi, R. Ehsani

Abstract:

The aim of the present study is examining the relationship between conceptual organizational culture and the level of tolerance in employees of Islamic Azad University of Shahre Ghods. This research is a correlational and analytic-descriptive one. The samples included 144 individuals. A 24-item standard questionnaire of organizational culture by Cameron and Queen was used in this study. This questionnaire has six criteria and each criterion includes four items that each item indicates one cultural dimension. Reliability coefficient of this questionnaire was normed using Cronbach's alpha of 0.91. Also, the 25-item questionnaire of tolerance by Conor and Davidson was used. This questionnaire is in a five-degree Likert scale form. It has seven criteria and is designed to measure the power of coping with pressure and threat. It has the needed content reliability and its reliability coefficient is normed using Cronbach's alpha of 0.87. Data were analyzed using Pearson correlation coefficient and multivariable regression. The results showed among various dimensions of organizational culture, there is a positive significant relationship between three dimensions (family, adhocracy, bureaucracy) and tolerance, there is a negative significant relationship between dimension of market and tolerance and components of organizational culture have the power of prediction and explaining the tolerance. In this explanation, the component of family is the most effective and the best predictor of tolerance.

Keywords: adhocracy, bureaucracy, organizational culture, tolerance

Procedia PDF Downloads 445

Authors: Gabriel Jinga, Madalina Dumitru

Abstract:

The objective of this paper is to present the process of change in management accounting in Romania, a former communist country from Eastern Europe. In order to explain this process, we used the contingency and institutional theories. We focused on the following directions: the presentation of the scientific context and motivation of this research and the case study. We presented the state of the art in the process of change in the management accounting from the international and national perspective. We also described the evolution of management accounting in Romania in the context of economic and political changes. An important moment was the fall of communism in 1989. This represents a starting point for a new economic environment and for new management accounting. Accordingly, we developed a case study which presented this evolution. The conclusion of our research was that the changes in the management accounting system of the company analysed occurred in the same time with the institutionalisation of some elements (e.g. degree of competition, training and competencies in management accounting). The management accounting system was modelled by the contingencies specific to this company (e.g. environment, industry, strategy).

Keywords: management accounting, change, Romania, contingency and institutional theory

Procedia PDF Downloads 415

Authors: Dan Wang

Abstract:

Sandplay therapy is a Jungian psychological therapy developed by Dora Kalff in 1956. In sandplay therapy, the client first makes a sandtray with various miniatures and then has a communication with the therapist based on the sandtray. The special method makes sandplay therapy has great assessment potential. With regarding that the core treatment hypothesis of sandplay therapy - the self-healing power, is very similar to resilience. This study tries to use sandplay to evaluate psychological resilience. Participants are 107 undergraduates recruited from three public universities in China who were required to make an initial sandtray and to complete the Ego-Resiliency Scale (ER89) respectively. First, a 28- category General Sandtray Coding Manual (GSCM) was developed based on literature on sandplay therapy. Next, using GSCM to code the 107 initial sandtrays and conducted correlation analysis and regression analysis between all GSCM categories and ER89. Results show three categories (i.e., vitality, water types, and relationships) of sandplay account for 36.6% of the variance of ego-resilience and form the four-point Likert-type Sandtray Projective Test of Resilience (SPTR). Finally, it is found that SPTR dimensions and total score all have good inter-rater reliability, ranging from 0.89 to 0.93. This study provides an alternative approach to measure psychological resilience and can help to guide clinical social work.

Keywords: sandplay therapy, psychological resilience, measurement, college students

Procedia PDF Downloads 249

Authors: P. S. Jagadeesh Kumar, Tracy Lin Huan, S. Meenakshi Sundaram

Abstract:

Alzheimer’s disease is one of the prevalent kind of ailment, expected for impudent reconciliation or an effectual therapy is to be accredited hitherto. Probable detonation of patients in the upcoming years, and consequently an enormous deal of apprehension in early discovery of the disorder, this will conceivably chaperon to enhanced healing outcomes. Complex impetuosity of the brain is an observant symbolic of the disease and a unique recognition of genetic sign of the disease. Machine learning alongside deep learning and decision tree reinforces the aptitude to absorb characteristics from multi-dimensional data’s and thus simplifies automatic classification of Alzheimer’s disease. Susceptible testing was prophesied and realized in training the prospect of Alzheimer’s disease classification built on machine learning advances. It was shrewd that the decision trees trained with deep neural network fashioned the excellent results parallel to related pattern classification.

