Search results for: cognitive processing

Authors: Archana Rao R., Deepak P., Chayashree P. D., Darshan H. S.

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Cognitive abilities in bilinguals have been widely studied over the last few decades. Bilingualism has been found to extensively facilitate the ability to store and manipulate information in Working Memory (WM). The mechanism of WM includes primary memory, attentional control, and secondary memory, each of which makes a contribution to WM. Many researches have been done in an attempt to measure WM capabilities through both verbal (phonological) and nonverbal tasks (visuospatial). Since there is a lot of speculations regarding the relationship between WM and bilingualism, further investigation is required to understand the nature of WM in bilinguals, i.e., with respect to sequential and simultaneous bilinguals. Hence the present study aimed to highlight the verbal working memory abilities in sequential and simultaneous bilinguals with respect to the processing and recall abilities of nouns and verbs. Two groups of bilinguals aged between 18-30 years were considered for the study. Group 1 consisted of 20 (10 males and 10 females) sequential bilinguals who had acquired L1 (Kannada) before the age of 3 and had exposure to L2 (English) for a period of 8-10 years. Group 2 consisted of 20 (10 males and 10 females) simultaneous bilinguals who have acquired both L1 and L2 before the age of 3. Working memory abilities were assessed using two tasks, and a set of stimuli which was presented in gradation of complexity and the stimuli was inclusive of frequent and infrequent nouns and verbs. The tasks involved the participants to judge the correctness of the sentence and simultaneously remember the last word of each sentence and the participants are instructed to recall the words at the end of each set. The results indicated no significant difference between sequential and simultaneous bilinguals in processing the nouns and verbs, and this could be attributed to the proficiency level of the participants in L1 and the alike cognitive abilities between the groups. And recall of nouns was better compared to verbs, maybe because of the complex argument structure involved in verbs. Similarly, authors found a frequency of occurrence of nouns and verbs also had an effect on WM abilities. The difference was also found across gradation due to the load imposed on the central executive function and phonological loop.

Keywords: bilinguals, nouns, verbs, working memory

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Authors: Wenxuan Li, Lei Li, Jin Li, Yuanhang He

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This paper designed a secure chip for IoT communication security integrated with the PUF-based firmware protection scheme. Then, the Xilinx Kintex-7 and STM-32 were used for the prototype verification. Firmware protection worked well on FPGA and embedded platforms. For the ASIC implementation of the PUF module, contact PUF is chosen. The post-processing method and its improvement are analyzed with emphasis. This paper proposed a more efficient post-processing method for contact PUF named SXOR, which has practical value for realizing lightweight security modules in IoT devices. The analysis was carried out under the hypothesis that the contact holes are independent and combine the existing data in the open literature. The post-processing effects of SXOR and XOR are basically the same under the condition that the proposed post-processing circuit occupies only 50.6% of the area of XOR. The average Hamming weight of the PUF output bit sequence obtained by the proposed post-processing method is 0.499735, and the average Hamming weight obtained by the XOR-based post-processing method is 0.499999.

Keywords: PUF, IoT, authentication, secure communication, encryption, XOR

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Authors: Mohamed M. Elsherbiny

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Social Avoidance is one of the most important problems that face a good number of disabled students. It results from the negative attitudes of non-disabled students, teachers and others. Some of the past research has shown that non-disabled individuals hold negative attitudes toward persons with disabilities. The present study aims to alleviate Social Avoidance by applying the Cognitive Behavioral Intervention. 24 Blind students aged 19–24 (university students) were randomly chosen we compared an experimental group (consisted of 12 students) who went through the intervention program, with a control group (12 students also) who did not go through such intervention. We used the Social Avoidance and Distress Scale (SADS) to assess social anxiety and distress behavior. The author used many techniques of cognitive behavioral intervention such as modeling, cognitive restructuring, extension, contingency contracts, self-monitoring, assertiveness training, role play, encouragement and others. Statistically, T-test was employed to test the research hypothesis. Result showed that there is a significance difference between the experimental group and the control group after the intervention and also at the follow up stages of the Social Avoidance and Distress Scale. Also for the experimental group, there is a significance difference before the intervention and the follow up stages for the scale. Results showed that, there is a decrease in social avoidance. Accordingly, cognitive behavioral intervention program was successful in decreasing social avoidance for blind students.

Keywords: social avoidance, cognitive behavioral intervention, blind disability, disability

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Authors: Mahdi Pirmoradian, Olayinka Adigun, Christos Politis

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Cooperative spectrum sensing is a crucial challenge in cognitive radio networks. Cooperative sensing can increase the reliability of spectrum hole detection, optimize sensing time and reduce delay in cooperative networks. In this paper, an efficient central capacity optimization algorithm is proposed to minimize cooperative sensing time in a homogenous sensor network using OR decision rule subject to the detection and false alarm probabilities constraints. The evaluation results reveal significant improvement in the sensing time and normalized capacity of the cognitive sensors.

