Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Emotionally Intelligent Tutoring Systems (EITS)

It is well-known that emotions have a strong influence on a person’s cognitive abilities, a fact which can be used by a tutor to improve a student’s learning capacities. Conditions are that the tutor knows the current emotional state of the learner as well as the emotional impact of certain actions taken and, finally, how the student’s learning capacities depend on his emotions. In this article, we propose the concept of an Emotionally Intelligent Tutoring System (EITS) and make a step towards its practical realization: We develop a tool allowing an Intelligent Tutoring System for improving a learner’s capacities by actively influencing his emotions. More specifically, we combine Case-Based Reasoning methods with graph knowledge representation for modeling and predicting efficiently a learner’s emotional reaction to specific situations which can occur during a learning lesson, with the final objective of promoting any particular users learning capacities.
Comment déchiffrer le code impulsionnel de la Vision? Étude du flux parallèle, asynchrone et épars dans le traitement visuel ultra-rapide.

Le cadre de ce travail est l'etude de modeles neuromimetiques de codage parallele et asynchrone de l'information visuelle ---tel qu'il est mis en evidence dans des taches de traitement ultra-rapide--- en la transformant en une vague d'evenements elementaires d'importance decroissante. Nous allons baser dans un premier temps les mecanismes de ce code sur les processus biologiques a l'echelle du neurone et de la synapse. En particulier, la plasticite synaptique peut induire l'extraction non-supervisee de l'information coherente dans le flux des impulsions neuronales. Le codage par la latence de la premiere decharge permet de definir un code impulsionnel dans le nerf optique grâce une architecture multiechelle. Nous avons etendu cette demarche en utilisant une approche \emph(ecologique) qui permet exploiter les regularites de ses coefficients sur les images naturelles pour les quantifier par le rang d'arrivee des impulsions neuronales. Ce code par le rang des decharges, est base sur une architecture hierarchique et ``en avant'' qui se distingue, outre sa simplicite, par la richesse des resultats mathematiques et de par ses performances computationnelles. Enfin, nous avons repondu aux besoins d'un modele efficace de la Vision en fondant une theorie de \emph(representation impulsionnelle sur-complete) de l'image. Cette formalisation conduit alors a une strategie de \emph(code impulsionnel epars) en definissant des interactions laterales. Cette strategie est etendue a un modele general de \emph(colonne corticale adaptative) permettant l'emergence de dictionnaires de representation et s'adapte particulierement a la construction d'une carte de saillance. Ces techniques font emerger de nouveaux outils pour le traitement de l'image et de vision active adaptes a des architectures de calcul distribue.
Association between Sedentary Behaviour and Physical, Cognitive, and Psychosocial Status among Older Adults in Assisted Living

Objective Identification of the factors that influence sedentary behaviour in older adults is important for the design of appropriate intervention strategies. In this study, we determined the prevalence of sedentary behaviour and its association with physical, cognitive, and psychosocial status among older adults residing in Assisted Living (AL). Methods Participants (n = 114, mean age = 86.7) from AL sites in British Columbia wore waist-mounted activity monitors for 7 consecutive days, after being assessed with the Timed Up and Go (TUG), Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), Short Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS), and Modified Fall Efficacy Scale (MFES). Results On average, participants spent 87% of their waking hours in sedentary behaviour, which accumulated in 52 bouts per day with each bout lasting an average of 13 minutes. Increased sedentary behaviour associated significantly with scores on the TUG (r = 0.373, p < 0.001) and MFES (r = −0.261, p = 0.005), but not with the MoCA or GDS. Sedentary behaviour also associated with male gender, use of mobility aid, and multiple regression with increased age. Conclusion We found that sedentary behaviour among older adults in AL associated with TUG scores and falls-related self-efficacy, which are modifiable targets for interventions to decrease sedentary behaviour in this population.
Makeup-invariant face recognition by combination of Local Binary Pattern and Dual-Tree Complex Wavelet Transform from women's images

Facial makeup is one of the problems that are caused decrease in the performance of face recognition algorithms. In this paper, a novel method is proposed to handle facial makeup in face recognition. The combining of Local Binary Pattern (LBP) and Dual-Tree Complex Wavelet Transform (DT-CWT) is applied to face image for feature extraction. Then, by combining entire of LBP and DT-CWT feature vectors, the final feature vectors are generated and classified by the Support Vector Machine (SVM). Promising results were achieved for makeup-invariant face recognition on the available image database based on the present method compared to several state-of-the-art methods.
An assessment of human resource information systems on service delivery in Kenyan Universities: a comparative study of public and private Universities