Keywords: Alzheimer's diagnosis, decision trees, deep neural network, machine learning, pattern classification

Procedia PDF Downloads 291

Authors: Naser Ahmadi Sani, Karim Solaimani, Lida Razaghnia, Jalal Zandi

Abstract:

In recent decades, rapid and incorrect changes in land-use have been associated with consequences such as natural resources degradation and environmental pollution. Detecting changes in land-use is one of the tools for natural resource management and assessment of changes in ecosystems. The target of this research is studying the land-use changes in Haraz basin with an area of 677000 hectares in a 15 years period (1996 to 2011) using LANDSAT data. Therefore, the quality of the images was first evaluated. Various enhancement methods for creating synthetic bonds were used in the analysis. Separate training sites were selected for each image. Then the images of each period were classified in 9 classes using supervised classification method and the maximum likelihood algorithm. Finally, the changes were extracted in GIS environment. The results showed that these changes are an alarm for the HARAZ basin status in future. The reason is that 27% of the area has been changed, which is related to changing the range lands to bare land and dry farming and also changing the dense forest to sparse forest, horticulture, farming land and residential area.

Keywords: Haraz basin, change detection, land-use, satellite data

Procedia PDF Downloads 406

Authors: Xia Huo

Abstract:

The composition and metabolites of the gut microbiota can be altered by environmental pollutants. However, the effect of co-exposure to multiple pollutants on the human gut microbiota has not been sufficiently studied. In this study, gut microorganisms and their metabolites were compared between 33 children from Guiyu and 34 children from Haojiang. The exposure level was assessed by estimating the daily intake (EDI) of polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), 6PPD-quinone (6PPDQ), and metal(loid)s in dust. Significant correlations were found between the EDIs of 6PPDQ, BDE28, PCB52, Ni, Cu, and both the alpha diversity index and specific metabolites in single-element models. The study found that the Bayesian kernel machine regression (BKMR) model showed a negative correlation between the EDIs of five pollutants (6PPDQ, BDE28, PCB52, Ni, and Cu) and the Chao 1 index, particularly beyond the 55th percentile. Furthermore, the EDIs of these five pollutants were positively correlated with the levels of the metabolite 2,4-diaminobutyric acid while negatively correlated with the levels of d-erythro-sphingosine and d-threitol. Our research suggests that exposure to 6PPDQ, BDE28, PCB52, Ni, and Cu in kindergarten dust is associated with alterations in the gut microbiota and its metabolites. These alterations may be associated with neurodevelopmental abnormalities in children.

Keywords: gut microbiota, 6PPDQ, PBDEs, PCBs, metal(loid)s, BKMR

Procedia PDF Downloads 49

Authors: Khalid Alasim

Abstract:

This study investigates the attitudes of faculty members at Prince Sattam bin Abdulaziz University toward integrating students with disabilities. Additionally, this research examines the possible factors that might affect faculty members’ attitudes about the inclusion of students with disability; the factors include occupation, gender, college, the country in which the certificate was obtained, years of experience, previous experience in teaching students with disabilities, the presence of a family member with a disability, attending a program on teaching students with disabilities. The researcher used a survey to collect data and the study sample consisted of 102 faculty members at the university. The findings indicated an increase in the attitudes of faculty members at Prince Sattam bin Abdulaziz University towards the inclusion of students with disabilities in the university, while there is no effect for all study independents variables on the attitudes of faculty members, and there is no interaction between the variables as well. The study concluded with the importance of training and preparing faculty members to teach and deal with students with disabilities at the university level.

