Search results for: physically oriented

Authors: Mari Carmen Reyes Angeles, Dalia Michel Reyes Villeda, Ana María Herrera González

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This work reports the design and synthesis of two composite materials based on physically activated carbon and basic polyelectrolytes useful in the adsorption of textile dyes present in aqueous solutions and wastewater. The synthesis of basic polyelectrolytes poly(2-vinylpyridine) (P2VP) and poly(4-vinylpyridine) (P4VP) was made by means of free radical polymerization. The carbon made from prickly pear peel (CarTunaF) was thermally activated in the presence of combustion gases. Composite materials CarTunaF2VP and CarTunaF4VP were obtained from CarTunaF and polybasic polyelectrolytes P2VP and P4VP with a ratio of 67:33 wt. The structure of each polyelectrolyte, P2VP, and P4VP, was elucidated by means of the FTIR and 1H NMR spectrophotometric techniques. Their thermal stability was evaluated using TGA. The characterization of CarTunaF and composite materials CarTunaF2VP and CarTunaF4VP was made by means of FTIR, TGA, SEM, and N2 adsorption. The adsorptive capacities of the polyelectrolytes and the composite materials were evaluated by adsorption of direct dyes present in aqueous solutions. The polyelectrolytes removed between 90 and 100% of the dyes, and the composite materials removed between 68 and 93% of the dyes. Using the four adsorbents P2VP, P4VP, CarTuna2VP, and CarTuna4VP, it was observed that the dyes studied, Direct Blue 80, Direct Turquoise 86, and Direct Orange 26, were adsorbed in the range between 46.1 and 188.7mg∙g-1 by means of electrostatic interactions between the anionic groups in the dyes with the cationic groups in the adsorbents. By using adsorbent materials in the treatment of wastewater from the textile industry, an improvement in the quality of the water was observed by decreasing its pH, COD, conductivity, and color considerably

Keywords: adsorption, anionic dyes, composite, polyelectrolytes

Procedia PDF Downloads 73

Authors: Gia Surguladze, Nino Topuria, Lily Petriashvili, Giorgi Surguladze

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Modeling of building processes of a multimodal freight transportation support information system is discussed based on modern CASE technologies. Functional efficiencies of ports in the eastern part of the Black Sea are analyzed taking into account their ecological, seasonal, resource usage parameters. By resources, we mean capacities of berths, cranes, automotive transport, as well as work crews and neighbouring airports. For the purpose of designing database of computer support system for Managerial (Logistics) function, using Object-Role Modeling (ORM) tool (NORMA – Natural ORM Architecture) is proposed, after which Entity Relationship Model (ERM) is generated in automated process. The software is developed based on Process-Oriented and Service-Oriented architecture, in Visual Studio.NET environment.

Keywords: seaport resources, business-processes, multimodal transportation, CASE technology, object-role model, entity relationship model, SOA

Procedia PDF Downloads 404

Authors: Zeljana Aljinovic Barac, Marina Granic, Tina Vuko

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Study investigates the level and extent of voluntary disclosure practice in Croatia. The research was conducted on the sample of 130 medium and large companies. Findings indicate that two thirds of the companies analysed disclose below-average number of additional information. The explanatory analyses has shown that firm size, listing status and industrial sector significantly and positively affect the level and extent of voluntary disclosure in the annual report of Croatian companies. On the other hand, profitability and ownership structure were found statistically insignificant. Unlike previous studies, this paper deals with level of voluntary disclosure of medium and large companies, as well as companies whose shares are not listed on the organized capital market, which can be found as our contribution. Also, the research makes contribution by providing the insights into voluntary disclosure practices in Croatia, as a case of macro-oriented accounting system economy, i.e. bank oriented economy with an emerging capital market.

Keywords: annual report, Croatian companies, disclosure index, voluntary disclosure

Procedia PDF Downloads 303

Authors: Eudjen Cinc

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The contemporary society, which is, whether we like it or not, oriented towards utilitarianism, pragmatics and professional flexibility, lives in a certain paradox. On the one hand, at least declaratively, the accent of modern society is on knowledge; knowledge is even considered to be a commodity, the popularity of education is increased as the only means of survival in the market-oriented world, while on the other hand modern society is moving towards simplification and decreasing the amount of information and areas which are considered necessary in the generally excepted concept of education. We cannot talk about the preschool teacher profession without mentioning work with gifted children. The preschool teacher knowing the characteristics of gifted children is of utmost importance because their early identification and professional guidance are of cardinal importance for the direction in which the children will develop. When we talk about musical ability, in the first phase, the role of preschool teachers in the identification and stimulation of gifted children naturally refers to monitoring children’s musical manifestation. The identification process and work with the gifted presupposes a good relationship with the family, synergy of these two important influences in the child’s education and upbringing.

