Search results for: official language

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: Tony Cripps, Larry Kimber

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This paper will begin by briefly explaining how blockchain technology works. Then, after highlighting a few of the ways it promises to heavily impact all aspects of the digital landscape, the focus will shift to Blockchain in the field of education, with specific emphasis placed on practical applications in foreign language education. Blockchain is a decentralized Internet-based software application that guarantees truth in transactions. This means whenever two parties engage in a transaction using Blockchain, it is time-stamped, added to a block of other transactions, and then permanently attached to an unalterable ‘chain’ of blocks. The potential for developing applications with Blockchain is therefore immense, since software systems that ensure the impossibility of outside tampering are invaluable. Innovative ideas in every imaginable domain are presently being entertained and Blockchain in education is no exception. For instance, records kept within and between institutions of students’ grade performance, academic achievement and verification of assignment/course completion are just a few examples of how this new technology might potentially be used to revolutionize education. It is hoped that this paper will be of use to all educators interested in the application of technology in the field of education.

Keywords: blockchain, disruption, potential, technology

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Authors: Purnomo Yustianto, Robin Doss, Suhardi, Novianto Budi Kurniawan

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As a term for characterizing a process of devising a service system, the term ‘service engineering’ is still regarded as an ‘open’ research challenge due to unspecified details and conflicting perspectives. This paper presents consolidated service engineering ontologies in collecting, specifying and defining relationship between components pertinent within the context of service engineering. The ontologies are built by way of literature surveys from the collected conceptual works by collating various concepts into an integrated ontology. Two ontologies are produced: general service ontology and software service ontology. The software-service ontology is drawn from the informatics domain, while the generalized ontology of a service system is built from both a business management and the information system perspective. The produced ontologies are verified by exercising conceptual operationalizations of the ontologies in adopting several service orientation features and service system patterns. The proposed ontologies are demonstrated to be sufficient to serve as a basis for a service engineering framework.

Keywords: engineering, ontology, service, SoaML

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Authors: Joana Portia Sakyi

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The uniqueness of auxiliary verbs and their contribution to grammar as constituents, which act as preverbs to supply additional grammatical or functional meanings to clauses, are well established. Functionally, they relate clauses to tense, aspect, mood, voice, emphasis, and modality, along with the main verbs conveying the appropriate lexical content. There has been an issue in Akan grammar vis-à-vis the status of auxiliary verbs, in terms of whether Akan has auxiliaries or not and even which forms are to be regarded as auxiliaries. We investigate the syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic components of expressions and claim that Akan has auxiliary verbs that contribute the functional or grammatical meaning of modality, tense/aspect, etc., to clauses they occur in. Essentially, we use a self-created corpus data to consider the affix bέ- ‘may’, ‘must’, ‘should’; the form tùmí ‘can’, ‘be able to’; mà ‘to let’, ‘to allow’, ‘to permit’, ‘to make’, or ‘to cause’ someone to do something; the multi-word forms ὲsὲ sέ ‘must’, ‘should’ or ‘have to’ and ètwà sέ ‘must’, ‘should’ or ‘have to’, and assert that they are legitimate modal auxiliaries conveying epistemic, deontic, and dynamic modalities, as well as other meanings in the language.

Keywords: Akan, modality, modal auxiliaries, semantics

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Authors: Marta Polec

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The paper outlines the problem of street performances in Poland in context of humanistic management studies. The Author perceives activity of street performers of various art and entertainment actions as a phenomenon of informal organizing, self-management and cultural entrepreneurship in urban sphere. What has to be highlighted, performative street art is not currently being an interest of scientific research as often as visual street art. That is why the Author indicates the need of including new approaches of humanistic and social disciplines, especially different management paradigms, in examining various aspects of the activity of street performers. The paper shows the results of ethnographic study based on anthropological interviews, participant observation non-participant observation, shadowing, field notes, audiovisual documentation and text analysis. The fieldwork was performed since 2014 in the old towns and major areas of several the most popular touristic Polish cities, mainly in Gdansk, Cracow, Lublin, Warsaw, and Wroclaw. The research group included street artists of various kinds of performative arts. The investigation was prepared within the ‘Ethnography of the informal organization of street artists in Poland’ project, as a part of Diamond Grant programme (the Ministry of Science and Higher Education in Poland). The first conclusion of the study is that street shows form a way of artistic self-realization and unusual promotion of creative activity in public space. As street performance helps to make some extra money and even earning a living in general, it seems to constitute a new profession. Street performers as a specific environment usually know each other and in many ways cooperate informally to carry on their shows successfully. Secondly, this activity brings plenty benefits for the local communities. Street shows attract inhabitants and tourists quite often by appealing to intangible cultural heritage and memorializing it. They also pose a space for discussing current social issues. Moreover, they disseminate relatively inexpensive public access to culture, but also state an example of social courage of choosing unconventional occupation. Finally, currently being used terms of street performers/street artists/buskers in different languages, as instance as in Polish, are still fluent and undefined. As a consequence, it brings implications for existing common knowledge about street performers, for example in establishing and implementing public policies. It impedes solving many ethical and social dilemmas concerning the question of performances in public sphere, which in some cases seem to be related to, as: children’s work, beggars’ practices or question of harmony of public space. The main aim of this study was to expose street performances as yet undefined profession, including different possibilities of interacting with the audience, based on providing impressions, experiences and memories. Although the issue seems to be current and common, in indicated context there is a lack of equal and unified approach of managing urban sphere, which in practice differs both in informal rules and official policies concerning street performances not only in cities in Poland, but also generally in Europe.