Keywords: attitutes, inclusion, disability, faculty members

Procedia PDF Downloads 70

Authors: Niya Chen, Jennifer Chan

Abstract:

In the financial market, risk management helps to minimize potential loss and maximize profit. There are two ways to assess risks; the first way is to calculate the risk directly based on the volatility. The most common risk measurements are Value at Risk (VaR), sharp ratio, and beta. Alternatively, we could look at the quantile of the return to assess the risk. Popular return models such as GARCH and stochastic volatility (SV) focus on modeling the mean of the return distribution via capturing the volatility dynamics; however, the quantile/expectile method will give us an idea of the distribution with the extreme return value. It will allow us to forecast VaR using return which is direct information. The advantage of using these non-parametric methods is that it is not bounded by the distribution assumptions from the parametric method. But the difference between them is that expectile uses a second-order loss function while quantile regression uses a first-order loss function. We consider several quantile functions, different volatility measures, and estimates from some volatility models. To estimate the expectile of the model, we use Realized Conditional Autoregressive Expectile (CARE) model with the bayesian method to achieve this. We would like to see if our proposed models outperform existing models in cryptocurrency, and we will test it by using Bitcoin mainly as well as Ethereum.

Keywords: expectile, CARE Model, CARR Model, quantile, cryptocurrency, Value at Risk

Procedia PDF Downloads 104

Authors: Bundit Pungnirund

Abstract:

The objectives of this research were to study the factors affecting life quality of residents who lived in the low-cost housing in Thailand. This study employed by quantitative research and the questionnaire was used to collect the data from 400 sampled of the residents in low-cost housing projects in Thailand. The descriptive statistics and multiple regression analysis were used to analyze data. The research results revealed that economic status of residents, government’s policy on dwelling places, leadership of community leaders, environmental condition of the community, and the quality of life were rated at the good level, while the participation of residents, and the knowledge and understanding of community members were rated at the high level. Furthermore, the environmental condition, the government’s policy on dwelling places, knowledge and understanding of residents, leadership of community leaders, economic status of the residents, and participation of community members had significantly affected the quality of life of residents in the low-cost housing.

Keywords: quality of life, community leadership, community participation, low-cost housing

Procedia PDF Downloads 350

Authors: Khaled M. Alqahtani

Abstract:

Copy number alterations (CNA) are variations in the structure of the genome, where certain regions deviate from the typical two chromosomal copies. These alterations are pivotal in understanding tumor progression and are indicative of patients' survival outcomes. However, effectively modeling patients' survival based on their genomic CNA profiles while identifying relevant genomic regions remains a statistical challenge. Various methods, such as the Cox proportional hazard (PH) model with ridge, lasso, or elastic net penalties, have been proposed but often overlook the inherent dependencies between genomic regions, leading to results that are hard to interpret. In this study, we enhance the elastic net penalty by incorporating an additional penalty that accounts for these dependencies. This approach yields smooth parameter estimates and facilitates variable selection, resulting in a sparse solution. Our findings demonstrate that this method outperforms other models in predicting survival outcomes, as evidenced by our simulation study. Moreover, it allows for a more meaningful interpretation of genomic regions associated with patients' survival. We demonstrate the efficacy of our approach using both real data from a lung cancer cohort and simulated datasets.

Keywords: copy number alterations, cox proportional hazard, lung cancer, regression, sparse solution

Procedia PDF Downloads 40

Authors: Bailey Houghtaling, Sarah Misyak

Abstract:

