nils-herrmann/clean_scirepeval huggingface dataset:
Measuring conceptual understanding in randomised controlled trials: Can comparative judgement help?
Venue: British Educational Research Journal
Year: 2019

An impediment to conducting high quality quantitative research studies in education is the paucity of valid measures of learning gains. Studies often seek to investigate students' deep, conceptual understanding yet many measures assess only surface, procedural understanding. One reason is that the development of validated measures of conceptual understanding is resource intensive, time consuming, and success is not guaranteed. We evaluated a novel and efficient technique, based on comparative judgement, for assessing conceptual understanding. We applied the technique to a randomised controlled trial in which students were taught simple algebra based on either the Grid Algebra or the MiGen software package. The participants were Year 5 students (N 188) drawn from four primary schools who had not encountered algebra previously. An instrument from the literature (Concepts in Secondary Mathematics and  Algebra Scale) and a novel comparative judgement assessment were administered following the intervention. Students in the Grid Algebra condition outperformed those in the MiGen condition on both post test measures. The comparative judgement technique performed similarly to the standard instrument but was far more efficient to design and implement. The technique can, in principle, be quickly applied to any target concept of interest. We conclude that comparative judgement is a valid, reliable and practical tool that could help to increase both the quantity and quality of quantitative research in education.
Re optimization strategy for truck crane lift path planning
Year: 2018

When a truck crane lifts a load, the most important considerations are the safety and efficiency of the lift path; therefore, the objectives in planning a lift path should be the minimization of both the path length and number of operations. Most proposed methods for lift path planning simply focused on the optimization of the path length. As a result, a planned path may include a large number of operations that makes the path complicated and degrades the safety and efficiency of the lift process. This paper presents a method to optimize the number of operations for a lift path with an optimized length for a truck crane by making the most efficient use of the crane characteristics. First, a conventional search algorithm is used to optimize the length of a lift path. Thereafter, a new operating path optimization method is presented to reduce the number of points on the planned path based on construction of simple spaces and fundamental operating paths. Simulations produced satisfactory results, demonstrating that this method reduces the number of operations on a short lift path, thereby improving the safety and efficiency.
Ensembles of classifiers based on dimensionality reduction
Venue: Intell. Data Anal.
Year: 2017

We present a novel approach for the construction of ensemble classifiers based on dimensionality reduction. Dimensionality reduction methods represent datasets using a small number of attributes while preserving the information conveyed by the original dataset. The ensemble members are trained based on dimension reduced versions of the training set. These versions are obtained by applying dimensionality reduction to the original training set using different values of the input parameters. This construction meets both the diversity and accuracy criteria which are required to construct an ensemble classifier where the former criterion is obtained by the various input parameter values and the latter is achieved due to the decorrelation and noise reduction properties of dimensionality reduction. In order to classify a test sample, it is first embedded into the dimension reduced space of each individual classifier by using an out of sample extension algorithm. Each classifier is then applied to the embedded sample and the classification is obtained via a voting scheme. We present three variations of the proposed approach based on the Random Projections, the Diffusion Maps and the Random Subspaces dimensionality reduction algorithms. We also present a multi strategy ensemble which combines AdaBoost and Diffusion Maps. A comparison is made with the Bagging, AdaBoost,  Forest ensemble classifiers and also with the base classifier which does not incorporate dimensionality reduction. Our experiments used seventeen benchmark datasets from the UCI repository. The results obtained by the proposed algorithms were superior in many cases to other algorithms.
Employment, Disabled People and Robots: What Is the Narrative in the Academic Literature and Canadian Newspapers?
Year: 2016

The impact of robots on employment is discussed extensively, for example, within the academic literature and the public domain. Disabled people are known to have problems obtaining employment. The purpose of this study was to analyze how robots were engaged with in relation to the employment situation of disabled people within the academic literature present in the academic databases EBSCO All an umbrella database that consists of over 70 other databases, Scopus, Science Direct and Web of Science and within n 300 Canadian newspapers present in the Canadian Newsstand Complete ProQuest database. The study focuses in particular on whether the literature covered engaged with the themes of robots impacting (a) disabled people obtaining employment; (b) disabled people losing employment; (c) robots helping so called abled bodied people in their job to help disabled people; or (d) robots as coworkers of disabled people. The study found that robots were rarely mentioned in relation to the employment situation of disabled people. If they were mentioned the focus was on robots enhancing the employability of disabled people or helping so called abled bodied people working with disabled clients. Not one article could be found that thematized the potential negative impact of robots on the employability situation of disabled people or the relationship of disabled people and robots as co workers. The finding of the study is problematic given the already negative employability situation disabled people face.
Plant Growth Enhancement using Rhizospheric Halotolerant Phosphate Solubilizing Bacterium Bacillus licheniformis QA1 and Enterobacter asburiae QF11 Isolated from Chenopodium quinoa Willd
Venue: Microorganisms
Year: 2020