Service Delivery is one of the key functions of any organization that is involved in Human Resource Management activities. This is clearly illustrated by the numerous strategies that organisations are putting in place in order to satisfy demands of their customers. One such strategy that has gained popularity in many organisations is the entry of Human Resource Information Systems. Even though most of these strategies have propelled organisations in fulfilling their objectives, little information exists on HRIS in Kenya. This study therefore examined the effects of HRIS on Service Delivery in Kenyan Public and Private Universities. The study objectives were to: examine the HRIS used in the Universities; assess the effects of HRIS on Service Delivery; establish the challenges associated with the usage of HRIS and explore appropriate strategies for sustained usage of HRIS on Service Delivery. The study used sequential explanatory Research Design. The targeted population was drawn from Departments of Human Resource, ICT and Finance from the two Universities totaling to 88 employees. These three departments were purposively selected since they are involved with HR matters. Since the target population was small the entire population selected using census technique. Questionnaires and interview schedule developed by the researcher were used as data collection instruments and techniques respectively. Collected data was subjected to SPSS computer package and then analyzed descriptively and presented in terms of tables, charts and graphs. Arising from research findings from the two institutions, HRIS was found to be commonly used for payroll and record management. The findings revealed that there were a number of benefits associated with adoption of HRIS which included easy access of staff information, improved data management, and improved data input process among others. It was also noted that application of HRIS was hampered by numerous challenges although with appropriate strategies these could be mitigated upon. Despite the investment of HRIS in the surveyed universities, there is tremendous amount of unrealized HRIS potential in services delivery. Therefore, there is need to diversify the use of HRIS in the universities. This will enable the Universities to efficiently and effectively run Human Resource Management matters.
The Information Technology Interaction Model: A Foundation for the MBA Core Course

This paper presents a teaching model that has been used successfully in the MBA core course in information systems at several universities. The model is referred to as the "Information Technology Interaction Model" because it maintains that the consequences of information systems in organizations follow largely from the interaction of the technology with the organization and its environment. The model serves a number of pedagogical purposes: to integrate the various course components, to provide a formal foundation for the course content, to foster practical analytical skills, and to provide a framework for discussions and student projects. Moreover, the model is intended to acquaint students with the dynamics of information systems in organizations and to help them recognize the benefits, dangers, and limitations of these systems. The paper includes a discussion and examples of how the model can be used for proactive and reactive analyses, and it concludes with observations on the model's effectiveness in the core course.
A Better Way to Recommend Educational Content

For generations, humans have looked outwards at others for inspiration, individuals of great intellect and accomplishment have been regarded as heroes and model citizens. However, this kind of admiration has not always been shared equally amongst the diverse set of people in the world. As such, with growing awareness, one of the greatest questions of the 21st century is the question of bias, such as gender equality. By investigating user ratings of speakers in TED talks, a popular lecture series that are widely shared for approachable discussions from various experts, we aim to explore whether even experts are affected by bias and whether a platform primarily served to distribute educational content is subject to potential unconscious biases as well. We also aim to explore whether certain types of content are systematically more recommended than others. One form of bias that we are particularly interested is bias in gender perceptions. Previous research in social psychology have found that in various realms and skills, men and women are perceived differently despite lack of difference in actual skill level for example, among STEM and non-STEM students, it was found that there is a signiTicant pro-Male-STEM bias (Farrell et al., 2016). Even among evaluations of teachers , favori t ism towards male professors were found (Boring 2016). It is well documented that recommendation systems are largely correlated with viewership (Zhou et al., 2016). We believe that one of the most important goals of education is to promote a diversity of thinking. By investigating the network structure created by TED talk recommendation lists, we explored how the content is being curated and what kind of content is promoted to users. As stated in their organization page, the goal of TED is to promote a global community, welcoming people from every discipline and culture who seek a deeper understanding of the world. As such, we believe it is important that the recommendation network of TED and similar educational services curate recommendations that promote views towards a diverse set of ideas. Other than gender bias, we hope that by using purely data-driven communitydetection and centrality analyses, we could elucidate the features behind the viewership network and identify the key videos that may be engagement points for TED.com to look at whether talks with certain attributes are systematically emphasized or ignored. From here, we will be able to study the metrics involved that correlate amongst inTluential nodes with hopes to provide metrics that predict future key videos. Continuing, we hope that insight in differences between inTluential and noninTluential nodes could inform more conscious efforts in distributing educational content.
Chronic respiratory patient control by multivariate charts.