Keywords: music education, gifted children, methodology, kindergarten

Procedia PDF Downloads 249

Authors: Stephanie Ho

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This project utilizes principles derived from the Surrealist movement to prioritize creative and critical thinking in secondary English Language Arts (ELA). The implementation of Surrealist-style pedagogies within an ELA classroom will be rooted in critical, radical pedagogy, which addresses the injustices caused by economic-oriented educational systems. The use of critical pedagogy will enable the subversive artistic and political aims of Surrealism to be transmitted to a classroom context. Through aesthetic reading strategies, appreciative questioning and dialogue, students will actively critique the power dynamics which structure (and often restrict) their lives. Within the ELA domain, cost-effective approaches often replace the actual “arts” of ELA. This research will therefore explore how Surrealist-oriented pedagogies could restore imaginative freedom and deconstruct conceptual barriers (normative standards, curricular constraints, and status quo power relations) in secondary ELA. This research will also examine how Surrealism can be used as a political and pedagogical model to treat societal problems mirrored in ELA classrooms. The stakeholders are teachers, as they experience constant pressure within their practices. Similarly, students encounter rigorous, results-based pressures. These dynamics contribute to feelings of powerlessness, thus reinforcing a formulaic model of ELA. The ELA curriculum has potential to create laboratories for critical discussion and active movement towards social change. This proposed research strategy of Surrealist-oriented pedagogies could enable students to experiment with social issues and develop senses of agency and voice that reflect awareness of contemporary society while simultaneously building their ELA skills.

Keywords: arts-informed pedagogies, language arts, literature, surrealism

Procedia PDF Downloads 107

Authors: Ahmed R. Ismail, Hatem A. El Tawil, Nevin G. Rezk

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Historic paths in today's cities are facing the pressure of the urban development due to the rapid urban growth. Every new development is tearing the old urban fabric and the socio-economic character of the historic paths. Furthermore, in some cases historic paths suffer from negligence and decay. Kom El Dekka historic path was one of those deteriorated paths in the city of Alexandria, Egypt, in spite of its high heritage and socio-economic value. Therefore, there was a need to develop urban regeneration strategies as a part of a wider sustainable development vision, to handle the situation and revitalize the path as a livable space in the heart of the city. This study aims to develop a comprehensive assessment methodology to evaluate the different values of the path and to create community-oriented and economic-based analysis methodology for its socio-economic values. These analysis and assessments provide strategies for any regeneration action plan for Kom El Dekka historic path.

Keywords: community-oriented, economic-based, syntactical analysis, urban regeneration

Procedia PDF Downloads 397

Authors: Hasan Coruk, Recep Cakir

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This study aimed at investigating the effect of multimedia containing ‘the structure and properties of matter’ unit on students’ academic achievement level and self-efficacy relating to science and technology course. The study used an experimental design with pre-test and post-test groups. The data collection tools were ‘Science and Technology Course Achievement Test’ and ‘Science and Technology Self-Efficacy Scale’. The sample of the study consisted of 8th grade students at a primary school in Tokat Province. The study was carried out with 42 students from two classes, 21 (8 males, 13 females) from experimental group and 21 (13 males and 8 females) from control group. The data were analyzed in SPSS.18 software. The findings of the study indicated that the use of multimedia increased the students’ academic achievement in science and technology course in comparison with traditional teaching methods. It was also determined that there was not a significant difference in students’ course-oriented self-efficacy levels regarding the two methods. Necessary and feasible suggestions were put forward for whom it concerns.

Keywords: multimedia learning, science and technology, the structure-properties of matter, self-efficacy, academic achievement

Procedia PDF Downloads 427

Authors: Sharad Shrivastava, Arun Jalan

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In this study tensile testing was performed on randomly oriented short glass fiber/epoxy resin composite specimens which were prepared using hand lay-up method. Samples were tested over a wide range of strain rate/loading rate from 2mm/min to 40mm/min to see the effect on ultimate tensile strength of the composite. A multi layered 'back propagation artificial neural network of supervised learning type' was used to analyze and predict the tensile properties with strain rate and temperature as given input and output as UTS to predict. Various network structures were designed and investigated with varying parameters and network sizes, and an optimized network structure was proposed to predict the UTS of short glass fiber/epoxy resin composite specimens with reasonably good accuracy.

Keywords: glass fiber composite, mechanical properties, strain rate, artificial neural network

Procedia PDF Downloads 418

Authors: Rachmat Mauludin, Novita R. Kusuma, Diky Mudhakir

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Famotidine (FMT) is one of used substances in the treatment of hiperacidity and peptic ulcer, administered orally and parenterally via intravenous injection. Oral administration, which is more favorable, has been reported to have many obstacles in the process of the treatment, includes decreasing the bioavailability of FMT. This research was aimed to prepare FMT in form of solid lipid nanoparticles (SLN) with size ranging between 100-200 nm. The research was carried out also by optimizing factors that may affect physical stability of SLN. Formulation of Famotidine SLN was carried out by optimizing factors, such as duration of homogenization and sonication, lipid concentration, stabilizer composition and stabilizer concentration. SLN physical stability was evaluated (particle size distribution) for 42 days in 3 diferent temperatures. Entrapment efficiency and drug loading was determined indirectly and directly. The morphology of SLN was visualized by transmission electron microscope (TEM). In vitro release study of FMT was conducted in 2 mediums, at pH of 1.2 and 7.4. Chemical stability of FMT was determined by quantifying the concentration of FMT within 42 days. Famotidin SLN consisted of GMS as lipid and poloxamer 188, lecithin, and polysorbate 80 as stabilizers. Homogenization and sonication was performed for 5 minutes and 10 minutes. Physyical stability of nanoparticles at 3 different temperatures was no significant difference. The best formula was physically stable until 42 days with mean particle size below 200 nm. Nanoparticles produced was able to entrap FMT until 86.6%. Evaluation by TEM showed that nanoparticles was spherical and solid. In medium pH of 1.2, FMT was released only 30% during 4 hour. On the other hand, within 4 hours SLN could release FMT completely in medium pH of 7.4. The FMT concentration in nanoparticles dispersion was maintained until 95% in 42 days (40oC, RH 75%). Famotidine SLN was able to be produced with mean particle size ranging between 100-200 nm and physically stable for 42 days. SLN could be loaded by 86,6% of FMT. Morphologically, obtained SLN was spheric and solid. During 4 hours in medium pH of 1.2 and 7.4, FMT was released until 30% and 100%, respectively.