Plant growth promoting rhizobacteria represent a promising solution to enhancing agricultural productivity. Here, we screened phosphate solubilizing bacteria from the rhizospheric soil of Chenopodium quinoa Willd and assessed their plant growth promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) properties including production of indole 3 acetic acid (IAA) siderophores, hydrogen cyanide (HCN) ammonia and extracellular enzymes. We also investigated their tolerance to salt stress and their capacity to form biofilms. Two isolated strains, named QA1 and QF11, solubilized phosphate up to 346 mg/L, produced IAA up to 795.31 ug/mL, and tolerated up to 2 M NaCl in vitro. 16S rRNA and Cpn60 gene sequencing revealed that QA1 and QF11 belong to the genus Bacillus licheniformis and Enterobacter asburiae, respectively. In vivo, early plant growth potential showed that quinoa seeds inoculated either with QA1 or QF11 displayed higher germination rates and increased seedling growth. Under saline irrigation conditions, QA1 enhanced plant development/growth. Inoculation with QA1 increased leaf chlorophyll content index, enhanced P and K+ uptake and decreased plant Na+ uptake. Likewise, plants inoculated with QF11 strain accumulated more K+ and had reduced Na+ content. Collectively, our findings support the use of QA1 and QF11 as potential biofertilizers.
Deciphering microbial diversity associated with Fusarium wilt diseased and disease free banana rhizosphere soil
Venue: BMC Microbiology
Year: 2019

BackgroundFusarium wilt of banana (Musa spp. caused by the fungal pathogen Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cubense (Foc) is a typical soilborne disease, that severely devastates the banana industry worldwide, and soil microbial diversity is closely related to the spread of Fusarium wilt. To understand the relationship between microbial species and Fusarium wilt, it is important to understand the microbial diversity of the Fusarium wilt diseased and disease free soils from banana fields.ResultsBased on sequencing analysis of the bacterial 16S rRNA genes and fungal internal transcribed spacer (ITS) sequences, Foc abundance, fungal or bacterial richness and diversity were higher in the diseased soils than in the disease free soils. Although Ascomycota and Zygomycota were the most abundant fungi phyla in all soil samples, Ascomycota abundance was significantly reduced in the disease free soils. Mortierella (36.64% was predominant in the disease free soils. Regarding bacterial phyla, Proteobacteria, Acidobacteria, Chloroflexi, Firmicutes, Actinobacteria, Gemmatimonadetes, Bacteroidetes, Nitrospirae, Verrucomicrobia and Planctomycetes were dominant phyla in all soil samples. In particular, Firmicutes contributed 16.20% of the total abundance of disease free soils. At the bacterial genus level, Bacillus, Lactococcus and Pseudomonas were abundant in disease free soils with abundances of 8.20, 5.81 and 2.71% respectively; lower abundances, of 4.12, 2.35 and 1.36% respectively, were found in diseased soils. The distribution characteristics of fungal and bacterial genera may contribute to the abundance decrease of Foc in the disease free soils.ConclusionUnique distributions of bacteria and fungi were observed in the diseased and disease free soil samples from banana fields. These specific genera are useful for constructing a healthy microbial community structure of soil.
Research on photodiode integrated with wide spectrum focusing reflector using nonperiodic subwavelength gratings
Year: 2018

The fabrication and characterization of p i n photodiodes integrated with wide spectrum focusing reflectors using nonperiodic strip and concentric circular subwavelength gratings are presented. The experimental results show that the gratings can reflect and focus the incident light on the absorber of the photodiode, and thus can simultaneously achieve high speed and high efficiency. For the gratings' integrated photodiodes, the responsivity is improved over a wide spectral range, and when the absorber was 600 nm and the mesa diameter was 40 mm, a responsivity of 0.46 A/W at a wavelength of 1.55 mm and a 3 dB bandwidth of 21.6 GHz under a reverse bias of 3 V were simultaneously obtained. OCIS codes: 130.3120, 230.5170, 250.0040. doi: 10.3788/COL201816.051301.
Our conditional love for the underdog: The effect of brand positioning and the lay theory of achievement on WOM
Year: 2020