Keywords: informal, organizing, street performance, urban sphere

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Authors: Keivan Seyyedi, Leila Esmaeilpour, Seyed Jamal Sadeghi

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Investigating the effectiveness of explicit focus on form on the written performance of the EFL learners was the aim of this study. To provide empirical support for this study, sixty male English learners were selected and randomly assigned into two groups of explicit focus on form and meaning focused. Narrative writing was employed for data collection. To measure writing performance, participants were required to narrate a story. They were given 20 minutes to finish the task and were asked to write at least 150 words. The participants’ output was coded then analyzed utilizing Independent t-test for grammatical accuracy and fluency of learners’ performance. Results indicated that learners in explicit focus on form group appear to benefit from error correction and rule explanation as two pedagogical techniques of explicit focus on form with respect to accuracy, but regarding fluency they did not yield any significant differences compared to the participants of meaning-focused group.

Keywords: explicit focus on form, rule explanation, accuracy, fluency

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Authors: Paul Nadasdy

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In 2020, oral communication classes at many universities in Japan switched to online and hybrid lessons because of the coronavirus pandemic. Teachers had to adapt their practices immediately and deal with the challenges of the online environment. Even for experienced teachers, this still presented a problem as many had not conducted online classes before. Simultaneously, for many students, this type of learning was completely alien to them, and they had to adapt to the challenges faced by communicating in English online. This study collected data from 418 first grade students in the first semester of English communication classes at a technical university in Tokyo, Japan. Zoom software was used throughout the learning period. Though there were many challenges in the setting up and implementation of Zoom classes at the university, the results indicated that the students enjoyed the format and made the most of the circumstances. This proved the robustness of the course that was taught in regular lessons and the adaptability of teachers and students to challenges in a very short timeframe.

Keywords: zoom, hybrid lessons, communicative english, online teaching

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Authors: Akella Amarendra Babu, Rama Devi Yellasiri, Natukula Sainath

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Where human beings can easily learn and adopt pronunciation variations, machines need training before put into use. Also humans keep minimum vocabulary and their pronunciation variations are stored in front-end of their memory for ready reference, while machines keep the entire pronunciation dictionary for ready reference. Supervised methods are used for preparation of pronunciation dictionaries which take large amounts of manual effort, cost, time and are not suitable for real time use. This paper presents an unsupervised adaptation model for building agile and dynamic pronunciation dictionaries online. These methods mimic human approach in learning the new pronunciations in real time. A new algorithm for measuring sound distances called Dynamic Phone Warping is presented and tested. Performance of the system is measured using an adaptation model and the precision metrics is found to be better than 86 percent.

Keywords: pronunciation variations, dynamic programming, machine learning, natural language processing

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Authors: Myriam Benraad

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On 5 July 2016, just days before the bloody terrorist attack on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice, the Al-Hayat media centre, one of the official propaganda branches of the Islamic State, broadcast a French nasheed which paid tribute to the Paris and Brussels attacks of November 2015 and March 2016. Entitled 'My Revenge', the terrorist anthem was of rare vehemence. It mentioned, sequentially, 'huddled bodies', in a reference to the civilian casualties of Western air strikes in the Iraqi-Syrian zone, 'explosive belts', 'sharp knives', 'large-calibre weapons' as well as 'localised targets'. France was accused of bearing the responsibility for the wave of attacks on its territory since the Charlie Hebdo massacre of January 2015 due to its 'ruthless war' against the Muslim world. Evoking an 'old aggression' and the 'crimes and spoliations' of which France has made itself guilty, the jihadist hymn depicted the rebirth of the caliphate as 'laudable revenge'. The notion of revenge has always been central to contemporary jihadism, understood both as a revolutionary ideology and a global militant movement. In recent years, the attacks carried out in Europe and elsewhere in the world have, for most, been claimed in its name. Whoever says jihad, says drama, yet few studies, if any, have looked at its dramatic and emotional elements, most notably its tragic vengefulness. This seems all the more astonishing that jihad is filled with drama; it could even be seen as a drama in its own right. The jihadists perform a script and take on roles inspired by their respective group’s culture (norms, values, beliefs, and symbols). The militants stage and perform such a script for a designated audience, either partisan, sympathising or hostile towards them and their cause. This research paper will examine the dramaturgy of jihadism and in particular, the genre that best characterises its violence: revenge tragedy. Theoretically, the research will rely on the tools of social movement theory and the sociology of emotions. Methodologically, it will draw from dramaturgical analysis and a combination of qualitative and quantitative tools to attain valuable observations of a number of developments, trends, and patterns. The choice has been made to focus mainly – however not exclusively – on the attacks which have taken place since 2001 in the European Union and more specific member states that have been significantly hit by jihadist terrorism. The research looks at a number of representative longitudinal samples identifying continuities and discontinuities, similarities, but also substantial differences. The preliminary findings tend to establish the relevance and validity of this approach in helping make better sense of sensitisation, mobilisation, and survival dynamics within jihadist groups, and motivations among individuals who have embraced violence. Besides, they illustrate their pertinence for counterterrorism policymakers and practitioners. Through drama, jihadist groups ensure the unceasing regeneration of their militant cause as well as their legitimation among their partisans. Without drama, and without the spectacular ideological staging of reality, they would not be able to maintain their attraction potential and power of persuasion.

