Abstract: The paper presents new results concerning selection of
optimal information fusion formula for ensembles of C-OTDR
channels. The goal of information fusion is to create an integral
classificator designed for effective classification of seismoacoustic
target events. The LPBoost (LP-β and LP-B variants), the Multiple
Kernel Learning, and Weighing of Inversely as Lipschitz Constants
(WILC) approaches were compared. The WILC is a brand new
approach to optimal fusion of Lipschitz Classifiers Ensembles.
Results of practical usage are presented.
Abstract: Many factors influence the educational outcome of
students. Some of these have been studied by researchers with many
emphasizing the role of students, schools, governments, peer groups
and so on. More often than not, some of these factors influencing the
academic achievement of the students have been traced back to
parents and family; being the primary platform on which learning not
only begins but is nurtured, encouraged and developed which later
transforms to the performance of the students. This study not only
explores parental and related factors that predict academic
achievement through the review of relevant literatures but also,
investigates the influence of parental background on the academic
achievement of senior secondary school students in Ibadan North
Local Government Area of Oyo State, Nigeria. As one of the criteria
of the quality of education, students’ academic achievement was
investigated because it is most often cited as an indicator of school
effectiveness by school authorities and educationists. The data
collection was done through interviews and use of well-structured
questionnaires administered to one hundred students (100) within the
target local government. This was statistically analysed and the result
showed that parents’ attitudes towards their children’s education had
significant effect(s) on students’ self-reporting of academic
achievement. However, such factors as parental education and socioeconomic
background had no significant relationship with the
students’ self-reporting of academic achievement.
Abstract: In Hungary, the society has changed a lot for the past
25 years, and these changes could be detected in educational
situations as well. The number and the intensity of conflicts have
been increased in most fields of life, as well as at schools. Teachers
have difficulties to be able to handle school conflicts. What is more,
the new net generation, generation Z has values and behavioural
patterns different from those of the previous one, which might
generate more serious conflicts at school, especially with teachers
who were mainly socialising in a traditional teacher – student
relationship.
In Hungary, the bill CCIV of 2011 declared the foundation of
Institutes of Teacher Training in higher education institutes. One of
the tasks of the Institutes is to survey the competences and needs of
teachers working in public education and to provide further trainings
and services for them according to their needs and requirements. This
job is supported by the Social Renewal Operative Programs 4.1.2.B.
The professors of a college carried out a questionnaire and surveyed
the needs and the requirements of teachers working in the region.
Based on the results, the professors of the Institute of Teacher
Training decided to meet the requirements of teachers and to launch
short teacher further training courses in spring 2015. One of the
courses is going to focus on school conflict management through
mediation.
The aim of the pilot course is to provide conflict management
techniques for teachers and to present different mediation techniques
to them. The theoretical part of the course (5 hours) will enable
participants to understand the main points and the advantages of
mediation, while the practical part (10 hours) will involve teachers in
role plays to learn how to cope with conflict situations applying
mediation. We hope if conflicts could be reduced, it would influence
school atmosphere in a positive way and the teaching – learning
process could be more successful and effective.
Abstract: Networking is important among students to achieve
better understanding. Social networking plays an important role in the
education. Realizing its huge potential, various organizations,
including institutions of higher learning have moved to the area of
social networks to interact with their students especially through
Facebook. Therefore, measuring the effectiveness of Facebook as a
learning tool has become an area of interest to academicians and
researchers. Therefore, this study tried to integrate and propose new
theoretical and empirical evidences by linking the western idea of
adopting Facebook as an alternative learning platform from a
Malaysian perspective. This study, thus, aimed to fill a gap by being
among the pioneering research that tries to study the effectiveness of
adopting Facebook as a learning platform across other cultural
settings, namely Malaysia. Structural equation modeling was
employed for data analysis and hypothesis testing. This study finding
has provided some insights that would likely affect students’
awareness towards using Facebook as an alternative learning
platform in the Malaysian higher learning institutions. At the end,
future direction is proposed.