Keywords: cooperative networks, normalized capacity, sensing time

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Authors: Chih-Hsiang Chang, Pei-Shan Kao

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This paper discusses the reaction of investors in the Taiwan stock market to the most probable unknown earnings-related information and the most probable known earnings-related information. As compared with the previous literature regarding the effect of an official announcement of earnings forecast revision, this paper further analyzes investors’ cognitive bias toward the unknown and known earnings-related information, and the role of media during the investors' reactions to the foresaid information shocks. The empirical results show that both the unknown and known earnings-related information provides useful information content for a stock market. In addition, cognitive bias and disposition effect are the behavioral pitfalls that commonly occur in the process of the investors' reactions to the earnings-related information. Finally, media coverage has a remarkable influence upon the investors' trading decisions.

Keywords: cognitive bias, role of media, disposition effect, earnings-related information, behavioral pitfall

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Authors: Robin Devillers, Chantal van Dijk

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Children face ambiguities in everyday language use. Particularly ambiguity in pronoun resolution can be challenging, whereas adults can rapidly identify the antecedent of the mentioned pronoun. Two main factors underlie this process, namely the accessibility of the referent and the syntactic cues of the pronoun. After 200ms, adults have converged the accessibility and the syntactic constraints, while relieving cognitive effort by considering contextual cues. As children are still developing their cognitive capacity, they are not able yet to simultaneously assess and integrate accessibility, contextual cues and syntactic information. As such, they fail to identify the correct referent and possibly fixate more on the competitor in comparison to adults. In this study, Dutch while-clauses were used to investigate the interpretation of pronouns by children. The aim is to a) examine the extent to which 7-10 year old children are able to utilise discourse and syntactic information during online and offline sentence processing and b) analyse the contribution of individual factors, including age, working memory, condition and vocabulary. Adult and child participants are presented with filler-items and while-clauses, and the latter follows a particular structure: ‘Anna and Sophie are sitting in the library. While Anna is reading a book, she is taking a sip of water.’ This sentence illustrates the ambiguous situation, as it is unclear whether ‘she’ refers to Anna or Sophie. In the unambiguous situation, either Anna or Sophie would be substituted by a boy, such as ‘Peter’. The pronoun in the second sentence will unambiguously refer to one of the characters due to the syntactic constraints of the pronoun. Children’s and adults’ responses were measured by means of a visual world paradigm. This paradigm consisted of two characters, of which one was the referent (the target) and the other was the competitor. A sentence was presented and followed by a question, which required the participant to choose which character was the referent. Subsequently, this paradigm yields an online (fixations) and offline (accuracy) score. These findings will be analysed using Generalised Additive Mixed Models, which allow for a thorough estimation of the individual variables. These findings will contribute to the scientific literature in several ways; firstly, the use of while-clauses has not been studied much and it’s processing has not yet been identified. Moreover, online pronoun resolution has not been investigated much in both children and adults, and therefore, this study will contribute to adults and child’s pronoun resolution literature. Lastly, pronoun resolution has not been studied yet in Dutch and as such, this study adds to the languages

Keywords: pronouns, online language processing, Dutch, eye-tracking, first language acquisition, language development

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Authors: Wasiu Oyeleke Oyediran

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Maize is a common staple food for human consumption and livestock feeds. It provides employment and means of livelihood for women in both rural areas and urban centres in Nigeria. However, the entrepreneurial skills of women engaged in its processing and value addition has not been fully enhanced. This study was therefore carried out to investigate rural women entrepreneurial skills in maize processing and value addition in Ogun State, Nigeria. Snow ball sampling technique was used in the selection of 70 respondents for this study. Data were analyzed with descriptive statistics and chi-square. Results revealed that majority (50.0%) of the respondents were 31 - 40 years of age and 60% of the respondents had spent 6 – 10 years in maize processing. The respondents have great entrepreneurial skills in popcorn (85.7%), corn cake (80.0%), corn balls (64.3%) and kokoro (52.9%) making. The majority of the respondents accessed information and entrepreneurial skills through fellow processors (88.6%) and friends and neighbours (62.9%). Major constraints to maize processing and value addition were scarcity of raw materials during off season periods (95.7%), ineffective preservation methods (88.6%), lack of modern processing equipment (82.9%), and high cost of processing machines (72.9%). Result of chi-square showed that there is significant association between personal characteristics of the respondents and entrepreneurial skills of the women at p < 0.05. It is hereby recommended that subsidized processing equipment should be made available to the maize processors in the study area by the government and NGOs.

