Search results for: cognitive architecture

Authors: Y. Harold Robinson, M. Rajaram

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Wireless mesh networking is rapidly gaining in popularity with a variety of users: from municipalities to enterprises, from telecom service providers to public safety and military organizations. This increasing popularity is based on two basic facts: ease of deployment and increase in network capacity expressed in bandwidth per footage; WMNs do not rely on any fixed infrastructure. Many efforts have been used to maximizing throughput of the network in a multi-channel multi-radio wireless mesh network. Current approaches are purely based on either static or dynamic channel allocation approaches. In this paper, we use a hybrid multichannel multi radio wireless mesh networking architecture, where static and dynamic interfaces are built in the nodes. Dynamic Adaptive Channel Allocation protocol (DACA), it considers optimization for both throughput and delay in the channel allocation. The assignment of the channel has been allocated to be codependent with the routing problem in the wireless mesh network and that should be based on passage flow on every link. Temporal and spatial relationship rises to re compute the channel assignment every time when the pattern changes in mesh network, channel assignment algorithms assign channels in network. In this paper a computing path which captures the available path bandwidth is the proposed information and the proficient routing protocol based on the new path which provides both static and dynamic links. The consistency property guarantees that each node makes an appropriate packet forwarding decision and balancing the control usage of the network, so that a data packet will traverse through the right path.

Keywords: Wireless mesh network, spatial time division multiple access, hybrid topology, timeslot allocation.

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Authors: A. Buruzs, M. F. Hatwágner, A. Torma, L. T. Kóczy

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The development, operation and maintenance of Integrated Waste Management Systems (IWMS) affects essentially the sustainable concern of every region. The features of such systems have great influence on all of the components of sustainability. In order to reach the optimal way of processes, a comprehensive mapping of the variables affecting the future efficiency of the system is needed such as analysis of the interconnections among the components and modeling of their interactions. The planning of a IWMS is based fundamentally on technical and economical opportunities and the legal framework. Modeling the sustainability and operation effectiveness of a certain IWMS is not in the scope of the present research. The complexity of the systems and the large number of the variables require the utilization of a complex approach to model the outcomes and future risks. This complex method should be able to evaluate the logical framework of the factors composing the system and the interconnections between them. The authors of this paper studied the usability of the Fuzzy Cognitive Map (FCM) approach modeling the future operation of IWMS’s. The approach requires two input data set. One is the connection matrix containing all the factors affecting the system in focus with all the interconnections. The other input data set is the time series, a retrospective reconstruction of the weights and roles of the factors. This paper introduces a novel method to develop time series by content analysis.

Keywords: Content analysis, factors, integrated waste management system, time series.

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Authors: M. Kobylanski, D. Buskulic, P.-H. Duron, D. Revuz, F. Ruggieri, E. Sandier, C. Tijus

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In order to design a cooperative e-learning platform, we observed teams of Teacher [T], Computer Scientist [CS] and exerciser's programmer-designer [ED] cooperating for the conception of a self-correcting exercise, but without the use of such a device in order to catch the kind of interactions a useful platform might provide. To do so, we first run a task analysis on how T, CS and ED should be cooperating in order to achieve, at best, the task of creating and implementing self-directed, self-paced, repeatable self-correcting exercises (RSE) in the context of open educational resources. The formalization of the whole process was based on the “objectives, activities and evaluations” theory of educational task analysis. Second, using the resulting frame as a “how-to-do it” guide, we run a series of three contrasted Hackathon of RSE-production to collect data about the cooperative process that could be later used to design the collaborative e-learning platform. Third, we used two complementary methods to collect, to code and to analyze the adequate survey data: the directional flow of interaction among T-CS-ED experts holding a functional role, and the Means-End Problem Solving analysis. Fourth, we listed the set of derived recommendations useful for the design of the exerciser as a cooperative e-learning platform. Final recommendations underline the necessity of building (i) an ecosystem that allows to sustain teams of T-CS-ED experts, (ii) a data safety platform although offering accessibility and open discussion about the production of exercises with their resources and (iii) a good architecture allowing the inheritance of parts of the coding of any exercise already in the data base as well as fast implementation of new kinds of exercises along with their associated learning activities.

Keywords: Distance open educational resources, pedagogical alignment, self-correcting exercises, teacher’s involvement, team roles.

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Authors: P. Maheshwari, M. Shapurkar

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The present research aimed at studying the awareness and attitudes of teachers towards inclusive education. The sample consisted of 60 teachers, teaching in the primary section (1st – 4th) of regular schools affiliated to the SSC board in Mumbai. Sample was selected by Multi-stage cluster sampling technique. A semi-structured self-constructed interview schedule and a self-constructed attitude scale was used to study the awareness of teachers about disability and Inclusive education, and their attitudes towards inclusive education respectively. Themes were extracted from the interview data and quantitative data was analyzed using SPSS package. Results revealed that teachers had some amount of awareness but an inadequate amount of information on disabilities and inclusive education. Disability to most (37) teachers meant “an inability to do something”. The difference between disability and handicap was stated by most as former being cognitive while handicap being physical in nature. With regard to Inclusive education, a large number (46) stated that they were unaware of the term and did not know what it meant. Majority (52) of them perceived maximum challenges for themselves in an inclusive set up, and emphasized on the role of teacher training courses in the area of providing knowledge (49) and training in teaching methodology (53). Although, 83.3% of teachers held a moderately positive attitude towards inclusive education, a large percentage (61.6%) of participants felt that being in inclusive set up would be very challenging for both children with special needs and without special needs. Though, most (49) of the teachers stated that children with special needs should be educated in regular classroom but they further clarified that only those should be in a regular classroom who have physical impairments of mild or moderate degree.