Food access; the availability, affordability, convenience, and desirability of food and beverage products within communities, is influential on consumers’ purchasing and consumption decisions. These variables may contribute to lower dietary quality scores and a higher obesity prevalence documented among rural and disadvantaged populations in the United States (U.S.). Current research assessing linkages between food access and obesity outcomes has primarily focused on distance to a traditional grocery/supermarket store as a measure of optimality. However, low-income consumers especially, including U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) participants, seem to utilize non-traditional food store formats with greater frequency for household dietary needs. Non-traditional formats have been associated with less nutritious food and beverage options and consumer purchases that are high in saturated fats, added sugars, and sodium. Authors’ formative research indicated differences by U.S. region and rurality in the distribution of traditional and non-traditional SNAP-authorized food store formats. Therefore, using Virginia as a case study, the purpose of this research was to determine if a relationship between store format, rurality, and obesity exists. This research applied SNAP-authorized food store data (food access points for SNAP as well as non-SNAP consumers) and obesity prevalence data by Virginia county using publicly available databases: (1) SNAP Retailer Locator, and; (2) U.S. County Health Rankings. The alpha level was set a priori at 0.05. All Virginia SNAP-authorized stores (n=6,461) were coded by format – grocery, drug, mass merchandiser, club, convenience, dollar, supercenter, specialty, farmers market, independent grocer, and non-food store. Simple linear regression was applied primarily to assess the relationship between store format and obesity. Thereafter, multiple variables were added to the regression to account for potential moderating relationships (e.g., county income, rurality). Convenience, dollar, non-food or restaurant, mass merchandiser, farmers market, and independent grocer formats were significantly, positively related to obesity prevalence. Upon controlling for urban-rural status and income, results indicated the following formats to be significantly related to county obesity prevalence with a small, positive effect: convenience (p=0.010), accounting for 0.3% of the variance in obesity prevalence; dollar (p=0.005; 0.5% of the variance), and; non-food (p=0.030; 1.3% of the variance) formats. These results align with current literature on consumer behavior at non-traditional formats. For example, consumers’ food and beverage purchases at convenience and dollar stores are documented to be high in saturated fats, added sugars, and sodium. Further, non-food stores (i.e., quick-serve restaurants) often contribute to a large portion of U.S. consumers’ dietary intake and thus poor dietary quality scores. Current food access research investigates grocery/supermarket access and obesity outcomes. These results suggest more research is needed that focuses on non-traditional food store formats. Nutrition interventions within convenience, dollar, and non-food stores, for example, that aim to enhance not only healthy food access but the affordability, convenience, and desirability of nutritious food and beverage options may impact obesity rates in Virginia. More research is warranted utilizing the presented investigative framework in other U.S. and global regions to explore the role and the potential of non-traditional food store formats to prevent and reduce obesity.

Keywords: food access, food store format, non-traditional food stores, obesity prevalence

Procedia PDF Downloads 132

Authors: Malakeh Zuhdi Malak, Mahmoud Taher Kalaldeh

Abstract:

In Jordan, no available data exists regarding violence and unintentional injuries among secondary school students aged 15-19 years. The purpose of this study was to assess the violence and unintentional injuries among those students, and to compare these two behaviors between male and female students. A descriptive cross-sectional design was carried out on randomly selected eight comprehensive secondary schools (four schools for females and four schools for males) from the public school educational directorate located in Amman. A modified Arabic version of the General School Health Survey questionnaire was used to measure violence and unintentional injuries. A sample of 750 secondary school students was studied. The findings showed that 26.8 % of students had been physically attacked. Overall, 43.3 % of students had been involved in a physical fight and 20.1% of them had been bullied. Overall, 45.3% of students were seriously injured. There was a difference between male and female students regarding to physical attack, physical fight, and serious injuries. In conclusion, it is necessary to develop effective training program in life skills for students that functions to reduce risk-taking behaviors that often leading to violence and unintentional injuries.

Keywords: secondary school students, violence, unintentional injuries, bullying

Procedia PDF Downloads 366

Authors: Khajeerat Phumphruk

Abstract:

This research aims to study the knowledge, attitude toward household accounting philosophy of sufficiency economy and study the Expense Behavior Changing of household accounting in Banbolang Samut Songkhram Province. The samples of this research are chief of villages and householders in Banbolang Samut Songkhram. The sampling revealed that chief of villages and 60 of householders. The random sampling was used to collect the data. Tools of this research are structure interview and questionnaires that verified by specialist as the content validity and reliability. The result found that the reasons of doing the household accounting are finding the revenue and expenditure in order to in develop the wealthy of the family and follow the philosophy of sufficiency economy of His Majesty. The reasons of not doing the household accounting are less understanding of the household accounting, less time and useless. Moreover, there are householders who interesting in training about household accounting.