Keywords: Jihadism, dramaturgy, revenge, tragedy

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Authors: Anirudh Bhaikhel

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The exclusive objective of this paper is to develop a device which can pass on the interpreted result of the sensed information to the interfaced communicable devices to avoid or minimise accidents. This device may also be used in case of emergencies like kidnapping, robberies, medical emergencies etc. The present era has seen a rapid metamorphosis in the automobile industry with increasing use of technology and speed. The increase in purchasing power of customers and price war of automobile companies has made an easy access to the automobile users. The use of automobiles has increased tremendously in last 4-5 years thus causing traffic congestions and thus making vehicles more prone to accidents. This device can be an effective measure to counteract cases of abduction. Risks of accidents can be decreased tremendously through the notifications received by these alerts. It will help to detect the upcoming emergencies. This paper includes the simulation of the communication and sensing device required in automobiles using VHDL.

Keywords: automobiles, communication, component, cyclic redundancy check (CRC), modulo-2 arithmetic, parity bits, receiver, sensors, transmitter, turns, VHDL (VHSIC hardware descriptive language)

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Authors: Rahmatollah Amirjani

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By the emergence of the debate over the failure of Regionalism in the late 1970s, Critical Regional­ism was introduced as a different way to respond to the state of architecture in the post-war era. Critical Regionalism is most often understood as a discourse that not only mediates the language of modern architecture with the local cultures but also revives the relation between architecture and spectator as indexed by capitalism. Since the inception of Critical Regionalism, a large number of architectural practices have emerged around the globe; however, the work of the well-known Portuguese architect, Álvaro Siza, is considered as a unique case amongst works associated with the discourse of Critical Regionalism. This paper intends to respond to a number of questions, including; what are the origins of Critical Regionalism? How does Siza’s design strategy correspond to the thematic of Critical Regionalism? How does Siza recover the relation between object and subject in most of his projects? Using Siza’s housing project for the Malagueira district in Évora, Portugal, this article will attempt to answer these questions, and highlight Alvaro Siza’s design procedure which goes beyond the existing discourse of Critical Regionalism and contributes to our understanding of this practice.

Keywords: Alvaro Siza, critical regionalism, Malagueira housing, placelessness

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Authors: Jessica Neri, Elena Faccio

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In Europe, except for Denmark and Malta, the legal gender change and the stages of the possible process of gender transition are bound to the diagnosis of a gender identity disorder. The requirement of the evaluation of a mental disorder might have many implications on trans people’s self-representations, interpersonal relations in different social contexts and the therapeutic relations with clinicians during the transition. Psychopathological language may contribute to define the individual’s reality from normative presuppositions with value implications related to the dominant cultural principles. In an effort to mark the boundaries between sanity and pathology, it concurs to the definition of the management procedures of the constructed diversities and deviances, legitimizing the operational practices of particular professional figures. The aim of this research concerns the analysis of the diagnostic category of gender dysphoria contained in the last edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. In particular, this study focuses on the relationship between the implicit and explicit assumptions related to the expressions of gender non-conformity, that sustain the language and the criteria characterizing the Manual, and the possible implications on people’s narratives of transition. In order to achieve this objective two main research methods were used: historical reconstruction of the diagnostic category in the different versions of the Manual and content analysis of that category in the present version. From the historical analysis, in the medical and psychiatric field gender non-conformity has been predominantly explicated by naturalistic perspectives, naming it ‘transsexualism’ and collocating it in the category of gender identity disorder. Currently, pathological judged experiences are represented by gender dysphoria, described in the DSM-5 as the distress that may accompany the incongruence between one's experienced or expressed gender and one's assigned gender, specifying that there must be ‘evidence’ of this. Implicit theories about gender binary, parallelism between gender identity, sex and sexuality and the understanding of the mental health and the subject’s agency as subordinated to the expert knowledge, can be found in the process of designation of the category. A lack of awareness of the historical, social and political aspects connected to the cultural and normative dimensions at the basis of these implicit theories, can be noticed and data given by culture and data given by supposed -biological or psychological- nature, are often confused. This reductionist interpretation of gender and its presumed diversities legitimize the clinician to assume the role of searching and orienting, in a correctional perspective, the biographical elements that correspond to him specific expectations, with no space for other possibilities and identity configurations for people in transition. This research may contribute to the current critical debate about the epistemological foundation of the psychodiagnosis, emphasizing the pragmatic effects on the individuals and on the psychological practice in its wider social context. This work also permits to underline the risks due to the lack of awareness of the processes of social construction of the diagnostic system and its essential role of defence of the values that hold up the symbolic universe of reference.