Keywords: women, entreprenuerial skills, maize prcessing, value addition

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Authors: Ramesh Bhat, Ammu Somanath, A. K. Nayanatara

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Background: The increasing prevalence of overweight and obesity is a critical public health problem for women. The negative effect of stress on memory and cognitive functions has been widely explored for decades in numerous research projects using a wide range of methodology. Deterioration of memory and other brain functions are hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease. Estrogen fluctuations and withdrawal have myriad direct effects on the central nervous system that have the potential to influence cognitive functions. Aim: The present study aims to compare the effect of stress on the cognitive functions in overweight/obese women before and after menopause. Material and Methods: A total of 142 female subjects constituting women before menopause between the age group of 18–44 years and women after menopause between the age group of 45–60 years were included in the sample. Participants were categorized into overweight/obese groups based on the body mass index. The Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) the major tool was used for measuring the perception of stress. Based on the stress scale measurement each group was classified into with stress and without stress. Addenbrooke’s cognitive Examination-III was used for measuring the cognitive functions. Results: Premenopausal women with stress showed a significant (P<0.05) decrease in the cognitive parameters such as attention and orientation Fluency, language and visuospatial ability. Memory did not show any significant change in this group. Whereas, in the postmenopausal stressed women all the cognitive functions except fluency showed a significant (P<0.05) decrease after menopause stressed group. Conclusion: Stress is a significant factor on the cognitive functions of obese and overweight women before and after menopause. Practice of Yoga, Encouragement in activities like gardening, embroidery, games and relaxation techniques should be recommended to prevent stress. Insights into the neurobiology before and after menopause can be gained from future studies examining the effect on the HPA axis in relation to cognition and stress.

Keywords: cognition, stress, premenopausal, body mass index

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Authors: Erfan Izadpanah

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The present study was conducted to investigate the effect of the Trans-Cranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) on cognitive flexibility and social decision-making in skilled, semi-skilled and novice football players. The present quasi-experimental pretest-posttest study was conducted on 60 randomly-selected subjects divided into trial and placebo groups (n=30 per group). The trial group received three 20-minute sessions of anodic stimulation at the intensity of 2 mA. The placebo group also received three sessions of sham anodic stimulation. Data were collected using the Wisconsin, Grant and Berg Card-Sorting Test (1948) and the ultimatum game and were then analyzed using the ANCOVA. The results showed significant differences between the skilled, semi-skilled and novice football players in the trial and placebo groups in terms of cognitive flexibility and social decision-making (P<0.01). TDCS appears to be able to improve cognitive flexibility and consequently social decision-making in football players and is recommended to sport psychologists and coaches as a useful intervention to increase cognitive flexibility and improve social decision-making in players.

Keywords: TDCS, cognitive flexibility, social decision-making, skilled, semi-skilled and novice football players

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Authors: Ming-Jen Huang, Chun-Fang Huang, Chiching Wei

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With the recent advance of the deep neural network, we observe new applications of NLP (natural language processing) and CV (computer vision) powered by deep neural networks for processing business documents. However, creating a real-world document processing system needs to integrate several NLP and CV tasks, rather than treating them separately. There is a need to have a unified approach for processing documents containing textual and graphical elements with rich formats, diverse layout arrangement, and distinct semantics. In this paper, a framework that fulfills this unified approach is presented. The framework includes a representation model definition for holding the information generated by various tasks and specifications defining the coordination between these tasks. The framework is a blueprint for building a system that can process documents with rich formats, styles, and multiple types of elements. The flexible and lightweight design of the framework can help build a system for diverse business scenarios, such as contract monitoring and reviewing.

Keywords: document processing, framework, formal definition, machine learning

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Authors: Iwuchukwu J. C., Mbah C.

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There seems to be dearth on information on how oil bean is being exploited, processed and conserved locally. This gap stifles initiatives on the evaluation of the suitability of the methods used and the invention of new and better methods. The study; therefore, assesses activities of processors in domestication/conservation and processing of oil bean (Pentaclethra macrophylla) Enugu State, South East Nigeria. Three agricultural zones, three blocks, nine circles and seventy-two respondents that were purposively selected made up the sample for the study. Data were presented in percentage, chart and mean score. The result shows that processors of oil bean in the area were middle-aged, married with relatively large household size and long years of experience in processing. They sourced oil bean they processed from people’s farmland and sourced information on processing of oil bean from friends and relatives. Activities involved in processing of oil bean were boiling, dehulling, washing, sieving, slicing, wrapping. However, the sequence of these activities varies among these processors. Little or nothing was done by the processors towards the conservation of the crop while poor storage and processing facilities and lack of knowledge on modern preservation technique were major constraints to processing of oil bean in the area. The study concluded that efforts should be made by governments and processors through cooperative group in provision of processing and storage facility for oil bean while research institute should conserve and generate improved specie of the crop to arouse interest of the farmers and processors on the crop which will invariably increase productivity.

Keywords: conservation, domestication, oil bean, processing

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Authors: Eleonora Sasso

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This paper takes as its starting point the notions of cognitive linguistics and lexical blending, and uses both these theoretical concepts to advance a new reading of Margaret Atwood’s latest writings, one which sees them as paramount literary examples of norm and usage in bilingual Canadian lexicography. Atwood’s prose seems to be imbued with Canadianisms and neologisms, lexical blends of zoomorphic forms, a kind of meeting-point between two conceptual structures which follow the principles of lexical economy and asyntactic relation. Atwood’s neologisms also attest to the undeniable impact on language exerted by Canada’s aboriginal peoples. This paper aims to track through these references and with the aid of the Eskimo-English dictionary look at the linguistic issues – attitudes to contaminations and hybridisations, questions of lexical blending in literary examples, etc – which they raise. Atwood’s fiction, whose cognitive linguistic strategy employs ‘the virtues of scissors and matches’, always strives to achieve isomorphism between word form and concept.