Keywords: solid lipid nanoparticle (SLN), famotidine (FMT), physicochemical properties, release study

Procedia PDF Downloads 333

Authors: M. Doumi, K. Tahir, A. Miloudi, A. G. Aissaoui, C. Belfedal, S. Tahir

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This paper presents a three-phase grid-connected photovoltaic generation system with unity power factor for any situation of solar radiation based on voltage-oriented control (VOC). An input voltage clamping technique is proposed to control the power between the grid and photovoltaic system, where it is intended to achieve the maximum power point operation. This method uses a Perturb and Observe (P&O) controller. The main objective of this work is to compare the energy production unit performances by the use of two types of controllers (namely, classical PI and Sliding Mode (SM) Controllers) for the grid inverter control. The proposed control has a hierarchical structure with a grid side control level to regulate the power (PQ) and the current injected to the grid and to obtain a common DC voltage constant. To show the effectiveness of both control methods performances analysis of the system are analyzed and compared by simulation and results included in this paper.

Keywords: grid connected photovoltaic, MPPT, inverter control, classical PI, sliding mode, DC voltage constant, voltage-oriented control, VOC

Procedia PDF Downloads 583

Authors: Tejaswi Agarwal, Amritansh Agarwal

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Forest ecosystem plays very important role in the global carbon cycle. It stores about 80% of all above ground and 40% of all below ground terrestrial organic carbon. There is much interest in the extent of tropical forests and their rates of deforestation for two reasons: greenhouse gas contributions and the impact of profoundly negative biodiversity. Deforestation has many ecological, social and economic consequences, one of which is the loss of biological diversity. The rapid deployment of remote sensing (RS) satellites and development of RS analysis techniques in the past three decades have provided a reliable, effective, and practical way to characterize terrestrial ecosystem properties. Global estimates of tropical deforestation vary widely and range from 50,000 to 170,000km2 /yr Recent FAO tropical deforestation estimates for 1990–1995 cite 116,756km2 / yr globally. Remote Sensing can prove to be a very useful tool in monitoring of forests and associated deforestation to a sufficient level of accuracy without the need of physically surveying the forest areas as many of them are physically inaccessible. The methodology for the assessment of forest cover using digital image processing (ERDAS) has been followed. The satellite data for the study was procured from Indian institute of remote Sensing (IIRS), Dehradoon in the digital format. While procuring the satellite data, care was taken to ensure that the data was cloud free and did not belong to dry and leafless season. The Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) has been used as a numerical indicator of the reduction in ground biomass. NDVI = (near I.R - Red)/ (near I.R + Red). After calculating the NDVI variations and associated mean, we have analysed the change in ground biomass. Through this paper, we have tried to indicate the rate of deforestation over a given period of time by comparing the forest cover at different time intervals. With the help of remote sensing and GIS techniques, it is clearly shown that the total forest cover is continuously degrading and transforming into various land use/land cover category.

Keywords: remote sensing, deforestation, supervised classification, NDVI, change detection

Procedia PDF Downloads 1150

Authors: Amritansh Agarwal, Tejaswi Agarwal

Abstract:

Forest ecosystem plays very important role in the global carbon cycle. It stores about 80% of all above ground and 40% of all below ground terrestrial organic carbon. There is much interest in the extent of tropical forests and their rates of deforestation for two reasons: greenhouse gas contributions and the impact of profoundly negative biodiversity. Deforestation has many ecological, social and economic consequences, one of which is the loss of biological diversity. The rapid deployment of remote sensing (RS) satellites and development of RS analysis techniques in the past three decades have provided a reliable, effective, and practical way to characterize terrestrial ecosystem properties. Global estimates of tropical deforestation vary widely and range from 50,000 to 170,000 km2 /yr Recent FAO tropical deforestation estimates for 1990–1995 cite 116,756km2 / yr globally. Remote Sensing can prove to be a very useful tool in monitoring of forests and associated deforestation to a sufficient level of accuracy without the need of physically surveying the forest areas as many of them are physically inaccessible. The methodology for the assessment of forest cover using digital image processing (ERDAS) has been followed. The satellite data for the study was procured from USGS website in the digital format. While procuring the satellite data, care was taken to ensure that the data was cloud and aerosol free by making using of FLAASH atmospheric correction technique. The Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) has been used as a numerical indicator of the reduction in ground biomass. NDVI = (near I.R - Red)/ (near I.R + Red). After calculating the NDVI variations and associated mean we have analysed the change in ground biomass. Through this paper we have tried to indicate the rate of deforestation over a given period of time by comparing the forest cover at different time intervals. With the help of remote sensing and GIS techniques it is clearly shows that the total forest cover is continuously degrading and transforming into various land use/land cover category.