Keywords: diagnosis, gender dysphoria, narratives, social constructionism

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Authors: Ruairi J. McMillan

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Introduction: This critical analysis aims to ascertain how well neuroanatomical aetiologies are communicated within 20 case reports of aphasia. Neuroanatomical visualisations based on dissected brain specimens were produced and combined with white matter tract and vascular taxonomies of function in order to address the most consistently underreported features found within the aphasic case study reports. Together, these approaches are intended to integrate aphasiological knowledge from the past 20 years with aphasiological diagnostics, and to act as prototypal resources for both researchers and clinical professionals. The medico-legal precedent for aphasia diagnostics under Canadian, US and UK case law and the neuroimaging/neurological diagnostics relative to the functional capacity of aphasic patients are discussed in relation to the major findings of the literary analysis, neuroimaging protocols in clinical use today, and the neuroanatomical aetiologies of different aphasias. Basic Methodology: Literature searches of relevant scientific databases (e.g, OVID medline) were carried out using search terms such as aphasia case study (year) & stroke induced aphasia case study. A series of 7 diagnostic reporting criteria were formulated, and the resulting case studies were scored / 7 alongside clinical stroke criteria. In order to focus on the diagnostic assessment of the patient’s condition, only the case report proper (not the discussion) was used to quantify results. Statistical testing established if specific reporting criteria were associated with higher overall scores and potentially inferable increases in quality of reporting. Statistical testing of whether criteria scores were associated with an unclear/adjusted diagnosis were also tested, as well as the probability of a given criterion deviating from an expected estimate. Major Findings: The quantitative analysis of neuroanatomically driven diagnostics in case studies of aphasia revealed particularly low scores in the connection of neuroanatomical functions to aphasiological assessment (10%), and in the inclusion of white matter tracts within neuroimaging or assessment diagnostics (30%). Case studies which included clinical mention of white matter tracts within the report itself were distributed among higher scoring cases, as were case studies which (as clinically indicated) related the affected vascular region to the brain parenchyma of the language network. Concluding Statement: These findings indicate that certain neuroanatomical functions are integrated less often within the patient report than others, despite a precedent for well-integrated neuroanatomical aphasiology also being found among the case studies sampled, and despite these functions being clinically essential in diagnostic neuroimaging and aphasiological assessment. Therefore, ultimately the integration and specificity of aetiological neuroanatomy may contribute positively to the capacity and autonomy of aphasic patients as well as their clinicians. The integration of a full aetiological neuroanatomy within the reporting of aphasias may improve patient outcomes and sustain autonomy in the event of medico-ethical investigation.

Keywords: aphasia, language network, functional neuroanatomy, aphasiological diagnostics, medico-legal ethics

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Authors: Abubakar Attahiru

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Mathematics plays an important role in the real situation. The development of the study of mathematics is a result of the needs of man to survive and interact with one another in society. Mathematics is the universal language that is applied in almost every aspect of life. Mathematics gives us a way to understand patterns, define relationships, and predict the future. The changes in the content and methods of studying mathematics follow the trends in societal needs and developments. Also, the developments in mathematics affect the developments in society. Generally, education helps to develop society while the activities and needs of the society dictate e educational policy of any society. Among all the academic subjects studied at school, mathematics has distinctly contributed more to the objectives of general education of man than any other subject. This is a result of the applications of mathematics to all spheres of human endeavors’. This paper looks at the meaning of the basic concepts of mathematics, science, and technology, the application of mathematics in a real-life situation, and their relationships with society. The paper also shows how mathematics, science, and technology affect the existence and development of society and how society determines the nature of mathematics studied in society through its educational system.

Keywords: application, mathematics, real life, situation

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Authors: Chuluundorj Begz

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This paper presents the dynamic, psycho-cognitive approach to study of human verbal thinking on the basis of typologically different languages /as a Mongolian, English and Russian/. Topological equivalence in verbal communication serves as a basis of Universality of mental structures and therefore deep structures. Mechanism of verbal thinking consisted at the deep level of basic concepts, rules for integration and classification, neural networks of vocabulary. In neuro cognitive study of language, neural architecture and neuro psychological mechanism of verbal cognition are basis of a vector-based modeling. Verbal perception and interpretation of the infinite set of meanings and propositions in mental continuum can be modeled by applying tensor methods. Euclidean and non-Euclidean spaces are applied for a description of human semantic vocabulary and high order structures.

Keywords: Euclidean spaces, isomorphism and homomorphism, mental lexicon, mental mapping, semantic memory, verbal cognition, vector space