Abstract: The purpose of this study was to develop a descriptive
profile of the adapted physical activity research using single subject
experimental designs. All research articles using single subject
experimental designs published in the journal of Adapted Physical
Activity Quarterly from 1984 to 2013 were employed as the data
source. Each of the articles was coded in a subcategory of seven
categories: (a) the size of sample; (b) the age of participants; (c) the
type of disabilities; (d) the type of data analysis; (e) the type of
designs, (f) the independent variable, and (g) the dependent variable.
Frequencies, percentages, and trend inspection were used to analyze
the data and develop a profile. The profile developed characterizes a
small portion of research articles used single subject designs, in
which most researchers used a small sample size, recruited children
as subjects, emphasized learning and behavior impairments, selected
visual inspection with descriptive statistics, preferred a multiple
baseline design, focused on effects of therapy, inclusion, and
strategy, and measured desired behaviors more often, with a
decreasing trend over years.
Abstract: In the Hierarchical Temporal Memory (HTM) paradigm
the effect of overlap between inputs on the activation of columns in
the spatial pooler is studied. Numerical results suggest that similar
inputs are represented by similar sets of columns and dissimilar inputs
are represented by dissimilar sets of columns. It is shown that the
spatial pooler produces these results under certain conditions for
the connectivity and proximal thresholds. Following the discussion
of the initialization of parameters for the thresholds, corresponding
qualitative arguments about the learning dynamics of the spatial
pooler are discussed.
Abstract: Big Data and analytics have gained a huge momentum
in recent years. Big Data feeds into the field of Learning Analytics
(LA) that may allow academic institutions to better understand the
learners’ needs and proactively address them. Hence, it is important
to have an understanding of Big Data and its applications. The
purpose of this descriptive paper is to provide an overview of Big
Data, the technologies used in Big Data, and some of the applications
of Big Data in education. Additionally, it discusses some of the
concerns related to Big Data and current research trends. While Big
Data can provide big benefits, it is important that institutions
understand their own needs, infrastructure, resources, and limitation
before jumping on the Big Data bandwagon.
Abstract: In the past few years, the amount of malicious software
increased exponentially and, therefore, machine learning algorithms
became instrumental in identifying clean and malware files through
(semi)-automated classification. When working with very large
datasets, the major challenge is to reach both a very high malware
detection rate and a very low false positive rate. Another challenge
is to minimize the time needed for the machine learning algorithm to
do so. This paper presents a comparative study between different
machine learning techniques such as linear classifiers, ensembles,
decision trees or various hybrids thereof. The training dataset consists
of approximately 2 million clean files and 200.000 infected files,
which is a realistic quantitative mixture. The paper investigates the
above mentioned methods with respect to both their performance
(detection rate and false positive rate) and their practicability.
Abstract: The following paper presents the results of a study
aimed at achieving a better understanding of the psychological
readiness for mobile learning (m-learning) among Saudi students,
while also evaluating m-learning readiness as a whole in Saudi
Arabia - a topic that has not yet received adequate attention from
researchers. Data was acquired via a questionnaire administered to
131 Saudi students at UK universities, in July 2013. The study
confirmed that students are confident about using mobile devices in
their daily lives, and that they would welcome more opportunities for
mobile learning. The findings also indicated that Saudi higher
education students are very familiar with, and psychologically ready
for, m-learning.
Abstract: Technology, multimedia in Open Educational
Resources, can contribute positively to student performance in an
online instructional environment. Student performance data of past
four years were obtained from an online course entitled Applied
Calculus (MA139). This paper examined the data to determine
whether multimedia (independent variable) had any impact on
student performance (dependent variable) in online math learning,
and how students felt about the value of the technology. Two groups
of student data were analyzed, group 1 (control) from the online
applied calculus course that did not use multimedia instructional
materials, and group 2 (treatment) of the same online applied calculus
course that used multimedia instructional materials. For the MA139
class, results indicate a statistically significant difference (p = .001)
between the two groups, where group 1 had a final score mean of
56.36 (out of 100), group 2 of 70.68. Additionally, student
testimonials were discussed in which students shared their experience
in learning applied calculus online with multimedia instructional
materials.