PURPOSE This article seeks to explain how to monitor the chronic obstructive disease patient and control any complications so that timely treatment can be applied. DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH Control charts and statistical process control (SPC) theory were used on chronic respiratory patient follow-up and control. Controlling several variables simultaneously, using univariate charts, can be misleading, more so when there are correlated variables, so multivariate and univariate control charts were studied. FINDINGS One-sided control charts are preferable when the aim is to detect changes in the mean solely in one direction. Thus, one-sided, univariate and multivariate charts were built, which identified previously undetected out-of-control events. RESEARCH LIMITATIONS/IMPLICATIONS The study's main limitation is its retrospective nature. However, following-up individual patients can highlight medical therapy effects. PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS The article concludes that control charts, in particular one-sided ones, are a valuable tool for monitoring chronic respiratory patients, thus contributing to medical decision making. ORIGINALITY/VALUE The article highlights control chart application to chronic respiratory patient follow-up, permitting a global view of patient evolution over time.
The effect of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep on upper airway mechanics in normal human subjects

1 It has been proposed that the upper airway is more compliant during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep than during non‐rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep. The purpose of this study was to test this hypothesis in a group of subjects without sleep‐disordered breathing. 2 On the first night, the effect of sleep stage on the relationship of retropalatal cross‐sectional area (CSA; visualized with a fibre‐optic scope) to pharyngeal pressure (PPH) measured at the soft palate during eupnoeic breathing was studied. Breaths during REM sleep were divided into phasic (associated with eye movements) and tonic (not associated with eye movements). There was a significant decrease in pharyngeal CSA during NREM sleep compared with wakefulness. There was no further decrease observed during either tonic or phasic REM sleep. Pharyngeal compliance, defined as the slope of the regression CSA versus PPH, was significantly increased during NREM sleep compared with wakefulness and REM sleep, with the compliance during both tonic and phasic REM sleep being similar to that observed in wakefulness. 3 On the second night, the effect of sleep stage on pressure‐flow relationships of the upper airway was investigated. There was a trend towards the upper airway resistance being highest in NREM sleep compared with wakefulness and REM sleep. 4 We conclude that the upper airway is stiffer and less compliant during REM sleep than during NREM sleep. We postulate that this difference is secondary to differences in upper airway vascular perfusion between REM and NREM sleep.
Calculation of switching frequency in current hysteresis controlled switched reluctance drives

This paper illustrates the variation of average switching frequency in current hysteresis controlled switched reluctance drives. While the dependence of switching frequency on torque and speed can be understood and calculated qualitatively using simplified equations, accurate results can be obtained only from detailed simulation models. The results can be used to estimate power converter switching losses or acoustic noise spectral components caused by the current control. It is shown that average switching frequency varies significantly over the torque-speed range whereas the maximum average switching frequency is almost independent of torque and speed for a fixed hysteresis band and unsaturated conditions.
Adaptive Fuzzy Control for Nonlinear Networked Control Systems

This paper studies the problem of adaptive fuzzy control for a category of single-input single-output nonlinear networked control systems with network-induced delay and data loss based on adaptive backstepping control approach. Fuzzy logic systems are used to approximate the unknown nonlinear characteristics existing in the system, while Pade approximation is introduced to handle network-induced delay. Data loss occurs intermittently and stochastically in the data transmitting process, which is regarded as the delay in the controller design. In the framework of adaptive fuzzy backstepping technique, a novel state-feedback adaptive controller is constructed to ensure all signals in the resulting closed-loop system to be bounded and the state variables can be regulated to the origin. Finally, two examples are given to show the validity of the proposed results.
Outlier Detection in Sparse Data with Factorization Machines

In sparse data, a large fraction of the entries take on zero values. Some examples of sparse data include short text snippets (such as tweets in Twitter) or some feature representations of categorical data sets with a large number of values, in which traditional methods for outlier detection typically fail because of the difficulty of computing distances. To address this, it is important to use the latent relations between such values. Factorization machines represent a natural methodology for this, and are naturally designed for the massive-domain setting because of their emphasis on sparse data sets. In this study, we propose an outlier detection approach for sparse data with factorization machines. Factorization machines are also efficient due to their linear complexity in the number of non-zero values. In fact, because of their efficiency, they can even be extended to traditional settings for numerical data by an appropriate feature engineering effort. We show that our approach is both effective and efficient for sparse categorical, short text and numerical data by an extensive experimental study.
Extending the elements of tree-structured regression

The usage of tree-structured or recursive partitioning methods has grown steadily in the decade since the appearance of the definitive monograph 'Classification and Regression Trees'. 1 Accompanying this growth have been many methodologic and software extensions that have served to give the tree-structured approach even wider applicability. This overview highlights some of these developments, emphasizing the regression setting. An illustrative example describes how tree-structured regression, modified to handle right-censored, left-truncated survival data with time-dependent covariates, can be used to assess whether rates of progression from HIV to AIDS have changed over time.
Physiological Role of UCP3 May Be Export of Fatty Acids from Mitochondria When Fatty Acid Oxidation Predominates: An Hypothesis