Keywords: remote sensing, deforestation, supervised classification, NDVI change detection

Procedia PDF Downloads 372

Authors: Luyao Zhang, Tianyu Wu, Jiayi Li, Carlos-Gustavo Salas-Flores, Saad Lahrichi

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Recent advances in AI have made algorithmic trading a central role in finance. However, current research and applications are disconnected information islands. We propose a generally applicable pipeline for designing, programming, and evaluating algorithmic trading of stock and crypto tokens. Moreover, we provide comparative case studies for four conventional algorithms, including moving average crossover, volume-weighted average price, sentiment analysis, and statistical arbitrage. Our study offers a systematic way to program and compare different trading strategies. Moreover, we implement our algorithms by object-oriented programming in Python3, which serves as open-source software for future academic research and applications.

Keywords: algorithmic trading, AI for finance, fintech, machine learning, moving average crossover, volume weighted average price, sentiment analysis, statistical arbitrage, pair trading, object-oriented programming, python3

Procedia PDF Downloads 116

Authors: Homa Hedayat

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Public spaces have been a central concern of urban planners for centuries but have been neglected for a long time. In the modernist planning, the focus has been on the requirements of cars rather than the needs and expectations of pedestrians, and therefore, cities have lost many qualities. Urban public space is a space within the city area which is accessible to all people and is the ground for their activity. People’s public life occurs in urban public spaces in a complex set of forms and functions. These spaces must facilitate diverse behavior, uses, and activities such as shopping, walking, conversation, entertainment, relaxation or even passing the time during festivities and events. One of the public spaces is the surrounding space of public transportation stations. Subway stations, although potentially encompass many different groups of people accommodate few social interactions. Making the surrounding areas of subway stations pedestrian-oriented, potentially increases the socialization capacity. The Sadeghieh Subway Station can be considered as the most important subway station in Tehran, which on the one hand is the rail port of Tehran's western entrance, and on the other is the port for railway journeys inside the city. The main concern of this study is to assess the success or failure of the interventions made by the municipality for changing the surrounding area of the Sadeghieh Subway Station into a pedestrian-oriented space and examine the amount of the area's improvement into a desirable space. The method used in this study is surveying, in which the data were collected using a questionnaire and interview. The study's population is all people who use Sadeghieh Subway, and the sample size for the study was 140 subjects. Using parametric one-sample t-test, we found improvement in factors such as transportation, security, pedestrian infrastructure, vitality and climate comfort. However, there was no improvement in mix use, recreational activity, readability.

Keywords: public space, public transportation stations, pedestrian-oriented space, socialization

Procedia PDF Downloads 184

Authors: Fuyang Peng, Donghong Li

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The aim of information systems integration is to make all the data sources, applications and business flows integrated into the new environment so that unwanted redundancies are reduced and bottlenecks and mismatches are eliminated. Two issues have to be dealt with to meet such requirements: the software architecture that supports resource integration, and the adaptor development tool that help integration and migration of legacy applications. In this paper, a service-enabled dependable integration environment (SDIE), is presented, which has two key components, i.e., a dependable service integration platform and a legacy application integration tool. For the dependable platform for service integration, the service integration bus, the service management framework, the dependable engine for service composition, and the service registry and discovery components are described. For the legacy application integration tool, its basic organization, functionalities and dependable measures taken are presented. Due to its service-oriented integration model, the light-weight extensible container, the service component combination-oriented p-lattice structure, and other features, SDIE has advantages in openness, flexibility, performance-price ratio and feature support over commercial products, is better than most of the open source integration software in functionality, performance and dependability support.

Keywords: application integration, dependability, legacy, SOA

Procedia PDF Downloads 340

Authors: Iván García-Magariño, Javier Bravo-Agapito, Marta López-Fernández

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Online judges have proven their utility in partial auto-evaluation of programming short exercises in the last decades. UnitJudge online judge has the advantage of facilitating the evaluation of separate units to provide more segregate and meaningful feedback to students in complex exercises and practices. This paper discusses the use of UnitUdge in advanced Java object-oriented programming exercises and web development practices. This later usage has been proposed by means of the Selenium Java library and classes to provide the web address. Consequently, UnitJudge is an online judge system that can be applied in several subjects, and therefore, many other students would take advantage of self-testing their exercises. This paper presents the experiments with a Java programming exercise for learning Java object-oriented classes with a generic type. Considering 10 students who voluntarily used UnitJudge, 80% successfully learned this concept, passing the judge exercise with correct results.

Keywords: online judges, programming skills, computer science education, auto-evaluation

Procedia PDF Downloads 55

Authors: Syed Ibrahim, Syed Muneer Ahmed

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It is a global phenomenon that fitness is a pre-requisite to the desired end of optimum efficiency in elite class basketballers achieved through appropriate conditioning program. This study was undertaken to find out the effect of gymnastic oriented training program on the physical fitness and the level of technical performance of basketball players. Method: 27 basketballers were divided into 12 experimental and 15 control groups aged between 19 to 25 years. Physical fitness tests comprising of vertical jump, push-ups, chin ups, sit ups, back strength, 30 m sprint, boomerangs test, 600 m run, sit and reach, bridge up and shoulder rotation and technical skill tests like dribbling, layup shots and rebound collection were used for the study. A pre- and post-test was conducted before and after the training program of 6 weeks. Results: The results indicated no significant difference in the anthropometric measurements of age, height and weight between the experimental and control group as the ‘t’ values observed were 0.28, 1.63 and 1.60 respectively . There were significant improvements in vertical jump, push-ups, sit-ups, modified boomerang test, bridge test and shoulder rotation index with the ‘t’ values being 2.60, 3.41, 3.91, 4.02, 3.55 and 2.33 respectively. However, no significant differences existed in chin-ups, back strength, 30 m sprint and 6000 m run with the ‘t’ values being 2.08, 1.77, 1.28 and 0.80 respectively. There was significant improvement in the post-test for the technical skills tests in the experimental group with ‘t’ values being 3.65, 2.57, and 3.62 for the dribble, layup shots and rebound collection respectively. There was no significant difference in the values of the control group except in the rebound collection which showed significant difference. Conclusion: It was found that both the physical fitness and skill proficiency of the basketballers increased through the participation in the gymnastics oriented program.