Keywords: expense behavior changing, household accounting, samut songkhram province, sufficiency economy philosophy

Procedia PDF Downloads 186

Authors: Jianhua Wang, Ying Zhou, Xi Zhang

Abstract:

To establish the influential mechanism of learning engagement on interpreter’s performance, the present study submitted a questionnaire to a sample of 927 English major students with 804 valid ones and used the structural equation model as the basis for empirical analysis and statistical inference on the sample data. In order to explore the mechanism for interpreting learning engagement on student interpreters’ performance, a path model of interpreting processes with three variables of ‘input-environment-output’ was constructed. The results showed that the effect of each ‘environment’ variable on interpreting ability was different from and greater than the ‘input’ variable, and learning engagement was the greatest influencing factor. At the same time, peer interaction on interpreting performance has significant influence. Results suggest that it is crucial to provide effective guidance for optimizing learning engagement and interpreting teaching research by both improving the environmental support and building the platform of peer interaction, beginning with learning engagement.

Keywords: learning engagement, interpreting performance, interpreter training, English major students

Procedia PDF Downloads 195

Authors: Kaustav Mukherjee

Abstract:

In this paper we propose a Neural Style Transfer solution whereby we have created a Lightweight Separable Convolution Kernel Based GAN Architecture (SC-GAN) which will very useful for designing filter for Mobile Phone Cameras and also Edge Devices which will convert any image to its 2D ANIMATED COMIC STYLE Movies like HEMAN, SUPERMAN, JUNGLE-BOOK. This will help the 2D animation artist by relieving to create new characters from real life person's images without having to go for endless hours of manual labour drawing each and every pose of a cartoon. It can even be used to create scenes from real life images.This will reduce a huge amount of turn around time to make 2D animated movies and decrease cost in terms of manpower and time. In addition to that being extreme light-weight it can be used as camera filters capable of taking Comic Style Shots using mobile phone camera or edge device cameras like Raspberry Pi 4,NVIDIA Jetson NANO etc. Existing Methods like CartoonGAN with the model size close to 170 MB is too heavy weight for mobile phones and edge devices due to their scarcity in resources. Compared to the current state of the art our proposed method which has a total model size of 31 MB which clearly makes it ideal and ultra-efficient for designing of camera filters on low resource devices like mobile phones, tablets and edge devices running OS or RTOS. .Owing to use of high resolution input and usage of bigger convolution kernel size it produces richer resolution Comic-Style Pictures implementation with 6 times lesser number of parameters and with just 25 extra epoch trained on a dataset of less than 1000 which breaks the myth that all GAN need mammoth amount of data. Our network reduces the density of the Gan architecture by using Depthwise Separable Convolution which does the convolution operation on each of the RGB channels separately then we use a Point-Wise Convolution to bring back the network into required channel number using 1 by 1 kernel.This reduces the number of parameters substantially and makes it extreme light-weight and suitable for mobile phones and edge devices. The architecture mentioned in the present paper make use of Parameterised Batch Normalization Goodfellow etc al. (Deep Learning OPTIMIZATION FOR TRAINING DEEP MODELS page 320) which makes the network to use the advantage of Batch Norm for easier training while maintaining the non-linear feature capture by inducing the learnable parameters

Keywords: comic stylisation from camera image using GAN, creating 2D animated movie style custom stickers from images, depth-wise separable convolutional neural network for light-weight GAN architecture for EDGE devices, GAN architecture for 2D animated cartoonizing neural style, neural style transfer for edge, model distilation, perceptual loss

Procedia PDF Downloads 127

Authors: Arezoo Fallahi

Abstract:

We aimed at investigating the association between health beliefs and exercise behavior in infertile women who were at risk of developing osteoporosis. This cross-sectional study was conducted in Sanandaj city, west of Iran in 2018. From 35 comprehensive healthcare centers, 483 infertile women were included in the study through convenience sampling. Standardized face-to-face interviews were conducted using established, reliable instruments for the assessment of exercise behavior behavior and health beliefs. Logistic regression models were applied to assess the association between exercise behavior and health beliefs. Estimates were adjusted for age, job status, income, literacy, and duration and type of infertility. We reported estimated logits and Odds Ratios (OR) with corresponding 95% confidence intervals (95% CI). Employed women compared to housewives had substantially higher odds of adopting exercise behavior behaviors (OR=3.19, 95% CI=1.53-6.66, p<0.01). Moreover, the odds of exercise behavior adoption increased with self-efficacy (OR=1.35, 95% CI=1.20-1.52, p<0.01), and decreased with perceived barriers (OR=0.90, 95% CI=0.84-0.97, p<0.01). It is essential to increase perceived self-efficacy and reduce perceived barriers to promote EB in infertile women. Consequently, health professionals should develop or adopt appropriate strategies to decrease barriers and increase self-efficacy to enhance exercise behavior in this group of women.