Keywords: Atwood, Canadianisms, cognitive science, Eskimo/English dictionary

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Authors: Kaiying Lai, Suiping Wang, Luodi Yu, Yang Zhang, Pengmin Qin

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Abnormalities in auditory processing are one of the most commonly reported sensory processing impairments in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Tonal language speaker with autism has enhanced neural sensitivity to pitch changes in pure tone. However, not all children with ASD exhibit the same performance in pitch processing due to different auditory sensitivity. The current study aimed to examine auditory change detection in ASD with different auditory sensitivity. K-means clustering method was adopted to classify ASD participants into two groups according to the auditory processing scores of the Sensory Profile, 11 autism with hypersensitivity (mean age = 11.36 ; SD = 1.46) and 18 with hypo-sensitivity (mean age = 10.64; SD = 1.89) participated in a passive auditory oddball paradigm designed for eliciting mismatch negativity (MMN) under the pure tone condition. Results revealed that compared to hypersensitive autism, the children with hypo-sensitivity showed smaller MMN responses to pure tone stimuli. These results suggest that ASD with auditory hypersensitivity and hypo-sensitivity performed differently in processing pure tone, so neural responses to pure tone hold promise for predicting the auditory sensitivity of ASD and targeted treatment in children with ASD.

Keywords: ASD, sensory profile, pitch processing, mismatch negativity, MMN

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Authors: Lauren Currell, Gemma Hurst

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Introduction: The present study experimentally investigated the impact of attractive Instagram images on female’s body image. It also examined whether physical appearance perfectionism and cognitive coping predicted body image following upward comparisons to idealised bodies on Instagram. Methods: One-hundred and fifty-eight females (mean age 24.35 years) were randomly assigned to an experimental (where they compared their bodies to those of Instagram models) or control condition (where they critiqued landscape painting). All participants completed measures on physical appearance perfectionism, cognitive coping, and pre- and post-measures of body image. Results: Comparing one’s body to idealised bodies on Instagram resulted in increased appearance and weight dissatisfaction and decreased confidence, compared to the control condition. Physical appearance perfectionism and cognitive coping both predicted body image outcomes for the experimental condition. Discussion: Clinical implications, such as the prevention and treatment of body dissatisfaction, are discussed. Strengths and limitations of the current study are also noted, and suggestions for future research are provided.

Keywords: perfectionism, cognitive coping, body image, social media

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Authors: Ayoub Alsarhan, Ahmed Otoom, Yousef Kilani, Abdel-Rahman al-GHuwairi

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Wireless mesh networks (WMNs) have emerged recently to improve internet access and other networking services. WMNs provide network access to the clients and other networking functions such as routing, and packet forwarding. Spectrum scarcity is the main challenge that limits the performance of WMNs. Cognitive radio is proposed to solve spectrum scarcity problem. In this paper, we consider a cognitive wireless mesh network where unlicensed users (secondary users, SUs) can access free spectrum that is allocated to spectrum owners (primary users, PUs). Although considerable research has been conducted on spectrum allocation, spectrum assignment is still considered an important challenging problem. This problem can be solved using cognitive radio technology that allows SUs to intelligently locate free bands and access them without interfering with PUs. Our scheme considers several heuristics for spectrum allocation. These heuristics include: channel error rate, PUs activities, channel capacity and channel switching time. Performance evaluation of the proposed scheme shows that the scheme is able to allocate the unused spectrum for SUs efficiently.

Keywords: cognitive radio, dynamic spectrum access, spectrum management, spectrum sharing, wireless mesh networks

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Authors: Rafiat Bolanle Fasasi-Hammed

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Cassava is an important food crop in rural households of Nigeria. It has a high potential for product diversification, because it can be processed into various products forms for human consumption and can be made into chips for farm animals, and also starch and starch derivatives. However, cassava roots are highly perishable and contain potentially toxic cyanogenic glycosides which necessitate its processing. Therefore, this study was carried out to assess information needs of cassava processors on food safety practices in Oyo State, Nigeria. Simple random sampling technique was used in the selection of 110 respondents for this study. Descriptive statistics and chi-square were used to analyze the data collected. Results of this study showed that the mean age of the respondents was 39.4 years, majority (78.7%) of the respondents was married, 51.9% had secondary education; 45.8% of the respondents have spent more than 12 years in cassava processing. The mean income realized was ₦26,347.50/month from cassava processing. Information on cassava processing got to the respondents through friends, family and relations (73.6%) and fellow cassava processors (58.6%). Serious constraints identified were ineffective extension agents (93.9%), food safety regulatory agencies (88.1%) and inadequate processing and storage facilities (67.8%). Chi-square results showed that significant relationship existed between socio-economic characteristics of the respondents (χ2 = 29.80, df = 2,), knowledge level (χ2 = 9.26, df = 4), constraints (χ2 = 13.11, df = 2) and information needs at p < 0.05 level of significance. The study recommends that there should be regular training on improved cassava processing methods for the cassava processors in the study area.