Keywords: Attitudes, awareness, inclusive education, teachers.

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Authors: S. V. Kasmir Raja, P. Herbert Raj

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The overlay approach has been widely used by many service providers for Traffic Engineering (TE) in large Internet backbones. In the overlay approach, logical connections are set up between edge nodes to form a full mesh virtual network on top of the physical topology. IP routing is then run over the virtual network. Traffic engineering objectives are achieved through carefully routing logical connections over the physical links. Although the overlay approach has been implemented in many operational networks, it has a number of well-known scaling issues. This paper proposes a new approach to achieve traffic engineering without full-mesh overlaying with the help of integrated approach and equal subset split method. Traffic engineering needs to determine the optimal routing of traffic over the existing network infrastructure by efficiently allocating resource in order to optimize traffic performance on an IP network. Even though constraint-based routing [1] of Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) is developed to address this need, since it is not widely tested or debugged, Internet Service Providers (ISPs) resort to TE methods under Open Shortest Path First (OSPF), which is the most commonly used intra-domain routing protocol. Determining OSPF link weights for optimal network performance is an NP-hard problem. As it is not possible to solve this problem, we present a subset split method to improve the efficiency and performance by minimizing the maximum link utilization in the network via a small number of link weight modifications. The results of this method are compared against results of MPLS architecture [9] and other heuristic methods.

Keywords: Constraint based routing, Link Utilization, Subsetsplit method and Traffic Engineering.

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Authors: Brian A. Smith, Ronald W. McClendon, Gerrit Hoogenboom

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The mitigation of crop loss due to damaging freezes requires accurate air temperature prediction models. Previous work established that the Ward-style artificial neural network (ANN) is a suitable tool for developing such models. The current research focused on developing ANN models with reduced average prediction error by increasing the number of distinct observations used in training, adding additional input terms that describe the date of an observation, increasing the duration of prior weather data included in each observation, and reexamining the number of hidden nodes used in the network. Models were created to predict air temperature at hourly intervals from one to 12 hours ahead. Each ANN model, consisting of a network architecture and set of associated parameters, was evaluated by instantiating and training 30 networks and calculating the mean absolute error (MAE) of the resulting networks for some set of input patterns. The inclusion of seasonal input terms, up to 24 hours of prior weather information, and a larger number of processing nodes were some of the improvements that reduced average prediction error compared to previous research across all horizons. For example, the four-hour MAE of 1.40°C was 0.20°C, or 12.5%, less than the previous model. Prediction MAEs eight and 12 hours ahead improved by 0.17°C and 0.16°C, respectively, improvements of 7.4% and 5.9% over the existing model at these horizons. Networks instantiating the same model but with different initial random weights often led to different prediction errors. These results strongly suggest that ANN model developers should consider instantiating and training multiple networks with different initial weights to establish preferred model parameters.

Keywords: Decision support systems, frost protection, fruit, time-series prediction, weather modeling

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Authors: Alan Walsh, Peter Walker, Michael Ellis

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There is a real danger that both practitioners and researchers considering risks associated with megaprojects ignore or underestimate the impacts of cultural risk. The paper investigates the potential impacts of a failure to achieve cultural unity between the principal actors executing a megaproject. The principle relationships include the relationships between the principle Contractors and the project stakeholders or the project stakeholders and their principle advisors, Western Consultants. This study confirms that cultural dissonance between these parties can delay or disrupt the megaproject execution and examines why cultural issues should be prioritized as a significant risk factor in megaproject delivery. This paper addresses the practical impacts and potential mitigation measures, which may reduce cultural dissonance for a megaproject's delivery. This information is retrieved from on-going case studies in live infrastructure megaprojects in Europe and the Middle East's GCC states, from Western Consultants' perspective. The collaborating researchers each have at least 30 years of construction experience and are engaged in architecture, project management and contracts management, dealing with megaprojects in Europe or the GCC. After examining the cultural interfaces they have observed during the execution of megaprojects, they conclude that globally, culture significantly influences their efficient delivery. The study finds that cultural risk is ever-present, where different nationalities co-manage megaprojects and that cultural conflict poses a real threat to the timely delivery of megaprojects. The study indicates that the higher the cultural distance between the principal actors, the more pronounced the risk, with the risk of cultural dissonance more prominent in GCC megaprojects. The findings support a more culturally aware and cohesive team approach and recommend cross-cultural training to mitigate the effects of cultural disparity.

Keywords: Cultural risk underestimation, cultural distance, megaproject characteristics, megaproject execution.