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Authors: Saneeya Qureshi

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This paper reports doctoral research into the impact of Special Educational Needs Coordinators (SENCOs) on teachers in England, UK. Since 1994, it has been compulsory for all mainstream schools in the UK to have a SENCO who co-ordinates assessment and provision for supporting pupils with Special Educational Needs (SEN), helping teachers to develop and implement optimal SEN planning and resources. SENCOs’ roles have evolved as various policies continually redefined SEN provision, impacting their positioning within the school hierarchical structure. SENCOs in England are increasingly recognised as key members of school senior management teams. In this paper, It will be argued that despite issues around the transformative ‘professionalisation’ of their role, and subsequent conflict around boundaries and power relations, SENCOs enhance teachers’ abilities in terms of delivering optimal SEN provision. There is a significant international dimension to the issue: a similar role in respect of SEN management already exists in countries such as Ireland, Finland and Singapore, whilst in other countries, such as Italy and India, the introduction of a role similar to that of a SENCO is currently under discussion. The research question addressed is: do SENCOs enhance teachers’ abilities to be effective teachers of children with Special Educational Needs? The theoretical framework of the project is that of interpretivism, as it is acknowledged that there are contexts and realities are social constructions. The study applied a mixed method approach consisting of two phases. The first phase involved a purposive survey (n=42) of 223 primary school SENCOs, which enabled a deeper insight into SENCOs’ perceptions of their roles in relation to teachers. The second phase consisted of semi-structured interviews (n=36) of SENCOs, teachers and head teachers, in addition to school SEN-related documentation scrutiny. ‘Trustworthiness’ was accomplished through data and methodological triangulation, in addition to a rigorous process of coding and thematic analysis. The research was informed by an Ethical Code as per national guidelines. Research findings point to the evolutionary aspect of the SENCO role having engendered a culture of expectations amongst practitioners, as SENCOs transition from being ‘fixers’ to being ‘enablers’ of teachers. Outcomes indicate that SENCOs can empower teaching staff through the dissemination of specialist knowledge. However, there must be resources clearly identified for such dissemination to take place. It is imperative that both SENCOs and teachers alike address the issue of absolution of responsibility that arises when the ownership and accountability for the planning and implementation of SEN provision are not clarified so as to ensure the promotion of a positive school ethos around inclusive practices. Optimal outcomes through effective SEN interventions and teaching practices are positively correlated with the inclusion of teachers in the planning and execution of SEN provisions. An international audience can consider how the key findings are being manifest in a global context, with reference to their own educational settings. Research outcomes can aid the development of specific competencies needed to shape optimal inclusive educational settings in accordance with the official global priorities pertaining to inclusion.

Keywords: inclusion, school professionals, school leadership, special educational needs (SEN), special educational needs coordinators (SENCOs)

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Authors: Shuo Liu, Dan Liu

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In the field of named entity recognition, most of the research has been conducted around simple entities. However, for nested named entities, which still contain entities within entities, it has been difficult to identify them accurately due to their boundary ambiguity. In this paper, a hierarchical recognition model is constructed based on the grammatical structure and semantic features of Chinese text for boundary calculation based on lexical features. The analysis is carried out at different levels in terms of granularity, semantics, and lexicality, respectively, avoiding repetitive work to reduce computational effort and using the semantic features of words to calculate the boundaries of entities to improve the accuracy of the recognition work. The results of the experiments carried out on web-based microblogging data show that the model achieves an accuracy of 86.33% and an F1 value of 89.27% in recognizing nested named entities, making up for the shortcomings of some previous recognition models and improving the efficiency of recognition of nested named entities.

Keywords: coarse-grained, nested named entity, Chinese natural language processing, word embedding, T-SNE dimensionality reduction algorithm

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Authors: Niracha Chompurach, Dararat Khampusaen

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EFL students have to be able to synthesize the texts they are reading critically to compose and connect the information. This study focuses on the effects of the application of Infographics as a supplementary tool to improve Thai EFL students’ Academic reading skills. Infographics are graphic visual representations of information, data, and knowledge offering students to work on gathering multiple types of information, such as pictures, texts, graphs, mapping, and charts. The study aims to investigate if the Infographics as a supplementary tool in academic reading lessons can make a difference in students’ reading skills, and the students’ opinions toward the application of infographics as a reading tool. The participants of this study were 3rd year Thai EFL Khon Kaen University students who took English Academic Reading course. This study employed Infographics assignments, Infographics rubric, and Gucus group interview. This study would advantage for both EFL teachers and students as a means to engage the students to handle the larger load of and represents the complex information in visible and comprehensible way.

Keywords: EFL, e-learning, infographics, language education

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Authors: Maria M. Calheiros, Carla Silva, Eunice Magalhães

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Professionals working in child protection services (CPS) need to have common and clear criteria to identify cases of maltreatment and to differentiate levels of severity in order to determine when CPS intervention is required, its nature and urgency, and, in most countries, the service that will be in charge of the case (community or specialized CPS). Actually, decision-making process is complex in CPS, and, for that reason, such criteria are particularly important for who significantly contribute to that decision-making in child maltreatment cases. The main objective of this presentation is to describe the Maltreatment Severity Assessment Questionnaire (MSQ), specifically designed to be used by professionals in the CPS, which adopts a multidimensional approach and uses a scale of severity within subtypes. Specifically, we aim to provide evidence of validity and reliability of this tool, in order to improve the quality and validity of assessment processes and, consequently, the decision making in CPS. The total sample was composed of 1000 children and/or adolescents (51.1% boys), aged between 0 and 18 years old (M = 9.47; DP = 4.51). All the participants were referred to official institutions of the children and youth protective system. Children and adolescents maltreatment (abuse, neglect experiences and sexual abuse) were assessed with 21 items of the Maltreatment Severity Questionnaire (MSQ), by professionals of CPS. Each item (sub-type) was composed of four descriptors of increasing severity. Professionals rated the level of severity, using a 4-point scale (1= minimally severe; 2= moderately severe; 3= highly severe; 4= extremely severe). The construct validity of the Maltreatment Severity Questionnaire was assessed with a holdout method, performing an Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) followed by a Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA). The final solution comprised 18 items organized in three factors 47.3% of variance explained. ‘Physical neglect’ (eight items) was defined by parental omissions concerning the insurance and monitoring of the child’s physical well-being and health, namely in terms of clothing, hygiene, housing conditions and contextual environmental security. ‘Physical and Psychological Abuse’ (four items) described abusive physical and psychological actions, namely, coercive/punitive disciplinary methods, physically violent methods or verbal interactions that offend and denigrate the child, with the potential to disrupt psychological attributes (e.g., self-esteem). ‘Psychological neglect’ (six items) involved omissions related to children emotional development, mental health monitoring, school attendance, development needs, as well as inappropriate relationship patterns with attachment figures. Results indicated a good reliability of all the factors. The assessment of child maltreatment cases with MSQ could have a set of practical and research implications: a) It is a valid and reliable multidimensional instrument to measure child maltreatment, b) It is an instrument integrating the co-occurrence of various types of maltreatment and a within-subtypes scale of severity; c) Specifically designed for professionals, it may assist them in decision-making processes; d) More than using case file reports to evaluate maltreatment experiences, researchers could guide more appropriately their research about determinants and consequences of maltreatment.