Keywords: information, needs, cassava, Oyo State, processing

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Authors: Ilgin Gökaşar, Saman Ghaffarian

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The need for fast processed big data of transportation ridership (eg., smartcard data) and traffic operation (e.g., traffic detectors data) which requires a lot of computational power is incontrovertible in Intelligent Transportation Systems. Nowadays cloud computing is one of the important subjects and popular information technology solution for data processing. It enables users to process enormous measure of data without having their own particular computing power. Thus, it can also be a good selection for transportation big data processing as well. This paper intends to examine how the cloud computing can enhance transportation big data process with contrasting its advantages and disadvantages, and discussing cloud computing features.

Keywords: big data, cloud computing, Intelligent Transportation Systems, ITS, traffic data processing

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Authors: Fadzayi M.Maruza

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The conversation about diversity in the African academy focuses on the need for an international and ethnically diverse population of scholars and students. Operationalising the concept of cognitive diversity offers us an opportunity to broaden our conception of who can know and who can proclaim knowledge by availing new understandings of what knowledge is and how it is made. Limited attention is paid to the value of diversity generated by cognitive disabilities in the African academy. The inclusion of persons with minds labelled disabled in African academia requires an epistemology of disability to reform the still dominant notion of the expert and scholar as an able-bodied and hyper-rational in African academia. This review wants to explore how cognitive disabilities have been represented in higher education research in Africa or has the African academy reinforced ignorance by promoting an able-bodied academia. The review aims to tackle its exploratory objective by using Malcom Tights framework. The main questions this paper would focus on are: (I)What are the major disability themes and concerns discussed in the disability-related articles? (II)What are the major methods or methodologies used to address the topic in the papers? (III)What are the levels of analysis the papers focus on? (IV)How do higher education researchers define and represent cognitive disabilities in higher education research in Africa? To answer the exploratory questions that are aimed at mapping the disability-related higher education research landscape, Malcolm Tights’ framework is seen as most appropriate. In addition to a thematic categorization, that shall be made after reviewing of published empirical studies on disability in African higher education from the period 2010 – 2017. A synthesis of the findings and implications of African disability studies relating to students with cognitive disabilities in the African Academy will be provided using the categories suggested by Tight as a benchmark. Data for the proposed work shall be taken from well-reputed higher education journals between 2010 and 2017.Using the keyword ‘Disability’ in the titles, abstracts and keywords section of journal articles, a selection of disability-focused higher education articles shall be compiled for analysis regarding cognitive disability. It has to be noted as a limitation that the word Disability might not be sufficient to investigate the topic for there can be many more specific disabilities concerns the researchers would discuss. Therefore, the paper is only intended to give a bird’s eye view of cognitive disability in higher education research and therefore is not comprehensive. The paper is expected to shed some light for me, as a beginning researcher, and other researchers like myself as to what has been the focus of higher education researchers about cognitive disability in the African academy. Keywords: Cognitive diversity, cognitive disability, disability, higher education.

Keywords: cognitive disability, cognitive diversity, disability, higher education

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Authors: Antoni Ivanov, Nikolay Dandanov, Nicole Christoff, Vladimir Poulkov

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Spectrum underutilization has made cognitive radio a promising technology both for current and future telecommunications. This is due to the ability to exploit the unused spectrum in the bands dedicated to other wireless communication systems, and thus, increase their occupancy. The essential function, which allows the cognitive radio device to perceive the occupancy of the spectrum, is spectrum sensing. In this paper, the performance of modern adaptations of the four most widely used spectrum sensing techniques namely, energy detection (ED), cyclostationary feature detection (CSFD), matched filter (MF) and eigenvalues-based detection (EBD) is compared. The implementation has been accomplished through the PlutoSDR hardware platform and the GNU Radio software package in very low Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) conditions. The optimal detection performance of the examined methods in a realistic implementation-oriented model is found for the common relevant parameters (number of observed samples, sensing time and required probability of false alarm).

Keywords: cognitive radio, dynamic spectrum access, GNU Radio, spectrum sensing

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Authors: P. G. F. Siqueira, N. G. S. Almeida, P. M. A. Stemler, P. R. Cetlin, M. T. P. Aguilar

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The processing of metals through Equal Channel Angular Pressing (ECAP) leads to their remarkable strengthening. The ECAP dies control the amount of strain imposed on the material through its geometry, especially through the angle between the die channels, and thus the microstructural and mechanical properties evolution of the material. The present study describes the design of an ECAP die whose utilization and maintenance are facilitated, and that also controls the eventual undesired flow of the material during processing. The proposed design was validated through numerical simulations procedures using commercial software. The die was manufactured according to the present design and tested. Tests using aluminum alloys also indicated to be suitable for the processing of higher strength alloys.