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Authors: Eftah Bte. Moh Hj Abdullah, Abd Aziz Bin Abd Shukor, Norazilawati Binti Abdullah, Rahimah Adam, Othman Bin Lebar

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The competency and integrity required for better understanding and practice of School-based Assessment (PBS) comes not only from the process, but also in providing the support or ‘scaffolding’ for teachers to recognize the student as a learner, improve their self-assessment skills, understanding of the daily teaching plan and its constructive alignment of the curriculum, pedagogy and assessment. The cultivation of integrity in PBS among the teachers is geared towards encouraging them to become committed and dedicated in implementing assessments in a serious, efficient manner, thus moving away from the usual teacher-focused approach to the student-focused approach. The teachers show their integrity via their professional commitment, responsibility and actions. The module based on the cultivation of integrity in PBS among Malaysian teachers aims to broaden the guidance support for teachers (embedded in the training), which consists of various domains to enable better evaluation of complex assessment tasks and the construction of suitable instrument for measuring the relevant cognitive, affective and psychomotor domains to describe the students’ achievement. The instrument for integrity cultivation in PBS has been developed and validated for measuring the effectiveness of the module constructed. This module is targeted towards assisting the staff in the Education Ministry, especially the principal trainers, teachers, headmasters and education officers to acquire effective intervention for improving the PBS assessors’ integrity and competency.

Keywords: School-based assessment, Assessment competency Integrity cultivation, Professional commitment, Module.

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Authors: Ashraf Pirasteh, Alireza Hidarnia, Ali Asghari, Soghrate Faghihzadeh, Fazlollah Ghofranipour

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Background: Regular physical activity contributes positively to physical and psychological health. In the present study, the stages of change of physical activity and the total physical Aims: The aim of this study was to investigate the proportion of adolescent girls in each stages of change and the causative factors associated with physical activity such as the related social support and self efficacy in a sample of the high school students. Methods: In this study, Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) and the Transtheorical Model (TTM) guided instrument development. The data regarding the demographics, psychosocial determinants of physical activity, stage of change and physical activity was gathered by questionnaires. Several measures of psychosocial determinants of physical activity were translated from English into Persian using the back-translation technique. These translated measures were administered to 512 ninth and tenth-grade Iranian high school students for factor analysis. Results: The distribution of the stage of change for physical activity was as follow: 18/5% in precontemplation, 23.4% in contemplation, 38.2% in preparation, 4.6% in action and 15.3% in maintenance. They were in 80.1% pre-adoption stages (precontemplation stage, contemplation stage and preparation stage) and 19.9% post-adoption stages (action stage and maintenance stage) of physical activity. There was a significant relate between age and physical activity in adolescent girls (age-related decline of physical activity) p<0001. Conclusion: The findings of the present study can contribute to improve health behaviors and for administration of health promotion programs in the adolescent populations.

Keywords: Adolescent, Iranian girls, Physical activity, Stages of change

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Authors: A. Kulprasutidilok

Abstract:

In order to address the social factors of elderly health care, researcher and community members have turned to more inclusive and participatory approaches to research and interventions. One such approach, community-based participatory research (CBPR) in public health, has received increased attention as the academic and public health communities struggle to address the persistent problems of disparities in the use of health care and health outcomes for several over the past decade. As Thailand becomes an ageing society, health services and proper care systems specifically for the elderly group need to be prepared and well established. The purpose of this assignment was to study the health problems and was to explore the process of community participation in elderly health care. Participants in this study were member of elderly group of Paisanee Ramintra 65 community in Bangkok, Thailand. The results indicated two important components of community participation process in elderly health care: 1) a process to develop community participation in elderly health care, and 2) outcomes resulting from such process. The development of community participation consisted of four processes. As for the outcomes of the community participation development process, they consisted of elderly in the community got jointly and formulated a group, which strengthened the project because of collaborative supervision among themselves. Moreover, inactive health care services have changed to being energetic and focus on health promotion rather than medical achievement and elderly association of community can perform health care activities for chronically illness through the achievement of this development; consequently, they increasingly gained access to physical, cognitive, and social activity.

Keywords: Community-based participatory research, elderly health care, Thailand.

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Authors: Amol A. Talankar, Prakash Verma, Nitin Seth

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The purpose of this study is to identify the critical success factors (CSFs) for the effective implementation of Six Sigma in non-formal service Sectors.

Based on the survey of literature, the critical success factors (CSFs) for Six Sigma have been identified and are assessed for their importance in Non-formal service sector using Delphi Technique. These selected CSFs were put forth to the panel of expert to cluster them and prepare cognitive map to establish their relationship.

All the critical success factors examined and obtained from the review of literature have been assessed for their importance with respect to their contribution to Six Sigma effectiveness in non formal service sector.

The study is limited to the non-formal service sectors involved in the organization of religious festival only. However, the similar exercise can be conducted for broader sample of other non-formal service sectors like temple/ashram management, religious tours management etc.

The research suggests an approach to identify CSFs of Six Sigma for Non-formal service sector. All the CSFs of the formal service sector will not be applicable to Non-formal services, hence opinion of experts was sought to add or delete the CSFs. In the first round of Delphi, the panel of experts has suggested, two new CSFs-“competitive benchmarking (F19) and resident’s involvement (F28)”, which were added for assessment in the next round of Delphi.  One of the CSFs-“fulltime six sigma personnel (F15)” has been omitted in proposed clusters of CSFs for non-formal organization, as it is practically impossible to deploy full time trained Six Sigma recruits.

Keywords: Critical success factors (CSFs), Quality assurance, non-formal service sectors, Six Sigma.