Abstract: The paper presents a new method for efficient
innovation process management. Even though the innovation
management methods, tools and knowledge are well established and
documented in literature, most of the companies still do not manage it
efficiently. Especially in SMEs the front end of innovation - problem
identification, idea creation and selection - is often not optimally
performed. Our eMIPS methodology represents a sort of "umbrella
methodology" - a well-defined set of procedures, which can be
dynamically adapted to the concrete case in a company. In daily
practice, various methods (e.g. for problem identification and idea
creation) can be applied, depending on the company's needs. It is
based on the proactive involvement of the company's employees
supported by the appropriate methodology and external experts. The
presented phases are performed via a mixture of face-to-face
activities (workshops) and online (eLearning) activities taking place
in eLearning Moodle environment and using other e-communication
channels. One part of the outcomes is an identified set of
opportunities and concrete solutions ready for implementation. The
other also very important result is connected to innovation
competences for the participating employees related with concrete
tools and methods for idea management. In addition, the employees
get a strong experience for dynamic, efficient and solution oriented
managing of the invention process. The eMIPS also represents a way
of establishing or improving the innovation culture in the
organization. The first results in a pilot company showed excellent
results regarding the motivation of participants and also as to the
results achieved.
Abstract: After the internet explosion in the 90’s, technology
was immediately integrated into the school system. Technology
which symbolizes advancement in human knowledge was seen as a
setback by many educators. Efforts have been made to help stem this
erroneous believes and help educators realize the benefits of
technology and ways of implementing it in the classrooms especially
in the sciences. This advancement created a constantly expanding gap
between the pupil’s perception on the use of technology within the
learning atmosphere and the teacher’s perception and limitations
hence, the focus of this paper is on the need to refocus on the use of
Science and Technology in enhancing children’s potentials in
learning at school especially in Science for sustainable development
in Nigeria. The paper recommended measures for facilitating the
sustenance of science and technology in Nigerian schools so as to
enhance the potentials of our children in Science and Technology for
a better tomorrow.
Abstract: In the past researchers have questioned the
effectiveness of ethics training in higher education. Also, there are
observations that support the view that ethical behaviour (range of
actions)/ethical decision making models used in the past make use of
vignettes to explain ethical behaviour. The understanding remains in
the perspective that these vignettes play a limited role in determining
individual intentions and not actions. Some authors have also agreed
that there are possibilities of differences in one’s intentions and
actions. This paper makes an attempt to fill those gaps by evaluating
real actions rather than intentions. In a way this study suggests the
use of an experiential methodology to explore Berlo’s model of
communication as an action along with orchestration of various
principles. To this endeavor, an attempt was made to use
conversational analysis in the pursuance of evaluating ethical
decision making behaviour among students and middle level
managers. The process was repeated six times with the set of an
average of 15 participants. Similarities have been observed in the
behaviour of students and middle level managers that calls for
understanding that both the groups of individuals have no cognizance
of their actual actions. The deliberations derived out of conversation
were taken a step forward for meta-ethical evaluations to portray a
clear picture of ethical behaviour among participants. This study
provides insights for understanding demonstrated unconscious human
behaviour which may fortuitously be termed both ethical and
unethical.
Abstract: The adaptation of social networking sites within
higher education has garnered significant interest in the recent years
with numerous researches considering it as a possible shift from the
traditional classroom based learning paradigm. Notwithstanding this
increase in research and conducted studies however, the adaption of
SNS based modules have failed to proliferate within Universities.
This paper commences its contribution by analyzing the various
models and theories proposed in literature and amalgamate together
various effective aspects for the inclusion of social technology within
e-Learning. A three phased framework is further proposed which
details the necessary considerations for the successful adaptation of
SNS in enhancing the students learning experience. This proposal
outlines the theoretical foundations which will be analyzed in
practical implementation across international university campuses.
Abstract: The aim of this paper is to understand emerging
learning conditions, when a visual analytics is implemented and used
in K 12 (education). To date, little attention has been paid to the role
visual analytics (digital media and technology that highlight visual
data communication in order to support analytical tasks) can play in
education, and to the extent to which these tools can process
actionable data for young students. This study was conducted in three
public K 12 schools, in four social science classes with students aged
10 to 13 years, over a period of two to four weeks at each school.