Keywords: gymnastic, technical, pre-requisite, elite class

Procedia PDF Downloads 375

Authors: Christine Winberg, James Garraway

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Many key university documents, such as vision and mission statements and strategic plans, are aspirational and future-oriented. There is a wide range of future-oriented methods that are used in planning applications, ranging from mathematical modelling to expert opinions. Many of these methods have limitations, and planners using these tools might, for example, make the technical-rational assumption that their plans will unfold in a logical and inevitable fashion, thus underestimating the many complex forces that are at play in planning for an unknown future. This is the issue that this study addresses. The overall project aim was to assist a new university of technology in developing appropriate responses to its social responsibility, graduate employability and research missions in its strategic plan. The specific research question guiding the research activities and approach was: how might the use of innovative future-oriented planning tools enable or constrain a strategic planning process? The research objective was to engage collaborating groups in the use of an innovative tool to develop and assess future scenarios, for the purpose of developing deeper understandings of possible futures and their challenges. The scenario planning tool chosen was ‘fictive scripting’, an analytical technique derived from Technology Forecasting and Innovation Studies. Fictive scripts are future projections that also take into account the present shape of the world and current developments. The process thus began with a critical diagnosis of the present, highlighting its tensions and frictions. The collaborative groups then developed fictive scripts, each group producing a future scenario that foregrounded different institutional missions, their implications and possible consequences. The scripts were analyzed with a view to identifying their potential contribution to the university’s strategic planning exercise. The unfolding fictive scripts revealed a number of insights in terms of unexpected benefits, unexpected challenges, and unexpected consequences. These insights were not evident in previous strategic planning exercises. The contribution that this study offers is to show how better choices can be made and potential pitfalls avoided through a systematic foresight exercise. When universities develop strategic planning documents, they are looking into the future. In this paper it is argued that the use of appropriate tools for future-oriented exercises, can help planners to understand more fully what achieving desired outcomes might entail, what challenges might be encountered, and what unexpected consequences might ensue.

Keywords: fictive scripts, scenarios, strategic planning, technological forecasting

Procedia PDF Downloads 101

Authors: Felermino D. M. A. Ali, S. C. Ng

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E-learning is an evolutionary form of distance learning and has become better over time as new technologies emerged. Today, efforts are still being made to embrace E-learning systems with emerging technologies in order to make them better. Among these advancements, Educational Data Mining (EDM) is one that is gaining a huge and increasing popularity due to its wide application for improving the teaching-learning process in online practices. However, even though EDM promises to bring many benefits to educational industry in general and E-learning environments in particular, its principal drawback is the lack of easy to use tools. The current EDM tools usually require users to have some additional technical expertise to effectively perform EDM tasks. Thus, in response to these limitations, this study intends to design and implement an EDM application framework which aims at automating and simplify the development of EDM in E-learning environment. The application framework introduces a Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) that hides the complexity of technical details and enables users to perform EDM in an automated fashion. The framework was designed based on abstraction, extensibility, and interoperability principles. The framework implementation was made up of three major modules. The first module provides an abstraction for data gathering, which was done by extending Moodle LMS (Learning Management System) source code. The second module provides data mining methods and techniques as services; it was done by converting Weka API into a set of Web services. The third module acts as an intermediary between the first two modules, it contains a user-friendly interface that allows dynamically locating data provider services, and running knowledge discovery tasks on data mining services. An experiment was conducted to evaluate the overhead of the proposed framework through a combination of simulation and implementation. The experiments have shown that the overhead introduced by the SOA mechanism is relatively small, therefore, it has been concluded that a service-oriented architecture can be effectively used to facilitate educational data mining in E-learning environments.

Keywords: educational data mining, e-learning, distributed data mining, moodle, service-oriented architecture, Weka

Procedia PDF Downloads 219

Authors: Jehad Al Dallal

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Class cohesion is a key object-oriented software quality attribute that is used to evaluate the degree of relatedness of class attributes and methods. Researchers have proposed several class cohesion measures. However, the effect of considering the special methods (i.e., constructors, destructors, and access and delegation methods) in cohesion calculation is not thoroughly theoretically studied for most of them. In this paper, we address this issue for three popular connectivity-based class cohesion measures. For each of the considered measures we theoretically study the impact of including or excluding special methods on the values that are obtained by applying the measure. This study is based on analyzing the definitions and formulas that are proposed for the measures. The results show that including/excluding special methods has a considerable effect on the obtained cohesion values and that this effect varies from one measure to another. For each of the three connectivity-based measures, the proposed theoretical study recommended excluding the special methods in cohesion measurement.