In this research, the authors examine the effect of underdog versus top dog brand positioning on different stages of WOM generation, from mental representation (i.e. WOM intention) to action implementation (i.e. WOM behavior) and the underlying mechanism. Across five experiments, the authors find that an underdog (versus top dog) positioning leads to higher WOM intention, whereas its effect on actual WOM behavior demonstrates a reverse pattern. Additionally, the results show that consumer self concepts (i.e. idealistic self vs. pragmatic self) mediate the relationship between brand positioning and WOM (i.e. intention vs. behavior) Moreover, the authors find that the consumer lay theory of achievement moderates the effect of brand positioning on WOM behavior, in that consumers who hold an incremental (vs. entity) theory are more likely to generate WOM for a brand with an underdog (vs. top dog) positioning. These findings provide contributions to WOM and branding literatures and offer important implications to managers.
Post Quantum Attribute Based Signatures from Lattice Assumptions
Venue: IACR Cryptol. ePrint Arch.
Year: 2016

Attribute based signature schemes (ABS) constitute important and powerful primitives when it comes to protecting the privacy of the user's identity and signing information. More specifically, ABS schemes provide the advantage of anonymously signing a message once a given policy is satisfied. As opposed to other related privacy preserving signatures, the verifier is not able to deduce from the signature, which attributes have been used to satisfy the (public) signing policy. In this work we give new and efficient constructions of lattice based ABS signature schemes, that are not based on the traditional approach of using span programs or secret sharing schemes as for classical schemes. In fact, our approach is less involved and does not require such complex subroutines. In particular, we first construct a new (t,B) threshold ABS scheme that allows to anonymously generate signatures, if t out of p=|B| attributes are covered by valid credentials. Based on this scheme, we propose a lattice based ABS scheme for expressive policies, by use of a new credential aggregation system that is built on top of a modified variant of Boyen's signature scheme. The signature size of the so obtained ABS scheme is linear in the number of disjunctive terms rather than the number of attributes.
Bayesian Joint Modeling of Longitudinal Measurements and Time to Event Data Using Robust Distributions
Venue: Journal of biopharmaceutical statistics
Year: 2014

Distributional assumptions of most of the existing methods for joint modeling of longitudinal measurements and time to event data cannot allow incorporation of outlier robustness. In this article, we develop and implement a joint modeling of longitudinal and time to event data using some powerful distributions for robust analyzing that are known as normal/independent distributions. These distributions include univariate and multivariate versions of the Student's t, the slash, and the contaminated normal distributions. The proposed model implements a linear mixed effects model under a normal/independent distribution assumption for both random effects and residuals of the longitudinal process. For the time to event process a parametric proportional hazard model with a Weibull baseline hazard is used. Also, a Bayesian approach using the Markov chain Monte Carlo method is adopted for parameter estimation. Some simulation studies are performed to investigate the performance of the proposed method under presence and absence of outliers. Also, the proposed methods are applied for analyzing a real AIDS clinical trial, with the aim of comparing the efficiency and safety of two antiretroviral drugs, where CD4 count measurements are gathered as longitudinal outcomes. In these data, time to death or dropout is considered as the interesting time to event outcome variable. Different model structures are developed for analyzing these data sets, where model selection is performed by the deviance information criterion (DIC) expected Akaike information criterion (EAIC) and expected Bayesian information criterion (EBIC)
A Pilot Double Blind Randomized Controlled Trial of Cognitive Training Combined with Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation for Amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment.
Venue: Journal of Alzheimer's disease JAD
Year: 2019

There is currently no effective intervention for improving memory in people at increased risk for dementia. Cognitive training (CT) has been promising, though effects are modest, particularly at follow up.  To investigate whether adjunctive non invasive brain stimulation (transcranial direct current stimulation, tDCS) could enhance the memory benefits of CT in amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) METHODS Participants with aMCI were randomized to receive CT with either Active tDCS (2 mA for 30 min and 0.016 mA for 30 min) or Sham tDCS (0.016 mA for 60 min) for 15 sessions over a period of 5 weeks in a double blind, sham controlled, parallel group clinical trial. The primary outcome measure was the California Verbal Learning Task 2nd Edition.  68 participants commenced the intervention. Intention to treat (ITT) analysis showed that the CT+Active tDCS group significantly improved at post treatment (p 0.033) and the CT+Sham tDCS group did not (p 0.050) but there was no difference between groups. At the 3 month follow up, both groups showed large sized memory improvements compared to pre treatment (CT+Active tDCS: p 0.01, d 0.99; CT+Sham tDCS: p 0.01, d 0.74) although there was no significant difference between groups.  This study found that CT+Active tDCS did not produce greater memory improvement compared to CT+Sham tDCS. Large sized memory improvements occurred in both conditions at follow up. One possible interpretation, based on recent novel findings, is that low intensity tDCS (used as 'sham' may have contributed biological effects. