Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The aim of the proposed watershed based image segmentation technique is to split images into spatially homogeneous regions, wh

The aim of the proposed watershed based image segmentation technique is to split images into spatially homogeneous regions, which can be further processed by different image analysis tools. The advantage of such approach, in comparison to pixel oriented processing, is its lower sensitivity to superimposed noise due to averaging of regions properties over their area. The watershed segmentation technique is based on interpretation of an image as a topographic relief and on simulation of flow of water along steepest descent paths called downstreams. Thus, for each local minimum of the image, a drainage region is defined, which, if computed for a gradient image, represents an area with approximately constant properties. The segmentation technique is further extended for multi-scale image analysis by means of Gaussian smoothing. The aim of smoothing is to suppress image details that are smaller than standard deviation of the Gaussian. However, smoothing results not only in the desired increase of region size, but it also affects position of region boundaries, at least for larger standard deviations of the Gaussian filter. Therefore a new technique is proposed, based on region hierarchies, which enables to transfer region contours with precise position from the levels with low smoothing to levels with higher smoothing. Thus, segmentation of an image into large regions, but with exact contours, is obtained.
Conception of a touchless human machine interaction system for operating rooms using deep learning

Touchless Human-Computer Interaction (HMI) is important in sterile environments, especially, in operating rooms (OR). Surgeons need to interact with images from scanners, rayon X, ultrasound images, etc. Problems about contamination may happen if surgeons must touch a keyboard or the mouse. To reduce the contamination and to give the possibility to the surgeon to be more autonomous during the operation, different projects have been developed in the Medic@ team from 2011. In order to recognize the hand and the gestures, two main projects: Gesture Tool Box and K2A; based on the use of the Kinect’s device (with a depth camera) have been prototyped. The detection of the hand gesture was done by segmentation and hand descriptors on RGB images, but always with a dependency on the depth camera (Kinect) to the detection of the hand. Additionally, this approach does not give the possibility that the system adapts to a new gesture demanded by the end-user, for example, if a new gesture is demanded, a new algorithm must be programed and tested. Thanks to the evolution of NVDIA cards to reduce time processing algorithms for CNN, the last approach explored was the use of the deep learning algorithms. The Gesture tool box project done was to analyze the hand gesture detection using a CNN (pre-trained in VGG 16) and transfer learning. The results were very promising showing 85% of accuracy for the detection of 10 different gestures form LSF ( French Sign Language) and also it was possible to create a user interface to give autonomy to the end user to add his own gesture and to do the transfer learning automatically. However, we still had some problems about the real time delay (0,8s) recognition and the dependency of the Kinect device. In this article, a new architecture is proposed, in which we want to use standard cameras and to reduce the real time delay of the hand and gesture detection. The state of the art shows the use of a YOLOv2 using Darknet framework as a good option with faster time recognition compared to other CNN. We have implemented YOLOv2 for the detection of the hand and signs with good results in gesture detection and with 0.10 seconds on gesture time recognition in laboratory conditions. Future work will include reducing the errors of our model, recognizing intuitive and standard gestures and doing tests in real conditions.
The Impact of Training and Development Programs on the Banking Personnel

The main purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of training and development programs on Asbank employees. This study is based on a face-to-face questionnaire conducted in April 2018, with 170 employees of Asbank. 97 employees which are 57% of the population respond to the questionnaire. Gullu’s (2016) scale which is adapted from Kirkpatrick’s model has been used to perceive employee training effectiveness. According to this scale, this questionnaire consists of three parts First part of the questionnaire gathers information about demographic features and second part collects part collects information on the status of employee participation in training and development programs. The last part measures the employees’ participation in training and in the last part measure the employees’ perception of effectiveness on training and development in Asbank which consists of twenty-four questions. According to the study results, there was no strong effect in terms of 4 levels. Respondents have a positive effect on education, even though partially, and although the learning objectives were partially achieved, this did not affect the behaviour and performance of employees.
Lived Experience of the Activists of Barzani Genocide: A Phenomenological Study

Background and objective: Barzani genocide that occurred in 1983 led to death of 8,000 Barzani men. Since then, there have been numerous attempts by different activists to archive the events, make the crisis know worldwide, and help the survivors. The present study was a qualitative investigation into the Barzani genocide activists lived experience in order to come up with deeper understanding of their attempts and probable future measures to help survivors overcome their sorrow and finally prevent similar crises from happening in the future. Method: Using a hermeneutic phenomenological method through Van Manen’s method, the transcripts of in-depth semi-structured interviews with nine activists of Barzani genocide were analyzed. The interviews were carried out at the activists’ home. Results: Analyzing the interviews led to emergence of three main themes which were “Attempting to introduce Barzani genocide to international community”, “Archiving the event”, and “Alleviating the genocide survivors’ grief”. Conclusion: According to the results of the present study, the activists’ attempts have been successful in introducing Barzani genocide worldwide, archiving the events involved with and leading to the crisis, and alleviating the survivors’ grief.
Competence landscape of grade 9 mathematics teachers: Basis for an enhancement program

The investigation attempted to find out the competence evidence among the grade 9 mathematics teachers in the secondary schools of Dumaguete City, Philippines. Survey and correlational methods of research were employed with the aid of questionnaire-checklist to profile the teachers’ number of years in teaching Mathematics, training and seminars attended, educational attainment and measure their competence levels in mathematics curriculum competencies set by the Department of Education in the country. Data collected were treated using frequency counting, percent, weighted mean, standard deviation and Spearman Rank-Order Correlation. Results revealed that mathematics teaching was dominated by teachers with at least 6 years of teaching experience, with more locally attended seminars and training, and a higher percentage of those who pursued graduate education. The study revealed further that the teacher-respondents were highly competent in content for patterns, algebra and geometry. Moreover, the demographic profile of the teachers significantly translated their competence in content and pedagogy. Keywords: Competence, content, pedagogy, enhancement program.
English Language Syllabuses: Definition, Types, Design, and Selection

This article aims at probing the different types of syllabi used to teach English to English native and non-native speakers. The researcher used a chronological approach in describing each syllabus type in accordance to its emergence in epistemology of the syllabus design and pedagogical trends in teaching English in the world. Theories of language and learning, characteristics of each syllabus, and pros and cons of the discussed syllabi were highlighted throughout the article. Emphasis was also given to shed light on the interrelationship between syllabi types and pedagogical approaches and techniques. The process of syllabi design was also discussed with examples. The researcher endeavored to cite texts from proponents of authors and scholars who discussed each syllabus. The strategy used in presenting the information in this article was to list main titles and write explanatories to describe the syllabus. Primary and secondary resources were referred to for more ideas. Thus, some resources dated back to the 1985-2017. This was done on purpose to highlight authentic resources of the pioneer linguists and scholars of each type of syllabi.
A Data-Based System for the Optimization of Emergency Medical Services Allocation in Rural Countries

Choosing the optimal positioning of Emergency Medical Services (EMS) base stations is needed to provide timely assistance in emergency conditions. In rural countries, this is obtained through a tiered system, where ambulances take charge of patients from specific gathering centres, and then take them to the hospitals. Here, a dynamic programming technique based on Dijkstra's algorithm has been devised to optimally allocate EMS to different base stations, based on location and travelling times for the paths leading to gathering centres and hospitals. The system, implemented in Java, has been tested on in-silico data simulating different scenarios of network connectivity, and validated against experimental data of EMS calls managed from the national EMS in Sierra Leone in 2021. The system allows to predict the average travel times to reach hospital facilities as a function of the number of ambulances and Base stations used.
Seeking Emergence Through Temporal Analysis of Collaborative-Group Discourse: A Complex-Systems Approach

Abstract Research around problem solving in collaborative groups has made progress, but several conceptual and methodological issues remain. These issues include the appropriate choices of units of analysis; the ability of current theoretical sets of macrocognition codes to capture group dynamics; detection and identification of potentially emergent phenomena within groups; and the extent to which multiple dynamics are integral to understanding groups. Using data from a complex engineering challenge, we applied methods drawn from complex-systems analysis to offer insight into each of these issues, showing the need for multiple dimensions when studying group dynamics and highlighting methodological difficulties when dealing with emergent phenomena. We suggest future research to improve the understanding of the complex dynamics of collaborative groups.
Economic Crisis as a Supernatural Being in Public Discourse

The aim of the research was to reveal and compare the peculiarities of economic crisis conceptualization in Lithuanian and German public discourse. The research was focused on conceptual metaphors that are characteristic for the source domain SUPERNATURAL BEING. The main research method is the analysis of conceptual metaphors based on the Contemporary Theory of Metaphor. The metaphor is understood not as a linguistic phenomenon, but as a thinking strategy, mapping from a source domain to a target domain. In this context, the significance of research into conceptual metaphors in linguistics is obvious, because metaphors are a linguistic reflection of thinking processes. Thus, by revealing the mode of conceptual metaphors as well as the ways they are realized, we partially reveal the thinking and behavioral strategies that are characteristic for a given nation. Both linguistic communities explain the crisis by the names of supernatural beings. Metaphorical expressions present the crisis as a phenomenon beyond human control and an inevitable necessity caused by supernatural beings. These features are reflected by universal conceptual metaphors in both languages, but their linguistic expression in German and Lithuanian is partly unique. Collected metaphorical expressions and research results were applied compiling the first of its kind Conceptual Metaphors Dictionary of Lithuanian Public Discourse.
Specific Queries Optimization Using Jaya Approach

The Fast query engine is a requirement as a supporting tool for the semantic web technology application such as Electronic Commerce environ. As the large data is represented using the effective data representation called RDF. The focus of this paper is to optimize the specific type of the query called Cyclic query and star query on main-memory RDF data model using ARQ query engine of Jena. For the considered problem, we ruminate a Jaya algorithm for rearrangement of the order of triple pattern and also compare the results with an already proposed approach in the literature. The evaluation result shows that Jaya performs better in terms of execution time in comparison to Ant Colony Optimization.
Ensuring Teachers’ Job Suitability: A Missing Component of Instructional Leadership

Instructional leadership can be defined as an educational leadership approach whereby the school principal is involved in a wide range of activities aiming to improve teaching and learning for all students. Surprisingly, the literature about instructional leadership practices has not mentioned school leaders’ practices for hiring appropriate teachers and for determining whether existing teachers are the “right people” for the job. This suggests that instructional leaders are not necessarily expected to ensure that the right people are on board. The current study’s goal was to explore principals’ perceptions regarding their role in ensuring teachers’ job suitability and its relation to instructional leadership. Data collection included interviews with a diverse sample of 59 Israeli principals. Data analysis revealed that school principals perceived the issue of teacher hiring/firing as complicated. Therefore, they often regarded related tasks—such as deciding which attributes are most important for effective teachers, determining how such effective teachers can be proficiently screened for hire, and executing dismissal of ineffective teachers—as impossible or impractical. The current study suggests that this perception led principals to refrain from considering the activities involved in ensuring teacher suitability as means to improve teaching and learning. Practical implications and further research are discussed.
Effect of salinity stress on carbohydrate, lipid peroxidation and proline contents of two horse gram [Macrotyloma uniflorum (Lam.) Verdc] varieties

This study was conducted to investigate the effects of different concentrations (0, 40, 80 and 120mM) of salinity on horse gram [Macrotyloma uniflorum (Lam.) Verdc] plants grown in pots. The two horse gram varieties PAIYUR-2 and CO-1 were used for the study. Sampling was done on 15th Days After Treatment (DAT) and 30th DAT from control and salinity treated plants. The response of the horse gram plants to salinity stress was analysed by estimating the levels of carbohydrates, starch, lipid peroxidation, proline and glycine betaine. Higher salinity markedly reduced sugar concentration in both horsegram varieties, while starch content showed reverse trend. Lipid peroxidation (estimated by MDA content) significantly increased under salinity in both varieties but the rate of increment was higher in CO-1. The concentration of proline and glycine betaine were also altered under salinity. From the results of this investigation, it may be concluded that plants of variety PAIYUR-2 have high adaptive potential under salinity when compared to variety CO-1.
Implementation of Healthcare Monitoring System based on CoAP Group Communication

In this paper, we focus on the implementation of constrained application protocol (CoAP) group communication-based healthcare monitoring system (CGC-HMS) that can improve the network performance with respect to the network traffic load and energy efficiency. The CGC-HMS consists of the healthcare sensor devices (HSDs), a gateway, and a user mobile device (UMD). In the CGC-HMS, the multiple HSDs join a group managed by the gateway, and periodically detect the changes of surrounding environment. The gateway collects the health data from the multiple HSDs through CoAP group communication, and then forwards them to UMD. The UMD periodically receives the health data without additional request message by using the CoAP observe option. To verify the feasibility of CGC-HMS, we implement the CGC-HMS through the Raspberry Pi 3 and IoTivity, which are the embedded hardware platform and OCF open source project, respectively.
Tracking learners’ performances in high-stakes Grade 10 mathematics examinations

III DECLARATION. V ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS . VI DEDICATION. VIII LIST OF ACRONYMS . IX TABLE OF CONTENTS . XII LIST OF TABLES . XVI LIST OF FIGURES . XVII CHAPTER ONE: THE RESEARCH PROBLEM AND ITS CONTEXT . 1 1.
The Implementation of Critical Thinking in Vietnamese Primary Moral Education Classes