Keywords: object-oriented class, software quality, class cohesion measure, class cohesion, special methods

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Authors: Kalliopi Kanaki, Michael Kalogiannakis

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Nowadays, in the digital era, the early acquisition of basic programming skills and knowledge is encouraged, as it facilitates students’ exposure to computational thinking and empowers their creativity, problem-solving skills, and cognitive development. More and more researchers and educators investigate the introduction of computational thinking in K-12 since it is expected to be a fundamental skill for everyone by the middle of the 21st century, just like reading, writing and arithmetic are at the moment. In this paper, a doctoral research in the process is presented, which investigates the infusion of computational thinking into science curriculum in early childhood education. The whole attempt aims to develop young children’s computational thinking by introducing them to the fundamental concepts of object-oriented programming in an enjoyable, yet educational framework. The backbone of the research is the digital environment PhysGramming (an abbreviation of Physical Science Programming), which provides children the opportunity to create their own digital games, turning them from passive consumers to active creators of technology. PhysGramming deploys an innovative hybrid schema of visual and text-based programming techniques, with emphasis on object-orientation. Through PhysGramming, young students are familiarized with basic object-oriented programming concepts, such as classes, objects, and attributes, while, at the same time, get a view of object-oriented programming syntax. Nevertheless, the most noteworthy feature of PhysGramming is that children create their own digital games within the context of physical science courses, in a way that provides familiarization with the basic principles of object-oriented programming and computational thinking, even though no specific reference is made to these principles. Attuned to the ethical guidelines of educational research, interventions were conducted in two classes of second grade. The interventions were designed with respect to the thematic units of the curriculum of physical science courses, as a part of the learning activities of the class. PhysGramming was integrated into the classroom, after short introductory sessions. During the interventions, 6-7 years old children worked in pairs on computers and created their own digital games (group games, matching games, and puzzles). The authors participated in these interventions as observers in order to achieve a realistic evaluation of the proposed educational framework concerning its applicability in the classroom and its educational and pedagogical perspectives. To better examine if the objectives of the research are met, the investigation was focused on six criteria; the educational value of PhysGramming, its engaging and enjoyable characteristics, its child-friendliness, its appropriateness for the purpose that is proposed, its ability to monitor the user’s progress and its individualizing features. In this paper, the functionality of PhysGramming and the philosophy of its integration in the classroom are both described in detail. Information about the implemented interventions and the results obtained is also provided. Finally, several limitations of the research conducted that deserve attention are denoted.

Keywords: computational thinking, early childhood education, object-oriented programming, physical science courses

Procedia PDF Downloads 100

Authors: Zhi Liu, Xian Peng, Monika Domanska, Lingyun Kang, Sannyuya Liu

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Massive Open education has become increasingly popular among worldwide learners. An increasing number of course reviews are being generated in Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) platform, which offers an interactive feedback channel for learners to express opinions and feelings in learning. These reviews typically contain subjective emotion and topic information towards the courses. However, it is time-consuming to artificially detect these opinions. In this paper, we propose an emotion-oriented topic detection model to automatically detect the students’ opinioned aspects in course reviews. The known overall emotion orientation and emotional words in each review are used to guide the joint probabilistic modeling of emotion and aspects in reviews. Through the experiment on real-life review data, it is verified that the distribution of course-emotion-aspect can be calculated to capture the most significant opinioned topics in each course unit. This proposed technique helps in conducting intelligent learning analytics for teachers to improve pedagogies and for developers to promote user experiences.

Keywords: Massive Open Online Course (MOOC), course reviews, topic model, emotion recognition, topical aspects

Procedia PDF Downloads 243

Authors: Sang-Wook Han, Zhenlan Jin, In-Hui Hwang, Chang-In Park

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We examined structural and electrical properties of uniformly-oriented VO₂/ZnO nanostructures. VO₂ was deposited on ZnO templates by using a direct current-sputtering deposition. Scanning electron microscope and transmission electron microscope measurements indicated that b-oriented VO₂ were uniformly crystallized on ZnO templates with different lengths. VO₂/ZnO formed nanorods on ZnO nanorods with length longer than 250 nm. X-ray absorption fine structure at V K edge of VO₂/ZnO showed M1 and R phases of VO₂ at 30 and 100 ℃, respectively, suggesting structural phase transition between temperatures. Temperature-dependent resistance measurements of VO₂/ZnO nanostructures revealed metal-to-insulator transition at 65 ℃ and 55 ℃ during heating and cooling, respectively, regardless of ZnO length. The bond lengths of V-O and V-V pairs in VO₂/ZnO nanorods were somewhat distorted, and a substantial amount of structural disorder existed in the atomic pairs, compared to those of VO₂ films without ZnO. Resistance from VO₂/ZnO nanorods revealed a sharp MIT near 65 ℃ during heating and a hysteresis behavior. The resistance results suggest that microchannel for charge carriers exist nearly room temperature during cooling. VO₂/ZnO nanorods are quite stable and reproducible so that they can be widely used for practical applications to electronic devices, gas sensors, and ultra-fast switches, as examples.