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Authors: C. Paramasivam, K. B. Jayanthi

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An innovative approach to develop modified scaling free CORDIC based two parallel pipelined Multipath Delay Commutator (MDC) FFT and IFFT architectures for radix 2² FFT algorithm is presented. Multipliers and adders are the most important data paths in FFT and IFFT architectures. Multipliers occupy high area and consume more power. In order to optimize the area and power overhead, modified scaling-free CORDIC based complex multiplier is utilized in the proposed design. In general twiddle factor values are stored in RAM block. In the proposed work, modified scaling-free CORDIC based twiddle factor generator unit is used to generate the twiddle factor and efficient switching units are used. In addition to this, four point FFT operations are performed without complex multiplication which helps to reduce area and power in the last two stages of the pipelined architectures. The design proposed in this paper is based on multipath delay commutator method. The proposed design can be extended to any radix 2ⁿ based FFT/IFFT algorithm to improve the throughput. The work is synthesized using Synopsys design Compiler using TSMC 90-nm library. The proposed method proves to be better compared to the reference design in terms of area, throughput and power consumption. The comparative analysis of the proposed design with Xilinx FPGA platform is also discussed in the paper.

Keywords: Coordinate Rotational Digital Computer(CORDIC), Complex multiplier, Fast Fourier transform (FFT), Inverse fast Fourier transform (IFFT), Multipath delay Commutator (MDC), modified scaling free CORDIC, complex multiplier, pipelining, parallel processing, radix-2^2.

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Authors: Muhammad Mehran Arshad Khan, Chengliang Wang, Zou Minhui, Danyal Badar Soomro

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Security of the smart home in terms of behavior activity pattern recognition is a totally dissimilar and unique issue as compared to the security issues of other scenarios. Sensor devices (low capacity and high capacity) interact and negotiate each other by detecting the daily behavior activity of individuals to execute common tasks. Once a device (e.g., surveillance camera, smart phone and light detection sensor etc.) is compromised, an adversary can then get access to a specific device and can damage daily behavior activity by altering the data and commands. In this scenario, a group of common instruction processes may get involved to generate deadlock. Therefore, an effective suitable security solution is required for smart home architecture. This paper proposes seamless distributed Scheme which fortifies low computational wireless devices for secure communication. Proposed scheme is based on lightweight key-session process to upheld cryptic-link for trajectory by recognizing of individual’s behavior activities pattern. Every device and service provider unit (low capacity sensors (LCS) and high capacity sensors (HCS)) uses an authentication token and originates a secure trajectory connection in network. Analysis of experiments is revealed that proposed scheme strengthens the devices against device seizure attack by recognizing daily behavior activities, minimum utilization memory space of LCS and avoids network from deadlock. Additionally, the results of a comparison with other schemes indicate that scheme manages efficiency in term of computation and communication.

Keywords: Authentication, key-session, security, wireless sensors.

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Authors: Kai Qian, Ming Yang, Minzhe Guo, Prabir Bhattacharya, Lixin Tao

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Computer network courses are essential parts of college computer science curriculum and hands-on networking experience is well recognized as an effective approach to help students understand better about the network concepts, the layered architecture of network protocols, and the dynamics of the networks. However, existing networking labs are usually server-based and relatively cumbersome, which require a certain level of specialty and resource to set up and maintain the lab environment. Many universities/colleges lack the resources and build-ups in this field and have difficulty to provide students with hands-on practice labs. A new affordable and easily-adoptable approach to networking labs is desirable to enhance network teaching and learning. In addition, current network labs are short on providing hands-on practice for modern wireless and mobile network learning. With the prevalence of smart mobile devices, wireless and mobile network are permeating into various aspects of our information society. The emerging and modern mobile technology provides computer science students with more authentic learning experience opportunities especially in network learning. A mobile device based hands-on labware can provide an excellent ‘real world’ authentic learning environment for computer network especially for wireless network study. In this paper, we present our mobile device-based hands-on labware (series of lab module) for computer network learning which is guided by authentic learning principles to immerse students in a real world relevant learning environment. We have been using this labware in teaching computer network, mobile security, and wireless network classes. The student feedback shows that students can learn more when they have hands-on authentic learning experience. 

Keywords: Mobile computing, android, network, labware.

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Authors: O. S. Ebrahim, K. O. Shawky, M. O. Ebrahim, P. K. Jain

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Induction Motor (IM) driving pump is the main consumer of electricity in a typical fluid transportation system (FTS). Changing the connection of the stator windings from delta to star at no load can achieve noticeable active and reactive energy savings. This paper proposes a supervisory hysteresis liquid-level control with three-state energy saving mode (ESM) for IM in FTS including storage tank. The IM pump drive comprises modified star/delta switch and hydromantic coupler. Three-state ESM is defined, along with the normal running, and named analog to computer ESMs as follows: Sleeping mode in which the motor runs at no load with delta stator connection, hibernate mode in which the motor runs at no load with a star connection, and motor shutdown is the third energy saver mode. A logic flow-chart is synthesized to select the motor state at no-load for best energetic cost reduction, considering the motor thermal capacity used. An artificial neural network (ANN) state estimator, based on the recurrent architecture, is constructed and learned in order to provide fault-tolerant capability for the supervisory controller. Sequential test of Wald is used for sensor fault detection. Theoretical analysis, preliminary experimental testing and, computer simulations are performed to show the effectiveness of the proposed control in terms of reliability, power quality and energy/coenergy cost reduction with the suggestion of power factor correction.

Keywords: Artificial Neural Network, ANN, Energy Saving Mode, ESM, Induction Motor, IM, star/delta switch, supervisory control, fluid transportation, reliability, power quality.