Keywords: assessment, maltreatment, children and youth, decision-making

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Authors: Y. Bablu Singh, B. S. Purkayashtha, Chungkham Yashawanta Singh

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Morphological analysis forms the basic foundation in NLP applications including syntax parsing Machine Translation (MT), Information Retrieval (IR) and automatic indexing in all languages. It is the field of the linguistics; it can provide valuable information for computer based linguistics task such as lemmatization and studies of internal structure of the words. Computational Morphology is the application of morphological rules in the field of computational linguistics, and it is the emerging area in AI, which studies the structure of words, which are formed by combining smaller units of linguistics information, called morphemes: the building blocks of words. Morphological analysis provides about semantic and syntactic role in a sentence. It analyzes the Manipuri word forms and produces several grammatical information associated with the words. The Morphological Analyzer for Manipuri has been tested on 3500 Manipuri words in Shakti Standard format (SSF) using Meitei Mayek as source; thereby an accuracy of 80% has been obtained on a manual check.

Keywords: morphological analysis, machine translation, computational morphology, information retrieval, SSF

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Authors: Roxana Poushang Baghery, Matthew D. Reyes

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This paper presents a comprehensive investigation into jobsite safety orientation programs within the US construction industry. Through interviews with industry professionals, this paper explores the domains of safety roles, daily safety practices, safety culture, and experts’ insights. This study underscores the pivotal significance of safety orientation programs, addressing their content, coordination, technology integration, and emergency procedures. Key findings emphasize the influential roles of leadership, language, and technology in the enhancement of these programs. Advocating for a paradigm shift, this paper calls for a multifaceted approach rooted in engagement, leadership commitment, clear communication, technological integration, simplicity, and a persistent pursuit of improvement in safety orientations. This study significantly contributes to the ongoing evolution and enhancement of safety practices, ensuring the safety and success of construction projects and, above all, the safeguarding of its workforce.

Keywords: jobsite safety orientation, construction industry, safety culture, workplace incidents

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Authors: Jasna Milošević Đorđević, Jelisaveta Blagojević, Jovana Timotijević, Alison Mckinley

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Young people in Serbia, have grown up in turbulent times during the Balkan wars, in a cultural and economic isolation without adequate education on (ethnic, gender, social,..) equality. They often have very strong patriarchal gender stereotypes. The perception of gender in Serbia is still heavily influenced by traditional worldview and young people have little opportunity in traditional educational system to challenge it, receiving no formal sex education. Educational policies have addressed achieving gender equality as one of the goals, supporting all young people to gain better educational opportunities, but there are obvious shortcomings of the official education system in implementation of those goals. Therefore new approaches should be implemented. We evaluate the impact of non traditional approach, such as participatory theatre performance with strong transformative potential, especially in relation to gender issues. Theatre based intervention (TBI) was created to provoke the young people to become aware of their gender constructs. Engaging young people in modern form of education such as transformative gender intervention through participatory theatre could have positive impact on their sex knowledge and understanding gender roles. The transformative process in TBI happens on two levels – the affective and the cognitive. The founding agency of the project and evaluation is IPPF. The most important aim of this survey is evaluation of the transformative TBI, as a new educational approach related to better understanding gender as social construct. To reach this goal, we have measured attitude change in three indicators: a) gender identity/ perception of feminine identity, perception of masculine identity, importance of gender for personal identity, b) gender roles on the labor market, c) Gender equality in partnership & sexual behavior. Our main hypothesis is that participatory theatre-based intervention can have a transformational potential in challenging traditional gender knowledge and attitudes among youth in Serbia. To evaluate the impact of TB intervention, we implement: online baseline and end-line survey with nonparticipants of the TBI on the representative sample in targeted towns (control group). Additionally we conducted testing the experimental group twice: pretest at the beginning of each TBI and post testing of participants after the play. A sample of 500 respondents aged 18-30 years, from 9 towns in Serbia responded to online questionnaire in September 2017, in a baseline research. Pre and post measurement of all tested variables among participants in nine towns would be performed. End-line survey with 500 respondents would be conducted at the end of the project (early year 2018). After the first TBI (60 participants) no impact was detected on measured indicators: perception of desirable characteristics of man F(1,59)= 1.291, p=.260; perception of desirable characteristics of women F(1,55)=1.386, p= .244; gender identity importance F(1,63)= .050, p=.824; sex related behavior F(1,61)=1,145, p=.289; gender equality on labor market F(1,63)=.076, p=.783; gender equality in partnership F(1,61)=.201, p=.656; However, we hope that following intervention would bring more data showing that participatory theatre intervention explaining gender as a social construct could have additional positive impact in traditional educational system.