Keywords: infertility, women, exercise, osteoporosis

Procedia PDF Downloads 68

Authors: Bo Wan, Xiu Wen, Lingling An, Xiaoling Ding

Abstract:

The paper describes a Chinese shadow play animation system based on Kinect. Users, without any professional training, can personally manipulate the shadow characters to finish a shadow play performance by their body actions and get a shadow play video through giving the record command to our system if they want. In our system, Kinect is responsible for capturing human movement and voice commands data. Gesture recognition module is used to control the change of the shadow play scenes. After packaging the data from Kinect and the recognition result from gesture recognition module, VRPN transmits them to the server-side. At last, the server-side uses the information to control the motion of shadow characters and video recording. This system not only achieves human-computer interaction, but also realizes the interaction between people. It brings an entertaining experience to users and easy to operate for all ages. Even more important is that the application background of Chinese shadow play embodies the protection of the art of shadow play animation.

Keywords: hadow play animation, Kinect, gesture recognition, VRPN, HCI

Procedia PDF Downloads 394

Authors: Hoda Zolfagharnejad, Behnam Kamkar, Omid Abdi

Abstract:

Crop coefficient (Kc) is an important factor contributing to estimation of evapotranspiration, and is also used to determine the irrigation schedule. This study investigated and determined the monthly Kc of winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) using five vegetation indices (VIs): Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Difference Vegetation Index (DVI), Soil Adjusted Vegetation Index (SAVI), Infrared Percentage Vegetation Index (IPVI), and Ratio Vegetation Index (RVI) of four basins in Golestan province, Iran. 14 Landsat-8 images according to crop growth stage were used to estimate monthly Kc of wheat. VIs were calculated based on infrared and near infrared bands of Landsat 8 images using Geographical Information System (GIS) software. The best VIs were chosen after establishing a regression relationship among these VIs with FAO Kc and Kc that was modified for the study area by the previous research based on R² and Root Mean Square Error (RMSE). The result showed that local modified SAVI with R²= 0.767 and RMSE= 0.174 was the best index to produce monthly wheat Kc maps.

Keywords: crop coefficient, remote sensing, vegetation indices, wheat

Procedia PDF Downloads 406

Authors: Inuusah Mahama

Abstract:

The study focused on the importance of diversity and the use of evidence-based practices and strategies in teaching learners with ASD. The study employed a mixed-methods design, including surveys, interviews, and observations. A total of 500 K-12 practitioners participated in the study, including teachers, administrators, and support staff. The study sought to investigate the current understanding and knowledge level of K-12 practitioners regarding diversity, evidence-based practices, and strategies for teaching learners with ASD. The study also examined the challenges that K-12 practitioners face in preparing learners with ASD and the resources they require to improve their practice. The results indicated that K-12 practitioners in Ghana have limited knowledge and skills in teaching learners with ASD, particularly in using evidence-based practices and strategies. Therefore, there is a need for providing training and professional development opportunities for K-12 practitioners, developing and implementing evidence-based practices and strategies, and increasing awareness of ASD and the need for effective teaching strategies. This would go a long way to improve the quality of education for learners with ASD in Ghana and ultimately lead to better outcomes for these students.

Keywords: autism, practitioners, diversity, evidence-based practises

Procedia PDF Downloads 90

Authors: Tzong-Shing Cheng, Chen Pei Chen, Shu-Wei Chen

Abstract:

The purpose of this research is to apply Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) model to investigate the factors that influence elementary school teacher’s behavior of using e-books. Based on the literature review, a questionnaire was modified and used to test the elementary school teachers in Changhua. A total of 420 questionnaires were administered and 364 of them were returned, including 328 valid and 36 invalid questionnaires. The effective response rate is 78%. The methods of data analysis include descriptive statistics, factor analysis, Pearson’s correlation coefficient, one way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and simple regression analysis. The results show that: 1. There were significant difference in the Elementary school teachers’ “Performance Expectancy”, “Effort Expectancy”, “Social Influence”, and “Facilitating Conditions” depending on their different “Demographic Variables”. 2. “Performance Expectancy” and “Behavioral Intention to Use” are positively correlated. 3. “Effort Expectancy” and “Behavioral Intention to Use” are positively correlated. 4. There was no significant relationship between “Social Influence” and “Behavioral Intention to Use”. 5. There was significant relationship between “Facilitating Conditions” and “Use Behavior”.