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Authors: S. Aberkane, N. Djabali, S. Fafi, A. Baghezza

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Chronic illnesses affect many Algerians. It is possible to investigate the impact of illness representations and coping on quality of life and whether illness representations are indirectly associated with quality of life through their influence on coping. This study aims at investigating the relationship between illness perception, coping strategies and quality of life with chronic illness. Illness perceptions are indirectly associated with the quality of life through their influence on coping mediation. A sample of 316 participants with chronic illness living in the region of Batna, Algeria, has been adopted in this study. A correlation statistical analysis is used to determine the relationship between illness perception, coping strategies, and quality of life. Multiple regression analysis was employed to highlight the predictive ability of the dimensions of illness perception and coping strategies on the dependent variables of quality of life, where mediation analysis is considered in the exploration of the indirect effect significance of the mediator. This study provides insights about the relationship between illness perception, coping strategies and quality of life in the considered sample (r = 0.39, p < 0.01). Therefore, it proves that there is an effect of illness identity perception, external and medical attributions related to emotional role, physical functioning, and mental health perceived, and these were fully mediated by the asking for assistance (c’= 0.04, p < 0.05), the guarding (c’= 0.00, p < 0.05), and the task persistence strategy (c’= 0.05, p < 0.05). The findings imply partial support for the common-sense model of illness representations in a chronic illness population. Directions for future research are highlighted, as well as implications for psychotherapeutic interventions which target unhelpful beliefs and maladaptive coping strategies (e.g., cognitive behavioral therapy).

Keywords: Chronic illness, coping, illness perception, quality of life, self-regulation model.

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Authors: Khaled Hamdan, Abid Amorri, Fatima Hamdan

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Involving students in English language learning process and achieving an adequate English language proficiency in the target language can be a great challenge for both teachers and students. This can prove even a far greater challenge to engage students with special needs (Dyslexia) if they have physical impairment and inadequate mastery of basic communicative language competence/proficiency in the target language. From this perspective, technology like robots can probably be used to enhance learning process for the special needs students who have extensive communication needs, who face continuous struggle to interact with their peers and teachers and meet academic requirements. Robots, precisely NAO, can probably provide them with the perfect opportunity to practice social and communication skills, and meet their English academic requirements. This research paper aims to identify to what extent robots can be used to improve students’ social interaction and communication skills and to understand the potential for robotics-based education in motivating and engaging UAEU dyslexic students to meet university requirements. To reach this end, the paper will explore several factors that come into play – Motion Level-involving cognitive activities, Interaction Level-involving language processing, Behavior Level -establishing a close relationship with the robot and Appraisal Level- focusing on dyslexia students’ achievement in the target language.

Keywords: Dyslexia, robot technology, motion, interaction, behavior and appraisal levels, social and communication skills.

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Authors: Pooja Jain

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Art education is often ignored in syllabus of developing countries like India and in educational planning for development but now days Indian Art with a global recognition is becoming an integral part of the education at all levels. The term art, widely used in all parts of the modern world, carried varied significance in India as its meaning was continuously being extended, covering the many varieties of creative expression such as painting, sculpture, commercial art, design, poetry, music, dance, and architecture. Over the last 100 years Indian artists of all forms have evolved a wide variety of expressive styles. With the recommendations and initiatives by Government of India, Art Education has subsequently gained pace at the school level as a mandatory subject for all making a path way for students with a creative bend of mind. This paper investigates curriculum in various schools of the country at secondary and senior secondary levels along with some eminent institutions running the program. Findings depicted the role of art education and justified its importance primarily with commercial art being perceived to be essential for students learning skills for economic gain in their career ahead. With so many art colleges spread across India, emerging artists and designers are being trained and are creating art of infinite variety and style and have opened up many career avenues. Commercial Art being a plethora of artistic expressions has confidently come of age wherein a creative perception is mixed with an introspective imagination to bring out multi faceted career options with a significant future enveloped in art. Visual arts in education thus is an expanding field of result assured research.

Keywords: Modern art, commercial art, introspective imagination, career.

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Authors: O. Grinchuk, E. Motakis, V. Kuznetsov

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Sense-antisense gene pair (SAGP) is a pair of two oppositely transcribed genes sharing a common region on a chromosome. In the mammalian genomes, SAGPs can be organized in more complex sense-antisense gene architectures (CSAGA) in which at least one gene could share loci with two or more antisense partners. Many dozens of CSAGAs can be found in the human genome. However, CSAGAs have not been systematically identified and characterized in context of their role in human diseases including cancers. In this work we characterize the structural-functional properties of a cluster of 5 genes –TMEM97, IFT20, TNFAIP1, POLDIP2 and TMEM199, termed TNFAIP1 / POLDIP2 module. This cluster is organized as CSAGA in cytoband 17q11.2. Affymetrix U133A&B expression data of two large cohorts (410 atients, in total) of breast cancer patients and patient survival data were used. For the both studied cohorts, we demonstrate (i) strong and reproducible transcriptional co-regulatory patterns of genes of TNFAIP1/POLDIP2 module in breast cancer cell subtypes and (ii) significant associations of TNFAIP1/POLDIP2 CSAGA with amplification of the CSAGA region in breast cancer, (ii) cancer aggressiveness (e.g. genetic grades) and (iv) disease free patient-s survival. Moreover, gene pairs of this module demonstrate strong synergetic effect in the prognosis of time of breast cancer relapse. We suggest that TNFAIP1/ POLDIP2 cluster can be considered as a novel type of structural-functional gene modules in the human genome.