Keywords: educational impact, gender identity, gender role, participatory theatre based intervention

Procedia PDF Downloads 181

Authors: Chi-Lun Liu

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Requirements modeling and analysis are important in successful information systems' maintenance. Unified Modeling Language (UML) class diagrams are useful standards for modeling information systems. To our best knowledge, there is a lack of a systems development methodology described by the organism metaphor. The core concept of this metaphor is adaptation. Using the knowledge representation and reasoning approach and ontologies to adopt new requirements are emergent in recent years. This paper proposes an organic methodology which is based on constructivism theory. This methodology is a knowledge representation and reasoning approach to analyze new requirements in the class diagrams maintenance. The process and rules in the proposed methodology automatically analyze inconsistencies in the class diagram. In the big data era, developing an automatic tool based on the proposed methodology to analyze large amounts of class diagram data is an important research topic in the future.

Keywords: knowledge representation, reasoning, ontology, class diagram, software engineering

Procedia PDF Downloads 241

Authors: A. F. C. Nassar, D. K. Tessler, L. Okuda, C. Del Fava, D. P. Chiebao, A. H. C. N. Romaldini, A. P. Alvim, M. J. Sanchez-Vazquez, M. S. Rosa, J. C. Pompei, R. Harakava, M. C. S. Araujo, G. H. F. Marques, E. M. Pituco

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Glanders is a zoonotic disease of Equidae caused by the bacterium Burkholderia mallei presented in acute or chronic clinical forms with inflammatory nodules in the respiratory tract, lymphangitis and caseous lymph nodes. There is not a treatment with veterinary drugs to this life-threatening disease; thus, its occurrence must be notified to official animal health services and any infected animal must be eliminated. This study aims to detect B. mallei from horses euthanized in outbreaks of glanders in Brazil, providing a better understanding of the bacterial characteristics and determine a proper protocol for isolation. The work was carried out with the collaboration of the Ministry of Agriculture and the Sao Paulo State Animal Health Department, while its procedures were approved by the Committee of Ethics in Animal Experimentation from the Instituto Biologico (CETEA n°156/2017). To the present time, 16 horses from farms with outbreaks of glanders detected by complement fixation test (CFT) serology method were analyzed. During the necropsy, samples of possibly affected organs (lymph nodes, lungs, heart, liver, spleen, kidneys and trachea) were collected for bacterial isolation, molecular tests and pathology. Isolation was performed using two enriched mediums, a potato infusion agar with 5% sheep blood, 4% glycerol and antibiotics (penicilin100U/ mL), and another with the same ingredients except the antibiotic. A PCR protocol was modified for this study using primers design to identify a region of the Flip gen of B. mallei. Thru isolation, 12.5% (2/16) animals were confirmed positive using only the enriched medium with antibiotic and confirmed by PCR: from mediastinal and submandibular lymph nodes and lungs in one animal and from mediastinal lymph node in the other. The detection of the bacterium using PCR showed positivity of 100% (16/16) horses from 144 samples of organs. Pathology macroscopic lesions observed were catarrhal nasal discharge, fetlock ulcers, emaciation, lymphangitis in limbs, suppurative lymphangitis, lymph node enlargement, star shaped liver, and spleen scars, adherence of the renal capsule, pulmonary hemorrhage, and miliary nodules. Microscopic lesions were suppurative bronchopneumonia with microabscesses and Langhans giant cells in lungs; lymph nodes with abscesses and intense lymphoid reaction; hemosiderosis and abscesses in spleen. Positive samples on PCR will be sequenced later and analyzed comparing with previous records in the literature. A throughout description of the recent acute cases of glanders occurring in Brazil and characterization of the bacterium related will contribute to advances in the knowledge of the pathogenicity, clinical symptoms, and epidemiology of this zoonotic disease. Acknowledgment: This project is sponsored by FAPESP.

Keywords: equines, bacterial isolation, zoonosis, PCR, pathology

Procedia PDF Downloads 137

Authors: Marco Avila Lopez, Hasnae Ait-Douchi, Silvia De Los Santos, Badr Eddine Lebrouhi, Pamela Ramírez Vidal

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In the context of the energy transition, fuel cell technology has emerged as a solution for harnessing hydrogen energy and mitigating greenhouse gas emissions. An in-depth study was conducted on a PEMFC-type fuel cell, with an initiation of an analysis of its operational principles and constituent components. Subsequently, the modelling of the fuel cell was undertaken using the Python programming language, encompassing both steady-state and transient regimes. In the case of the steady-state regime, the physical and electrochemical phenomena occurring within the fuel cell were modelled, with the assumption of uniform temperature throughout all cell compartments. Parametric identification was carried out, resulting in a remarkable mean error of only 1.62% when the model results were compared to experimental data documented in the literature. The dynamic model that was developed enabled the scrutiny of the fuel cell's response in terms of temperature and voltage under varying current conditions.