Vietnam is undergoing a comprehensive educational reform. Innovation within the curriculum requires a content-based approach to be replaced by a competence-based approach in which critical thinking is stressed in educating primary students. This study aims to determine the extent to which critical thinking is implemented in current primary moral education classes to provide a knowledge base for designing a new moral education curriculum that can be effective in teaching critical thinking to Vietnamese primary students. It reveals that despite a generally positive attitude toward the use of critical thinking by students, critical thinking is still currently implemented only to a low extent in moral education classes. The study reinforces the belief about the deep influences of Confucian heritage culture on the implementation of critical thinking that primary teachers and students use in their classroom practices. It recommends that critical thinking should be more widely fostered in moral education in Vietnam with attention needed to be given to cultural features and divergences. The study suggests the application of a social constructivist perspective and transformative learning to a new design of the moral education curriculum with a view to improving critical thinking and sociocultural values among students.
Adaptive structured dictionary learning for image fusion based on group-sparse-representation

Dictionary learning is the key process of sparse representation which is one of the most widely used image representation theories in image fusion. The existing dictionary learning method does not use the group structure information and the sparse coefficients well. In this paper, we propose a new adaptive structured dictionary learning algorithm and a ℓ1-norm maximum fusion rule that innovatively utilizes grouped sparse coefficients to merge the images. In the dictionary learning algorithm, we do not need prior knowledge about any group structure of the dictionary. By using the characteristics of the dictionary in expressing the signal, our algorithm can automatically find the desired potential structure information that hidden in the dictionary. The fusion rule takes the physical meaning of the group structure dictionary, and makes activity-level judgement on the structure information when the images are being merged. Therefore, the fused image can retain more significant information. Comparisons have been made with several state-of-the-art dictionary learning methods and fusion rules. The experimental results demonstrate that, the dictionary learning algorithm and the fusion rule both outperform others in terms of several objective evaluation metrics.
Mind-wandering experiences in ageing : neurocognitive processes and other influencing factors

The ability to self-generate thoughts in imagination is a central aspect of the human experience. Mind-wandering episodes are multifaceted and are heterogeneous in terms of their content, form (e.g. modality, level of detail), and behavioural outcomes. Older adults’ neurocognitive profile shows impairments in functions highly linked to the generation and management of such episodes, namely episodic memory, attentional control, and abilities associated with the recruitment of the default mode network (DMN). Robust findings have documented a decrease in the frequency of mind-wandering with increasing age. However, age-related changes in thought content, and how this is related to the cerebral organisation of the brain, has largely been neglected. This PhD project aimed to: (i) investigate older adults’ neurocognitive profile alongside the complexities of mind-wandering, and importantly (ii) explore the impact of moderating factors on thought content as we grow older. Converging behavioural and neuroimaging methods were employed to provide a comprehensive account of self-generated thoughts. The first two chapters combined self-reports with electrophysiological and fMRI connectivity data, and demonstrated associations between changes in the recruitment of the DMN and age-related changes in self-generated thoughts. Subsequent experimental chapters considered the influence of key factors believed to impact on the content of thoughts. Examining the influence of culture revealed that native French speakers favoured self-reflection and engaged in more positively oriented thoughts, in comparison to English native speakers. In addition, the manipulation of task difficulty encouraged verbal rehearsal, and meta-awareness mainly targeted the temporal characteristics of thoughts. Finally, after a 4-week meditation intervention, there was a reduction in both negative and past-oriented thoughts. Throughout, behavioural measures demonstrated older adults’ bias toward deliberate on-task thoughts, with evidence of a decrease of negatively oriented thoughts, stable rates of positively oriented thoughts, and an increase of visual thoughts, and task-related interference. Overall, the systematic use of convergent behavioural and neuroimaging methodology has provided a more in-depth understanding of mind-wandering experiences in ageing where previously the frequency of these episodes has only been considered.
Distributed Leadership as a Path to Organizational Commitment: The Case of a Lebanese School

ABSTRACT This study explores distributed leadership in school characterized by high teacher organizational commitment using case study research. Leadership is distributed in formal and informal manners. Teachers were directly involved in academic but not in administrative decision-making. Although school lacks democratic leadership, teachers’ organizational commitment remained high. This is due to the surrounding authoritarian Lebanese culture that normalizes the formal leaders monopoly on decision-making especially administrative decisions perceived to be outside the realm of teachers’ expertise. Results suggest recommendations for the transformation of schools to professional communities that adopt a distributed form of leadership where teachers’ voices are invited.