Keywords: Sense-antisense gene pair, complex genome architecture, TMEM97, IFT20, TNFAIP1, POLDIP2, TMEM199, 17q11.2, breast cancer, transcription regulation, survival analysis, prognosis.

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Authors: Shahlan Surat, Saemah Rahman, Saadiah Kummin

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When teachers reflect and evaluate whether their teaching methods actually have an impact on students’ learning, they will adjust their practices accordingly. This inevitably improves their students’ learning and performance. The approach in meta-teaching can invigorate and create a passion for teaching. It thus helps to increase the commitment and love for the teaching profession. This study was conducted to determine the level of metacognitive thinking of teachers in the process of teaching and learning in the classroom. Metacognitive thinking teachers include the use of metacognitive knowledge which consists of different types of knowledge: declarative, procedural and conditional. The ability of the teachers to plan, monitor and evaluate the teaching process can also be determined. This study was conducted on 377 graduate teachers in Klang Valley, Malaysia. The stratified sampling method was selected for the purpose of this study. The metacognitive teaching inventory consisting of 24 items is called InKePMG (Teacher Indicators of Effectiveness Meta-Teaching). The results showed the level of mean is high for two components of metacognitive knowledge; declarative knowledge (mean = 4.16) and conditional (mean = 4.11) whereas, the mean of procedural knowledge is 4.00 (moderately high). Similarly, the level of knowledge in monitoring (mean = 4.11), evaluating (mean = 4.00) which indicate high score and planning (mean = 4.00) are moderately high score among teachers. In conclusion, this study shows that the planning and procedural knowledge is an important element in improving the quality of teachers teaching in the classroom. Thus, the researcher recommended that further studies should focus on training programs for teachers on metacognitive skills and also on developing creative thinking among teachers.

Keywords: Metacognitive thinking skills, procedural knowledge, conditional knowledge, declarative knowledge, meta-teaching and regulation of cognitive.

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Authors: Zhen Cheng, Xinyu Dai, Shujian Huang, Jiajun Chen

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Recently, explanatory natural language inference has attracted much attention for the interpretability of logic relationship prediction, which is also known as explanation generation for Natural Language Inference (NLI). Existing explanation generators based on discriminative Encoder-Decoder architecture have achieved noticeable results. However, we find that these discriminative generators usually generate explanations with correct evidence but incorrect logic semantic. It is due to that logic information is implicitly encoded in the premise-hypothesis pairs and difficult to model. Actually, logic information identically exists between premise-hypothesis pair and explanation. And it is easy to extract logic information that is explicitly contained in the target explanation. Hence we assume that there exists a latent space of logic information while generating explanations. Specifically, we propose a generative model called Variational Explanation Generator (VariationalEG) with a latent variable to model this space. Training with the guide of explicit logic information in target explanations, latent variable in VariationalEG could capture the implicit logic information in premise-hypothesis pairs effectively. Additionally, to tackle the problem of posterior collapse while training VariaztionalEG, we propose a simple yet effective approach called Logic Supervision on the latent variable to force it to encode logic information. Experiments on explanation generation benchmark—explanation-Stanford Natural Language Inference (e-SNLI) demonstrate that the proposed VariationalEG achieves significant improvement compared to previous studies and yields a state-of-the-art result. Furthermore, we perform the analysis of generated explanations to demonstrate the effect of the latent variable.

Keywords: Natural Language Inference, explanation generation, variational auto-encoder, generative model.

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Authors: Omneya Messallam

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Technology has been developed dramatically in most of the educational disciplines. For instance, digital rendering subject, which is being taught in both Interior and Architecture fields, is witnessing almost annually updated software versions. A lot of students and educators argued that there will be no need for manual rendering techniques to be learned. Therefore, the Interior Design Visual Presentation 1 course (ID133) has been chosen from the first level of the Interior Design (ID) undergraduate program, as it has been taught for six years continually. This time frame will facilitate sound observation and critical analysis of the use of appropriate teaching methodologies. Furthermore, the researcher believes in the high value of the manual rendering techniques. The course objectives are: to define the basic visual rendering principles, to recall theories and uses of various types of colours and hatches, to raise the learners’ awareness of the value of studying manual render techniques, and to prepare them to present their work professionally. The students are female Arab learners aged between 17 and 20. At the outset of the course, the majority of them demonstrated negative attitude, lacking both motivation and confidence in manual rendering skills. This paper is a reflective appraisal of deploying two student-centred teaching pedagogies which are: Project-based learning (PBL) and Outcome-based education (OBE) on ID133 students. This research aims of developing some teaching strategies to enhance the quality of teaching in this given course over an academic semester. The outcome of this research emphasized the positive influence of applying such educational methods on improving the quality of students’ manual rendering skills in terms of: materials, textiles, textures, lighting, and shade and shadow. Furthermore, it greatly motivated the students and raised the awareness of the importance of learning the manual rendering techniques.

Keywords: Manual renders, outcome-based education, project-based learning, personal competences, and visual presentation.