This hypothesis proposes a physiological role for uncoupling protein-3 (UCP3) in the export of fatty acid anions from muscle and brown adipose tissue (BAT) mitochondria when fatty acids are the predominant substrate being used. It proposes that excess acyl CoA within the mitochondria is hydrolyzed by a mitochondrial acyl CoA thioesterase, yielding fatty acid anion and CoASH. The fatty acid anion is exported to the cytosol by being carried across the inner mitochondrial membrane by UCP3. The CoASH is conserved within the mitochondrion to participate in other reactions for which it is needed during fatty acid oxidation in the β-oxidation cycle and in the tricarboxylic acid cycle. The export of the fatty acid anion thus permits continued rapid fatty acid oxidation in the face of an oversupply. The hypothesis provides a logical explanation for the observed up-regulation of gene expression for UCP3 in muscle when there is a switch to fatty acid oxidation, as during fasting, and in BAT when fatty acid oxidation is stimulated, as during exposure to cold. It provides a plausible physiological role for UCP3 as a transporter protein, not as an uncoupling protein.
A GLR algorithm for multiple consecutive measurement bias estimation

This paper proposes an algorithm for handling multiple consecutive measurement biases that appear and disappear frequently, typically encountered in GNSS in small low flying UAVs due to range errors and signal blocking. The method is derived as an extension to the well known GLR algorithm and is based on a corrected innovation sequence for detection and an identification stage based on least square estimation. A recursive (RLS) and a non-recursive (LS) solution is proposed in the identification stage. Results in a GNSS position error example show that the proposed algorithms are significantly better than the original algorithm in terms of estimation precision when biases appear and disappear frequently.
Simulation study for Dual Material Gate Hetero-Dielectric TFET: Static performance analysis for analog applications

This paper presents simulation study of Static characteristics for DMG (Dual Material Gate) Hetero-Dielectric (H-D) Tunnel FET. Here, two previously reported device architectures i.e. a DMG Single Dielectric TFET and SMG (Single Material Gate) Hetero-Dielectric TFET have been optimized by tuning the work functions and length and later on their combined impact on the proposed device architecture i.e. DMG Hetero-Dielectric Tunnel FET (DMG H-D TFET) is been studied. Electrical parameters such as threshold voltage, drain current I<sub>ds</sub>, Sub threshold Slope, I<sub>on</sub> to I<sub>off</sub> ratio, ambipolar current I<sub>amb</sub> have been studied. Some of the important analog parameters like transconductance g<sub>m</sub>, drain conductance g<sub>d</sub>, Output resistance R<sub>out</sub>, transconductance generation efficiency g<sub>m</sub>/I<sub>ds</sub> have also been studied using ATLAS Device Simulation Software.
Archives of Emergency Medicine and Critical Care

Mouthpiece non invasive mechanical ventilation is more frequently used in recent years because mouthpiece ventilation modes are being introduced to available portable ventilators. Often, a patient affected by neuromuscular disease needs noninvasive mechanical ventilation. Sometimes the patient does not accept the treatment, due to excessive air leakage, claustrophobia, anxiety and congiuntivitis. The mouthpiece makes less interference with speech, better appearance, less negative impact on the patient, no risk of skin breakdown and absence of claustrophobia. The mpv has been used to treat various neuromuscular diseases such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Duchenne dystrophy, Steinert dystrophy; data in literature documenting that the mouthpiece ventilation resulted an effective, preferable and comfortable alternative.
Development of a FPGA-based SoC Instrument for the characterization of High Sensitivity QCM Oscillator Sensors

To characterize the behavior of quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) oscillator sensors, it is not enough to determine their experimental sensitivity, but rather it is essential to study the frequency fluctuations in order to establish the sensor resolution. The development of an FPGA-based system on a chip (SoC) intended to measure the frequency noise and mass resolution of QCM sensors is presented in this paper. The implemented system integrates the frequency measurement and the computation of the Allan deviation and mass resolution of the sensor in a single FPGA. By this way, a reconfigurable and low cost QCM sensor system is obtained working as a standalone measurement instrument. It permits to set the lower limit to the mass variations that can be observed with a sensor in the conditions of the application. A Virtex-4 FPGA from Xilinx was chosen as hardware platform due to its suitable architecture to support SoC and DSP applications. The developed measurement system combines the 32-bit embedded MicroBlazereg soft processor with a specific hardware coprocessor designed to accelerate the computations required for real-time processing. A data flow based on techniques as recursive formulas and jump prediction was proposed in order to reduce the computations and memory requirements of the coprocessor. Also the coprocessor uses a pipeline architecture and time-sharing modules in order to achieve an optimal balance between velocity and area. Finally, the implemented system was validated with a 9 MHz QCM sensor in damping media used for electrochemical applications and the results were compared with a full floating point implementation