Keywords: e-books, UTAUT, elementary school teacher, behavioral intention to use

Procedia PDF Downloads 603

Authors: Fereshteh Darash

Abstract:

Reflective tax management corresponds to the Agency Theory since it determines the motivation of managers for tax management actions and short-term and long-term consequences. Therefore, selection of tax strategy contributes to the tax and financial position of the firm in the future. The aim of the present research is to evaluate the effect of tax management components on risk-taking of firms listed in Tehran stock exchange by using regression analysis method. Results show that tax effective rate, tax risk and tax planning have no significant effect on the firm's future risk. Results suggest that stakeholders assess the effective tax rate and delay in tax payment in line with their benefits. They tend to accept the higher risk cost for reduction of tax payments and benefits of higher liquidity in current period. Hence, effective tax rate and tax risk have no significant effect on future risk of the firm. Moreover, tax planning yields no information regarding the predictability of the future profits and as a result, it has no significant effect on the future risk of the firm since specific goals of financial reporting are in priority for the stakeholders and regardless of the firm’s data analysis, they take investment decisions and they less intend to purchase the stocks in a rational manner.

Keywords: tax management, tax effective rate, tax risk, tax planning, firm risk

Procedia PDF Downloads 127

Authors: Trupti Meher, Harihar Sahoo

Abstract:

Premature menopause refers to the occurrence of menopause before the age of 40 years. Women who experience premature menopause either due to biological or induced reasons have a longer duration of exposure to severe symptoms and adverse health consequences when compared to those who undergo menopause at a later age, despite the fact that premature menopause has a profound effect on the health of women. This study attempted to determine the prevalence and predictors of premature menopause among women aged 25-39 years, using data from the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-4) conducted during 2015–16 in India. Descriptive statistics and multinomial logistic regression were used to carry out the result. The results revealed that the prevalence of premature menopause in India was 3.7 percent. Out of which, 2.1 percent of women had experienced natural premature menopause, whereas 1.7 percent had premature surgical menopause. The prevalence of premature menopause was highest in the southern region of India. Further, results of the multivariate model indicated that rural women, women with higher parity, early age at childbearing and women with smoking habits were at a greater risk of premature menopause. A sizeable proportion of women in India are attaining menopause prematurely. Unless due attention is given to this matter, it will emerge as a major problem in India in the future. The study also emphasized the need for further research to enhance knowledge on the problems of premature menopausal women in different socio-cultural settings in India.

Keywords: India, natural menopause, premature menopause, surgical menopause

Procedia PDF Downloads 201

Authors: Hamid Ahmadi, Neda Azari Dodaran

Abstract:

This paper aims to study the structural behavior of tubular KT-joints subjected to axial loading at fire induced elevated temperatures. At first, a finite element (FE) model was developed and validated against the data available from experimental tests. Then, a set of 810 FE analyses were performed to study the influence of temperature and dimensionless geometrical parameters (β, γ, θ, and τ) on the ultimate strength and initial stiffness. The joints were analyzed under two types of axial loading and five different temperatures (20 ºC, 200 ºC, 400 ºC, 550 ºC, and 700 ºC). Results show that the ultimate strength and initial stiffness of KT-joints decrease considerably by increasing the temperature. In the joints having bigger values of the β, the temperature elevation leads to less reduction in ultimate strength; while in the joints with bigger values of the γ, the temperature elevation results in more reduction in ultimate strength. The influence of the θ on the ultimate strength is independent from the temperature. To our knowledge, there is no design formula available for determining the ultimate strength of KT-joints at elevated temperatures. Hence, after parametric study, two equations were developed through nonlinear regression, for calculating the ultimate strength of KT-joints at elevated temperatures.

Keywords: axial loads, fire condition, parametric formula, static strength, tubular KT-joint

Procedia PDF Downloads 148