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Authors: Tharwat N. Hijjawi

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Learning oral skills in an Arabic speaking environment is challenging. A blended course (material, activities, and individual/ group work tasks …) was implemented in a module of level B1 for undergraduate students of French as a foreign language in order to increase their opportunities to practice listening and speaking skills. This research investigates the influence of this modality on enhancing active learning and examines the effectiveness of provided strategies. Moreover, it aims at discovering how it allows teacher to flip the traditional classroom and create a learner-centered framework. Which approaches were integrated to motivate students and urge them to search, analyze, criticize, create and accomplish projects? What was the perception of students? This paper is based on the qualitative findings of a questionnaire and a focus group interview with learners. Despite the doubled time and effort both “teacher” and “student” needed, results revealed that the NTIC allowed a shift into a learning paradigm where learners were the “chiefs” of the process. Tasks and collaborative projects required higher intellectual capacities from them. Learners appreciated this experience and developed new life-long learning competencies at many levels: social, affective, ethical and cognitive. To conclude, they defined themselves as motivated young researchers, motivators and critical thinkers.

Keywords: Active learning, critical thinking, inverted classroom, learning paradigm, problem-based.

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Authors: Roberto Sabatini, Terry Moore, Chris Hill

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This paper presents a novel Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) Avionics Based Integrity Augmentation (ABIA) system architecture suitable for civil and military air platforms, including Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS). Taking the move from previous research on high-accuracy Differential GNSS (DGNSS) systems design, integration and experimental flight test activities conducted at the Italian Air Force Flight Test Centre (CSV-RSV), our research focused on the development of a novel approach to the problem of GNSS ABIA for mission- and safety-critical air vehicle applications and for multi-sensor avionics architectures based on GNSS. Detailed mathematical models were developed to describe the main causes of GNSS signal outages and degradation in flight, namely: antenna obscuration, multipath, fading due to adverse geometry and Doppler shift. Adopting these models in association with suitable integrity thresholds and guidance algorithms, the ABIA system is able to generate integrity cautions (predictive flags) and warnings (reactive flags), as well as providing steering information to the pilot and electronic commands to the aircraft/UAS flight control systems. These features allow real-time avoidance of safety-critical flight conditions and fast recovery of the required navigation performance in case of GNSS data losses. In other words, this novel ABIA system addresses all three cornerstones of GNSS integrity augmentation in mission- and safety-critical applications: prediction (caution flags), reaction (warning flags) and correction (alternate flight path computation).

Keywords: Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS), Integrity Augmentation, Unmanned Aircraft Systems, Aircraft Based Augmentation, Avionics Based Integrity Augmentation, Safety-Critical Applications.

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Authors: C. Barreto Carvalho, C. da Motta, J. Pinto-Gouveia, E. B. Peixoto

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Auditory hallucinations among the most invalidating and distressing experiences reported by patients diagnosed with schizophrenia, leading to feelings of powerlessness and helplessness towards their illness. In more severe cases, these auditory hallucinations can take the form of commanding voices, which are often related to high suicidality rates in these patients. Several authors propose that the meanings attributed to the hallucinatory experience, rather than characteristics like form and content, can be determinant in patients’ reactions to hallucinatory activity, particularly in the case of voice-hearing experiences. In this study, 48 patients diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia presenting auditory hallucinations were studied. Multiple regression analyses were computed to study the influence of several developmental aspects, such as family and social dynamics, bullying, depression, and sociocognitive variables on the auditory hallucinations, on patients’ attributions and relationships with their voices, and on the resulting invalidation of hallucinatory experience. Overall, results showed how relationships with voices can mirror several aspects of interpersonal relationship with others, and how self-schemas, depression and actual social relationships help shaping the voice-hearing experience. Early experiences of victimization and submission help predict the attributions of omnipotence of the voices, and increased hostility from parents seems to increase the malevolence of the voices, suggesting that socio-cognitive factors can significantly contribute to the etiology and maintenance of auditory hallucinations. The understanding of the characteristics of auditory hallucinations and the relationships patients established with their voices can allow the development of more promising therapeutic interventions that can be more effective in decreasing invalidation caused by this devastating mental illness.

Keywords: Auditory hallucinations, beliefs, life events, schizophrenia.

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Authors: Muhibul Haque Bhuyan

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Inclusion of any design project in an undergraduate electrical and electronic engineering curriculum and producing creative ideas in the final year capstone design projects have received numerous comments at the Board of Accreditation for Engineering and Technical Education (BAETE) several times by the mentors and visiting program evaluator team members at different public and private universities in Bangladesh. To eradicate this deficiency which is needed for getting the program accreditation, a thorough change was required in the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering (EEE) for its BSc in EEE program at Southeast University, Dhaka, Bangladesh. We suggested making changes in the course curriculum titles and contents, emphasizing to include capstone design projects, question setting, examining students through other standard methods, selecting and retaining Outcome-Based Education (OBE)-oriented engineering faculty members, improving laboratories through purchasing new equipment and software as well as developing new experiments for each laboratory courses, and engaging the students to practical designs in various courses and final year projects. This paper reports on capstone design project course objectives, course outcomes, mapping with the program outcomes, cognitive domain of learning, assessment schemes, guidelines, suggestions and recommendations for supervision processes, assessment strategy, and rubric setting, etc. It is expected that this will substantially improve the capstone design projects offering, supervision, and assessment in the undergraduate EEE program to fulfill the arduous requirements of BAETE accreditation based on OBE.

Keywords: Course outcome, capstone design project, assessment and evaluation, electrical and electronic engineering.