Empirical data were generated using video observations and analyzed
with help of metaphors within Actor-network theory (ANT). The
learning conditions are found to be distinguished by broad
complexity, characterized by four dimensions. These emerge from
the actors’ deeply intertwined relations in the activities. The paper
argues in relation to the found dimensions that novel approaches to
teaching and learning could benefit students’ knowledge building as
they work with visual analytics, analyzing visualized data.
Abstract: In a multi-cultural learning context, where ties are
weak and dynamic, combining qualitative with quantitative research
methods may be more effective. Such a combination may also allow
us to answer different types of question, such as about people’s
perception of the network. In this study the use of observation,
interviews and photos were explored as ways of enhancing data from
social network questionnaires. Integrating all of these methods was
found to enhance the quality of data collected and its accuracy, also
providing a richer story of the network dynamics and the factors that
shaped these changes over time.
Abstract: Teaching art by digital means is a big challenge for
the majority of teachers of art and design in primary schools, yet it
allows relationships between art, technology and creativity to be
clearly identified. The aim of this article is to present a modern way
of teaching art, using digital tools in the art classroom to improve
creative ability in pupils aged between nine and eleven years. It also
presents a conceptual model for creativity based on digital art. The
model could be useful for pupils interested in learning to draw by
using an e-drawing package, and for teachers who are interested in
teaching modern digital art in order to improve children’s creativity.
By illustrating the strategy of teaching art through technology, this
model may also help education providers to make suitable choices
about which technological approaches are most effective in
enhancing students’ creative ability, and which digital art tools can
benefit children by developing their technical skills. It is also
expected that use of this model will help to develop skills of social
interaction, which may in turn improve intellectual ability.
Abstract: Peace education supports a holistic appreciation for
the value of life and the interdependence of all living systems. Peace
education aims to build a culture of peace. One way of building a
culture of peace is through environmental stewardship. This study
sought to find out the environmental stewardship practices in selected
Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in the Philippines and how
these environmental stewardship practices lead to building a culture
of peace. The findings revealed that there is still room for
improvement in implementing environmental stewardship in schools
through academic service learning. In addition, the following
manifestations are implemented very satisfactorily in schools: 1)
waste reduction, reuse, and recycling, 2) community service, and 3)
clean and green surroundings. Administrators of schools in the study
lead their staff and students in implementing environmental
stewardship. It could be concluded that those involved in
environmental stewardship display an acceptable culture of peace,
particularly solidarity, respect for persons, and inner peace.
Abstract: If teamwork is the key to organizational learning,
productivity and growth, then, why do some teams succeed in
achieving these, while others falter at different stages? Building
teams in higher education institutions has been a challenge and an
open-ended constructivist approach was considered on an
experimental basis for this study to address this challenge. For this
research, teams of students from the MBA program were chosen to
study the effect of teamwork in learning, the motivation levels among
student team members, and the effect of collaboration in achieving
team goals. The teams were built on shared vision and goals,
cohesion was ensured, positive induction in the form of faculty
mentoring was provided for each participating team and the results
have been presented with conclusions and suggestions.
Abstract: The effects of hypertension are often lethal thus its
early detection and prevention is very important for everybody. In
this paper, a neural network (NN) model was developed and trained
based on a dataset of hypertension causative parameters in order to
forecast the likelihood of occurrence of hypertension in patients. Our
research goal was to analyze the potential of the presented NN to
predict, for a period of time, the risk of hypertension or the risk of
developing this disease for patients that are or not currently
hypertensive. The results of the analysis for a given patient can
support doctors in taking pro-active measures for averting the
occurrence of hypertension such as recommendations regarding the
patient behavior in order to lower his hypertension risk. Moreover,
the paper envisages a set of three example scenarios in order to
determine the age when the patient becomes hypertensive, i.e.
determine the threshold for hypertensive age, to analyze what
happens if the threshold hypertensive age is set to a certain age and
the weight of the patient if being varied, and, to set the ideal weight
for the patient and analyze what happens with the threshold of
hypertensive age.