Keywords: metal-to-insulator transition, VO₂, ZnO, XAFS, structural-phase transition

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Authors: Vince Liégeois

Abstract:

Language of immediacy and distance: Within their discourse theory, Koch & Oesterreicher establish a distinction between a language of immediacy and a language of distance. The former refers to those discourses which are oriented more towards a spoken norm, whereas the latter entails discourses oriented towards a written norm, regardless of whether they are realised phonically or graphically. This means that an utterance can be realised phonically but oriented more towards the written language norm (e.g., a scientific presentation or eulogy) or realised graphically but oriented towards a spoken norm (e.g., a scribble or chat messages). Research desiderata: The methodological approach from Koch & Oesterreicher has often been criticised for not providing a corpus-linguistic methodology, which makes it difficult to work with quantitative data or address large text collections within this research paradigm. Consequently, the Koch & Oesterreicher approach has difficulties gaining ground in those research areas which rely more on corpus linguistic research models, like text linguistics and LSP-research. A combinatory approach: Accordingly, we want to establish a combinatory approach with corpus-based linguistic methodology. To this end, we propose to (i) include data about the context of an utterance (e.g., monologicity/dialogicity, familiarity with the speaker) – which were called “conditions of communication” in the original work of Koch & Oesterreicher – and (ii) correlate the linguistic phenomenon at the centre of the inquiry (e.g., evaluation markers) to a group of linguistic phenomena deemed typical for either distance- or immediacy-language. Based on these two parameters, linguistic phenomena and texts could then be mapped on an immediacy-distance continuum. Pilot study: To illustrate the benefits of this approach, we will conduct a pilot study on evaluation phenomena in French television weather reports, a form of domain-sensitive discourse which has often been cited as an example of a “text genre”. Within this text genre, we will look at so-called “evaluation markers,” e.g., fixed strings like bad weather, stifling hot, and “no luck today!”. These evaluation markers help to communicate the coming weather situation towards the lay audience but have not yet been studied within the Koch & Oesterreicher research paradigm. Accordingly, we want to figure out whether said evaluation markers are more typical for those weather reports which tend more towards immediacy or those which tend more towards distance. To this aim, we collected a corpus with different kinds of television weather reports,e.g., as part of the news broadcast, including dialogue. The evaluation markers themselves will be studied according to the explained methodology, by correlating them to (i) metadata about the context and (ii) linguistic phenomena characterising immediacy-language: repetition, deixis (personal, spatial, and temporal), a freer choice of tense and right- /left-dislocation. Results: Our results indicate that evaluation markers are more dominantly present in those weather reports inclining towards immediacy-language. Based on the methodology established above, we have gained more insight into the working of evaluation markers in the domain-sensitive text genre of (television) weather reports. For future research, it will be interesting to determine whether said evaluation markers are also typical for immediacy-language-oriented in other domain-sensitive discourses.

Keywords: corpus-based linguistics, evaluation markers, language of immediacy and distance, weather reports

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Authors: Soheib Fergani

Abstract:

This paper concerns with the formal asymptotic stability guarantees, analysis and evaluation of a nonlinear controlled unmanned aerial vehicles (uav) for trajectory tracking purpose. As the system has been recognised as an under-actuated non linear system, the control strategy has been oriented towards a hierarchical control. The dynamics of the system and the mission purpose make it mandatory to provide an absolute proof of the vehicle stability during the maneuvers. For this sake, this work establishes the complete theoretical proof for an implementable control oriented strategy that asymptotically stabilizes (GAS and LISS) the system and has never been provided in previous works. The considered model is reorganized into two partly decoupled sub-systems. The concidered control strategy is presented into two stages: the first sub-system is controlled by a nonlinear backstepping controller that generates the desired control inputs to stabilize the second sub-system. This methodology is then applied to a harware in the loop uav simulator (SiMoDrones) that reproduces the realistic behaviour of the uav in an indoor environment has been performed to show the efficiency of the proposed strategy.

Keywords: UAV application, trajectory tracking, backstepping, sliding mode control, input to state stability, stability evaluation

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Authors: Yu Zhang, Mingxue Lang, Li Dong

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The hundreds of years of slow succession of living environment in rural area is a crucial carrier of China’s long history of culture and national wisdom. In recent years, the space evolution of traditional rural settlements has been promoted by the intervention of tourism development, among which the public architecture and outdoor activity areas together served as the major places for villagers, and tourists’ social activities are an important characterization for settlement spatial evolution. Traditional public space upgrade and layout study of new public space can effectively promote the tourism industry development of traditional rural settlements. This article takes Qi County, one China Traditional Culture Village as the exemplification and uses the technology of Remote Sensing (RS), Geographic Information System (GIS) and Space Syntax, studies the evolution features of public space of tourism-oriented traditional rural settlements in four steps. First, acquire the 2003 and 2016 image data of Qi County, using the remote sensing application EDRAS8.6. Second, vectorize the basic maps of Qi County including its land use map with the application of ArcGIS 9.3 meanwhile, associating with architectural and site information concluded from field research. Third, analyze the accessibility and connectivity of the inner space of settlements using space syntax; run cross-correlation with the public space data of 2003 and 2016. Finally, summarize the evolution law of the public space of settlements; study the upgrade pattern of traditional public space and location plan for new public space. Major findings of this paper including: first, location layout of traditional public space has a larger association with the calculation results of space syntax and further confirmed the objective value of space syntax in expressing the space and social relations. Second, the intervention of tourism development generates remarkable impact on public space location of tradition rural settlements. Third, traditional public space produces the symbols of both strengthening and decline and forms a diversified upgrade pattern for the purpose of meeting the different tourism functional needs. Finally, space syntax provides an objective basis for location plan of new public space that meets the needs of tourism service. Tourism development has a significant impact on the evolution of public space of traditional rural settlements. Two types of public space, architecture, and site are both with changes seen from the perspective of quantity, location, dimension and function after the intervention of tourism development. Function upgrade of traditional public space and scientific layout of new public space are two important ways in achieving the goal of sustainable development of tourism-oriented traditional rural settlements.