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Authors: Eleni Ioanna Levantinou

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Gestures play a major role in comprehension and memory recall due to the fact that aid the efficient channel of the meaning and support listeners’ comprehension and memory. In the present study, the assistance of two kinds of gestures (iconic and beat gestures) is tested in regards to memory and recall. The hypothesis investigated here is whether or not iconic and beat gestures provide assistance in memory and recall in Greek and in Greek speakers’ second language. Two groups of participants were formed, one comprising Greeks that reside in Athens and one with Greeks that reside in Copenhagen. Three kinds of stimuli were used: A video with words accompanied with iconic gestures, a video with words accompanied with beat gestures and a video with words alone. The languages used are Greek and English. The words in the English videos were spoken by a native English speaker and by a Greek speaker talking English. The reason for this is that when it comes to beat gestures that serve a meta-cognitive function and are generated according to the intonation of a language, prosody plays a major role. Thus, participants that have different influences in prosody may generate different results from rhythmic gestures. Memory recall was assessed by asking the participants to try to remember as many words as they could after viewing each video. Results show that iconic gestures provide significant assistance in memory and recall in Greek and in English whether they are produced by a native or a second language speaker. In the case of beat gestures though, the findings indicate that beat gestures may not play such a significant role in Greek language. As far as intonation is concerned, a significant difference was not found in the case of beat gestures produced by a native English speaker and by a Greek speaker talking English.

Keywords: First language, gestures, memory, second language acquisition.

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Authors: Hadas Sopher, Davide Schaumann, Yehuda E. Kalay

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This paper addresses the shortcomings of architectural computation tools in representing human behavior in built environments, prior to construction and occupancy of those environments. Evaluating whether a design fits the needs of its future users is currently done solely post construction, or is based on the knowledge and intuition of the designer. This issue is of high importance when designing complex buildings such as hospitals, where the quality of treatment as well as patient and staff satisfaction are of major concern. Existing computational pre-occupancy human behavior evaluation methods are geared mainly to test ergonomic issues, such as wheelchair accessibility, emergency egress, etc. As such, they rely on Agent Based Modeling (ABM) techniques, which emphasize the individual user. Yet we know that most human activities are social, and involve a number of actors working together, which ABM methods cannot handle. Therefore, we present an event-based model that manages the interaction between multiple Actors, Spaces, and Activities, to describe dynamically how people use spaces. This approach requires expanding the computational representation of Actors beyond their physical description, to include psychological, social, cultural, and other parameters. The model presented in this paper includes cognitive abilities and rules that describe the response of actors to their physical and social surroundings, based on the actors’ internal status. The model has been applied in a simulation of hospital wards, and showed adaptability to a wide variety of situated behaviors and interactions.

Keywords: Agent based modeling, architectural design evaluation, event modeling, human behavior simulation, spatial cognition.

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Authors: Angelo Lerro, Manuela Battipede, Piero Gili, Alberto Brandl

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Redundancy requirements for UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) are hardly faced due to the generally restricted amount of available space and allowable weight for the aircraft systems, limiting their exploitation. Essential equipment as the Air Data, Attitude and Heading Reference Systems (ADAHRS) require several external probes to measure significant data as the Angle of Attack or the Sideslip Angle. Previous research focused on the analysis of a patented technology named Smart-ADAHRS (Smart Air Data, Attitude and Heading Reference System) as an alternative method to obtain reliable and accurate estimates of the aerodynamic angles. This solution is based on an innovative sensor fusion algorithm implementing soft computing techniques and it allows to obtain a simplified inertial and air data system reducing external devices. In fact, only one external source of dynamic and static pressures is needed. This paper focuses on the benefits which would be gained by the implementation of this system in UAV applications. A simplification of the entire ADAHRS architecture will bring to reduce the overall cost together with improved safety performance. Smart-ADAHRS has currently reached Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 6. Real flight tests took place on ultralight aircraft equipped with a suitable Flight Test Instrumentation (FTI). The output of the algorithm using the flight test measurements demonstrates the capability for this fusion algorithm to embed in a single device multiple physical and virtual sensors. Any source of dynamic and static pressure can be integrated with this system gaining a significant improvement in terms of versatility.

Keywords: Neural network, aerodynamic angles, virtual sensor, unmanned aerial vehicle, air data system, flight test.

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Authors: Duangkamol Thitivesa

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This paper explores the use of project work in a content-based instruction in a Rajabhat University, Thailand. The use of project is to promote kinds of learning expected of student teachers as stated by Thailand Quality Framework: TQF. The kinds of learning are grouped into five domains: Ethical and moral development, knowledge, cognitive skill, interpersonal skills and responsibility, and analytical and communication skills. The content taught in class is used to lead the student teachers to relate their previously-acquired linguistic knowledge to meaningful realizations of the language system in passages of immediate relevance to their professional interests, teaching methods in particular. Two research questions are formulate to guide this study: 1) To what degree are the five domains of learning expected of student teachers after the use of project in a content class?, and 2) What is the academic achievement of the students’ writing skills, as part of the learning domains stated by TQF, against the 70% attainment target after the use of project to enhance the skill? The sample of the study comprised of 38 fourth-year English major students. The data was collected by means of a summative achievement test, student writing works, an observation checklist, and project diary. The scores in the summative achievement test were analyzed by mean score, standard deviation, and t-test. Project diary serves as students’ record of the language acquired during the project. List of structures and vocabulary noted in the diary has shown students’ ability to attend to, recognize, and focus on meaningful patterns of language forms.

Keywords: Thailand Quality Framework, Project Work, Writing skill.

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