Keywords: fuel cell, modelling, dynamic, thermal model, PEMFC

Procedia PDF Downloads 80

Authors: Arkadiusz Mezyk, Wojciech Klein, Mariusz Pawlak, Jacek Gnilka

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The aortic heart valve stents should fulfill many criterions. These criteria have a strong impact on the geometrical shape of the stent. Usually, the final construction of stent is a result of many year experience and knowledge. Depending on patents claims, different stent shapes are produced by different companies. This causes difficulties for biomechanics engineers narrowing the domain of feasible solutions. The paper present optimization method for stent geometry defining by a specific analytical equation based on various mathematical functions. This formula was implemented as APDL script language in ANSYS finite element environment. For the purpose of simulation tests, a few parameters were separated from developed equation. The application of the genetic algorithms allows finding the best solution due to selected objective function. Obtained solution takes into account parameters such as radial force, compression ratio and coefficient of expansion on the transverse axial.

Keywords: aortic stent, optimization process, geometry, finite element method

Procedia PDF Downloads 278

Authors: Pingping Lin, Xudong Luo, Yifan Fan

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Sentiment analysis is a very active research topic. Every day, Facebook, Twitter, Weibo, and other social media, as well as significant e-commerce websites, generate a massive amount of comments, which can be used to analyse peoples opinions or emotions. The existing methods for sentiment analysis are based mainly on sentiment dictionaries, machine learning, and deep learning. The first two kinds of methods rely on heavily sentiment dictionaries or large amounts of labelled data. The third one overcomes these two problems. So, in this paper, we focus on the third one. Specifically, we survey various sentiment analysis methods based on convolutional neural network, recurrent neural network, long short-term memory, deep neural network, deep belief network, and memory network. We compare their futures, advantages, and disadvantages. Also, we point out the main problems of these methods, which may be worthy of careful studies in the future. Finally, we also examine the application of deep learning in multimodal sentiment analysis and aspect-level sentiment analysis.

Keywords: document analysis, deep learning, multimodal sentiment analysis, natural language processing

Procedia PDF Downloads 162

Authors: M. Mansouri, P. Jaklitsch, E. Teiniker

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SQL injection on web applications is a very popular kind of attack. There are mechanisms such as intrusion detection systems in order to detect this attack. These strategies often rely on techniques implemented at high layers of the application but do not consider the low level of system calls. The problem of only considering the high level perspective is that an attacker can circumvent the detection tools using certain techniques such as URL encoding. One technique currently used for detecting low-level attacks on privileged processes is the tracing of system calls. System calls act as a single gate to the Operating System (OS) kernel; they allow catching the critical data at an appropriate level of detail. Our basic assumption is that any type of application, be it a system service, utility program or Web application, “speaks” the language of system calls when having a conversation with the OS kernel. At this level we can see the actual attack while it is happening. We conduct an experiment in order to demonstrate the suitability of system call analysis for detecting SQL injection. We are able to detect the attack. Therefore we conclude that system calls are not only powerful in detecting low-level attacks but that they also enable us to detect high-level attacks such as SQL injection.

Keywords: Linux system calls, web attack detection, interception, SQL

Procedia PDF Downloads 356

Authors: Regita P. Permata, Ulfa S. Nuraini

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Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP) is the most studied problem in combinatorial optimization. In simple language, TSP can be described as a problem of finding a minimum distance tour to a city, starting and ending in the same city, and exactly visiting another city. In product distribution, companies often get problems in determining the minimum distance that affects the time allocation. In this research, we aim to apply TSP heuristic methods to simulate nodes as city coordinates in product distribution. The heuristics used are sub tour reversal, nearest neighbor, farthest insertion, cheapest insertion, nearest insertion, and arbitrary insertion. We have done simulation nodes using Euclidean distances to compare the number of cities and processing time, thus we get optimum heuristic method. The results show that the optimum heuristic methods are farthest insertion and nearest insertion. These two methods can be recommended to solve product distribution problems in certain companies.

Keywords: Euclidean, heuristics, simulation, TSP

Procedia PDF Downloads 125

Authors: Yaru Meng

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The study contributes to the small but growing literature around computerized approaches to dynamic assessment (C-DA), wherein individual items are accompanied by mediating prompts. Mediation in the current computerized dynamic listening assessment (CDLA) was informed by an attribute-based mediation model (AMM) that identified the underlying L2 listening cognitive abilities and associated descriptors. The AMM served to focus mediation during C-DA on particular cognitive abilities with a goal of specifying areas of learner difficulty. 86 low-intermediate L2 English learners from a university in China completed three listening assessments, with an experimental group receiving the CLDA system and a control group a non-dynamic assessment. As an assessment, the use of the AMM in C-DA generated detailed diagnoses for each learner. In addition, both within- and between-group repeated ANOVA found greater gains at the level of specific attributes among C-DA learners over the course of a 5-week study. Directions for future research are discussed.

Keywords: computerized dynamic assessment, effectiveness, English as foreign language listening, attribute-based mediation model

Procedia PDF Downloads 222