Keywords: public space evolution, Qi county, space syntax, tourism oriented, traditional rural settlements

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Authors: Vishwas Chakranarayan, Mariyam Al Salman

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Despite the global environmental threats, previous approaches used to overcome these problems have failed to prevent environmental degradation. Scholars believe that entrepreneurs can help conserve habitats, combat climate change, increase freshwater availability, sustain biodiversity, and reduce environmental degradation and deforestation. The pandemic is creating a different ecosystem for fostering the eco-entrepreneurship opportunities. However, attending a course physically is a challenge for many willing learners. Therefore, it is an opportune time to contemplate on developing a social entrepreneurship curriculum which can be offered online.

Keywords: ecopreneurship, environmental problems, environmental degradation, entrepreneurship education

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Authors: Majed Zobairy, Payam Mohammadpanahi

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Introduction: Skill movement education is one of extremely important duty for sport coaches and sport teachers. Researchers have done lots of studies in this filed to gain the best methodology in movement learning. One of the essential aspects in skill movement education is observational learning. Observational learning, or learning by watching demonstrations, has been characterized as one of the most important methods by which people learn variety of skill and behaviours.The purpose of this study was determined the effect of observational practice on the volleyball service learning with emphasis on the Role of Self–Efficacy. Methods: The Sample consisted of100 male students was assigned accessible sampling technique and homogeneous manner with emphasis on the Role of Self–Efficacy level to 4 groups. The first group performed physical training, the second group performed observational practice task, the third practiced physically and observationally and the fourth group served as the control group. The experimental groups practiced in a one day acquisition and performed the retention task, after 72 hours. Kolmogorov-Smirnov test and independent t-test were used for Statistical analyses. Results and Discussion: Results shows that observation practice task group can significantly improve volleyball services skills acquisition (T=7.73). Also mixed group (physically and observationally) is significantly better than control group regarding to volleyball services skills acquisition (T=7.04). Conclusion: Results have shown observation practice task group and mixed group are significantly better than control group in acquisition test. The present results are in line with previous studies, suggesting that observation learning can improve performance. On the other hand, results shows that self-efficacy level significantly effect on acquisition movement skill. In other words, high self-efficacy is important factor in skill learning level in volleyball service.

Keywords: observational practice, volleyball service, self–efficacy, sport science

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Authors: Laura C. Dapp, Claudia M. Roebers

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Being physically active has many benefits for children and adolescents. It is crucial for various aspects of physical and mental health, the development of a healthy self-concept, and also positively influences academic performance and school achievement. In addressing the still incomplete understanding of the link between physical activity (PA) and academic achievement, the current study scrutinized the open issue of how PA has to be implemented to positively affect mathematical outcomes in N = 138 fourth graders. Therefore, the current study distinguished between structured PA (formal, organized, adult-led exercise and deliberate sports practice) and unstructured PA (non-formal, playful, peer-led physically active play and sports activities). Results indicated that especially structured PA has the potential to contribute to mathematical outcomes. Although children spent almost twice as much time engaging in unstructured PA as compared to structured PA, only structured PA was significantly related to mathematical achievement as well as to mathematical self-concept. Furthermore, the pending issue concerning the quantity of PA needed to enhance children’s mathematical achievement was addressed. As to that, results indicated that the amount of time spent in structured PA constitutes a critical factor in accounting for mathematical outcomes, since children engaging in PA for two hours or more a week were shown to be both the ones with the highest mathematical self-concept as well as those attaining the highest mathematical achievement scores. Finally, the present study investigated the indirect effect of PA on mathematical achievement by controlling for the mathematical self-concept as a mediating variable. The results of a maximum likelihood mediation analysis with a 2’000 resampling bootstrapping procedure for the 95% confidence intervals revealed a full mediation, indicating that PA improves mathematical self-concept, which, in turn, positively affects mathematical achievement. Thus, engaging in high amounts of structured PA constitutes an advantageous leisure activity for children and adolescents, not only to enhance their physical health but also to foster their self-concept in a way that is favorable and encouraging for promoting their academic achievement. Note: The content of this abstract is partially based on a paper published elswhere by the authors.

Keywords: Academic Achievement, Mathematical Performance, Physical Activity, Self-Concept

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Authors: Cecilia Boakye, Joseph Ghartey Ampiah

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In this study, we present a case study in which we explored how the 2007 science curriculum of the colleges of education in Ghana was implemented at W College of Education. Purposive sampling was used to select 13 participants, comprising 2 tutors and 6 teacher trainees from W College of Education and, 5 newly qualified Junior High School (JHS) science teachers who were products of W College. Interviews, observations and content analysis were used to collect data. Using the deductive and inductive analytic approaches, the findings showed that although upgraded laboratories have provided for teaching authentic science at W College of Education, they are rather used to accommodate large classes at the expense of practical activities. The teaching and learning methods used by the tutors do not mirror effectively the objectives of the 2007 science curriculum of the colleges of education. There are challenges such as: (a) lack/inadequate equipment and materials, (b) time constraint, and (c) an examination- oriented curriculum that influence the implementation of the curriculum. Some of the suggestions that were made are that: (a) equipment and materials should be supplied to the colleges to facilitate the proper implementation of the curriculum, and (b) class sizes should be reduced to provide enough room for practical activities.

Keywords: class size, teaching, curriculum implementation, examination-oriented curriculum, teaching and time-constraint

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