Keywords: ECAP, mechanical design, numerical methods, SPD

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Authors: Ghada M. El-Kassas, Maged A. El Wakeel, Salwa R. El-Zayat

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Background: Environmental enteric dysfunction (EED) is asymptomatic villous atrophy of the small bowel that is prevalent in the developing world and is associated with altered intestinal function and integrity. Evidence has suggested that supplementary omega-3 might ameliorate this damage by reducing gastrointestinal inflammation and may also benefit cognitive development. Objective: We tested whether omega-3 supplementation improves intestinal integrity, growth, and cognitive function in stunted children predicted to have EED. Methodology: 100 Egyptian stunted children aged 1-5 years and 100 age and gender-matched normal children as controls. At the primary phase of the study, we assessed anthropometric measures and fecal markers such as myeloperoxidase (MPO), neopterin (NEO), and alpha-1-anti-trypsin (AAT) (as predictors of EED). Cognitive development was assessed (Bayley or Wechsler scores). Oral n-3 (omega-3) LC-PUFA at a dosage of 500 mg/d was supplemented to all cases and followed up for 6 months after which the 2ry phase of the study included the previous clinical, laboratory and cognitive assessment. Results: Fecal inflammatory markers were significantly higher in cases compared to controls. (MPO), (NEO) and (AAT) showed a significant decline in cases at the end of the 2ry phase (P < 0.001 for all). Omega-3 supplementation resulted also in a significant increase in mid-upper arm circumference (MUAC) (P < 0.01), weight for age z-score, and skinfold thicknesses (P< 0.05 for both). Cases showed significant improvement of cognitive function at phase 2 of the study. Conclusions: Omega-3 supplementation successfully improved intestinal inflammatory state related to EED. Also, some improvement of anthropometric and cognitive parameters showed obvious improvement with omega-3 supplementation.

Keywords: cognitive functions, EED, omega-3, stunting

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Authors: Alireza Monzavi Chaleshtari, Mahnaz Aliakbari Dehkordi, Amin Asadi Hieh, Majid Kazemnezhad

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This research was conducted with the aim of determining the effectiveness of sexual cognitive behavioral therapy on psychological performance and openness to experience in women. The type of research was experimental in the form of pre-test-post-test. The statistical population of this research was made up of all working and married women with membership in the researcher's Instagram social network who had problems in marital-sexual relationships (N=900). From the statistical community, which includes working and married women who are members of the researcher's Instagram social network who have problems in marital-sexual relationships, there are 30 people including two groups (15 people in the experimental group and 15 people in the control group) as available sampling and selected randomly. They were placed in two experimental and control groups. The anxiety, stress, and depression scale (DASS) and the Costa and McCree personality questionnaire were used to collect data, and the cognitive behavioral therapy protocol of Dr. Mehrnaz Ali Akbari was used for the treatment sessions. To analyze the data, the covariance test was used in the SPSS22 software environment. The results showed that sexual cognitive behavioral therapy has a positive and significant effect on psychological performance and openness to experience in women. Conclusion: It can be concluded that interventions such as cognitive-behavioral sex can be used to treat marital problems.

Keywords: sexual cognitive behavioral therapy, psychological function, openness to experience, women

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Authors: Chrysovalanto Sofia Karatosidi, Dimitra Iordanoglou

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The overlap of leadership skills with personality traits, beliefs, values, and the integration of cognitive abilities, analytical and critical thinking skills into leadership competencies raises the need to segregate further and investigate them. Hence, the domains of cognitive functions that contribute to leadership effectiveness should also be identified. Organizational cognitive neuroscience and neuroleadership can shed light on the study of these critical leadership skills. As the first part of our research, this pilot study aims to explore the relationships between higher-order cognitive functions (executive functions), trait emotional intelligence (EI), personality, and general cognitive ability in leadership. Twenty-six graduate and postgraduate students were assessed on neuropsychological tests that measure important aspects of executive functions (EF) and completed self-reported questionnaires about trait EI, personality, leadership styles, and leadership effectiveness. Specifically, we examined four core EF—fluency (phonemic and semantic), information updating and monitoring, working memory, and inhibition of prepotent responses. Leadership effectiveness was positively associated with phonemic fluency (PF), which involves mental flexibility, in turn, an increasingly important ability for future leaders in this rapidly changing world. Transformational leadership was positively associated with trait EI, extraversion, and openness to experience, a result that is following previous findings. The relationship between specific EF constructs and leadership effectiveness emphasizes the role of higher-order cognitive functions in the field of leadership as an individual difference. EF brings a new perspective into leadership literature by providing a direct, non-invasive, scientifically-valid connection between brain function and leadership behavior.

Keywords: cognitive neuroscience, emotional intelligence, executive functions, leadership

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Authors: Md Imtiaz, Sanchita Dei, Shubham Damke

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In recent years, there has been a rapidly accelerating shift from traditional surface processing operations to subsea processing operation. This shift has been driven by a number of factors including the depletion of shallow fields around the world, technological advances in subsea processing equipment, the need for production from marginal fields, and lower initial upfront investment costs compared to traditional production facilities. Moving production facilities to the seafloor offers a number of advantage, including a reduction in field development costs, increased production rates from subsea wells, reduction in the need for chemical injection, minimization of risks to worker ,reduction in spills due to hurricane damage, and increased in oil production by enabling production from marginal fields. Subsea processing consists of a range of technologies for separation, pumping, compression that enables production from offshore well without the need for surface facilities. At present, there are two primary technologies being used for subsea processing: subsea multiphase pumping and subsea separation. Multiphase pumping is the most basic subsea processing technology. Multiphase pumping involves the use of boosting system to transport the multiphase mixture through pipelines to floating production vessels. The separation system is combined with single phase pumps or water would be removed and either pumped to the surface, re-injected, or discharged to the sea. Subsea processing can allow for an entire topside facility to be decommissioned and the processed fluids to be tied back to a new, more distant, host. This type of application reduces costs and increased both overall facility and integrity and recoverable reserve. In future, full subsea processing could be possible, thereby eliminating the need for surface facilities.

Keywords: FPSO, marginal field, Subsea processing, SWAG

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Authors: Prashant Das, Tushar Singh, Virendra Byadwal

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The present study attempted to understand the role of cognitive flexibility and employee engagement in predicting employees’ turnover intentions. Employee turnover is a significant problem that many organizations are facing these days. Employee turnover is not only extremely expensive for the employer but also results in poor production levels. In developing countries like India, organizations once believed to have most stable employees, are facing major turnover problems. One such organization is banking organizations. Due to globalization, banks are now changing their work scenarios under which the employees have many different roles to perform. Cognitive flexibility which refers to an individual’s ability to shift cognitive sets and to adapt to one’s changing environment, thus seems to be an important factor that are responsible for the employee turnover in organizations. It is hypothesized that those with higher cognitive flexibility would be more able to adapt to the changing work demands of the organizations and thus would show less turnover intentions. Another factor that seems to be important in predicting turnover is employee engagement. Kahn referred to engagement in terms of the harnessing of organization members’ selves to their work roles [by which they] employ and express themselves physically, cognitively, and emotionally during role performances. Studies have shown a strong relationship between employee engagement and turnover intentions. Those with higher engagement with their jobs have found to show low turnover intentions. This study thus hypothesizes that employees with higher engagement will show lower levels of turnover intentions. A total of 150 bank employees (75 from private and 75 from public) participated in this study. They were administered Cognitive Flexibility Scale, Gallup Questionnaire and Intention to Stay Questionnaire along with another questionnaire asking for their demographic details. Results of the study revealed that employees with higher levels of cognitive flexibility and employee engagement show lover levels of turnover intentions. However, the effect is more prominent in case of employees of private banks. Demographic characteristics such as level of the employee and years of engagement in the current job have also been found to be influencing the relationship between cognitive flexibility, employee engagement and turnover intentions. Results of the study are interpreted in accordance to the prevalent literature and theoretical positions.

Keywords: cognitive flexibility, employee engagement, organization, turnover intentions

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Authors: Damien Mouratille, Antonio R. Hidalgo-Muñoz, Nadine Matton, Yves Rouillard, Mickael Causse, Radouane El Yagoubi

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Background: The monitoring of the physiological activity related to mental workload (MW) on pilots will be useful to improve aviation safety by anticipating human performance degradation. The electrocardiogram (ECG) can reveal MW fluctuations due to either cognitive workload or/and emotional state since this measure exhibits autonomic nervous system modulations. Arguably, heart rate (HR) is one of its most intuitive and reliable parameters. It would be particularly interesting to analyze the interaction between cognitive requirements and emotion in ecologic sets such as a flight simulator. This study aims to explore by means of HR the relation between cognitive demands and emotional activation. Presumably, the effects of cognition and emotion overloads are not necessarily cumulative. Methodology: Eight healthy volunteers in possession of the Private Pilot License were recruited (male; 20.8±3.2 years). ECG signal was recorded along the whole experiment by placing two electrodes on the clavicle and left pectoral of the participants. The HR was computed within 4 minutes segments. NASA-TLX and Big Five inventories were used to assess subjective workload and to consider the influence of individual personality differences. The experiment consisted in completing two dual-tasks of approximately 30 minutes of duration into a flight simulator AL50. Each dual-task required the simultaneous accomplishment of both a pre-established flight plan and an additional task based on target stimulus discrimination inserted between Air Traffic Control instructions. This secondary task allowed us to vary the cognitive workload from low (LC) to high (HC) levels, by combining auditory and visual numerical stimuli to respond to meeting specific criteria. Regarding emotional condition, the two dual-tasks were designed to assure analogous difficulty in terms of solicited cognitive demands. The former was realized by the pilot alone, i.e. Low Arousal (LA) condition. In contrast, the latter generates a high arousal (HA), since the pilot was supervised by two evaluators, filmed and involved into a mock competition with the rest of the participants. Results: Performance for the secondary task showed significant faster reaction times (RT) for HA compared to LA condition (p=.003). Moreover, faster RT was found for LC compared to HC (p < .001) condition. No interaction was found. Concerning HR measure, despite the lack of main effects an interaction between emotion and cognition is evidenced (p=.028). Post hoc analysis showed smaller HR for HA compared to LA condition only for LC (p=.049). Conclusion. The control of an aircraft is a very complex task including strong cognitive demands and depends on the emotional state of pilots. According to the behavioral data, the experimental set has permitted to generate satisfactorily different emotional and cognitive levels. As suggested by the interaction found in HR measure, these two factors do not seem to have a cumulative impact on the sympathetic nervous system. Apparently, low cognitive workload makes pilots more sensitive to emotional variations. These results hint the independency between data processing and emotional regulation. Further physiological data are necessary to confirm and disentangle this relation. This procedure may be useful for monitoring objectively pilot’s mental workload.

Keywords: cognitive demands, emotion, flight simulator, heart rate, mental workload

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Authors: Laila Khaled Almawaldi, Hiew Khai Hang, Sugumaran A. l. Nallusamy

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Legacy systems are crucial for organizations, but their intricacy and lack of documentation pose challenges for maintenance and enhancement. Redocumentation of legacy systems is vital for automatically or semi-automatically creating documentation for software lacking sufficient records. It aims to enhance system understandability, maintainability, and knowledge transfer. However, existing redocumentation methods need improvement in data processing performance and document generation efficiency. This stems from the necessity to efficiently handle the extensive and complex code of legacy systems. This paper proposes a method for semi-automatic legacy system re-documentation using semantic parallel processing and ontology. Leveraging parallel processing and ontology addresses current challenges by distributing the workload and creating documentation with logically interconnected data. The paper outlines challenges in legacy system redocumentation and suggests a method of redocumentation using parallel processing and ontology for improved efficiency and effectiveness.

Keywords: legacy systems, redocumentation, big data analysis, parallel processing

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Authors: Joaquin Navarro Perales, Ana Lidia Franzoni Velázquez, Francisco Cervantes Pérez

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The Mexican educational system faces diverse challenges related with the quality and coverage of education. The development of Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS) may help to solve some of them by helping teachers to customize their classes according to the performance of the students in online courses. In this work, we propose the adaptation of a functional ITS based on Bloom’s taxonomy called Sistema de Apoyo Generalizado para la Enseñanza Individualizada (SAGE), to measure student’s metacognition and their emotional response based on Marzano’s taxonomy. The students and the system will share the control over the advance in the course, so they can improve their metacognitive skills. The system will not allow students to get access to subjects not mastered yet. The interaction between the system and the student will be implemented through Natural Language Processing techniques, thus avoiding the use of sensors to evaluate student’s response. The teacher will evaluate student’s knowledge utilization, which is equivalent to the last cognitive level in Marzano’s taxonomy.

Keywords: intelligent tutoring systems, student modelling, metacognition, affective computing, natural language processing

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Authors: Khaled M. Alhawiti

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Natural Language Processing (NLP) is an effective approach for bringing improvement in educational setting. This involves initiating the process of learning through the natural acquisition in the educational systems. It is based on following effective approaches for providing the solution for various problems and issues in education. Natural Language Processing provides solution in a variety of different fields associated with the social and cultural context of language learning. It is based on involving various tools and techniques such as grammar, syntax, and structure of text. It is effective approach for teachers, students, authors, and educators for providing assistance for writing, analysis, and assessment procedure. Natural Language Processing is widely integrated in the large number of educational contexts such as research, science, linguistics, e-learning, evaluations system, and various other educational settings such as schools, higher education system, and universities. Natural Language Processing is based on applying scientific approach in the educational settings. In the educational settings, NLP is an effective approach to ensure that students can learn easily in the same way as they acquired language in the natural settings.

Keywords: natural language processing, education, application, e-learning, scientific studies, educational system

Procedia PDF Downloads 486

Authors: Seedwell Sithole

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One of the persistent problems in accounting education is how to effectively support students’ learning. A promising technique to this issue is to investigate the extent that learning is determined by the design of instructional material. This study examines the academic performance of students using three instructional designs in financial accounting. Student’s performance scores and reported mental effort ratings were used to determine the instructional effectiveness. The findings of this study show that accounting students prefer graph and text designs that are integrated. The results suggest that spatially separated graph and text presentations in accounting should be reorganized to align with the requirements of human cognitive architecture.

Keywords: accounting, cognitive load, education, instructional preferences, students

Procedia PDF Downloads 122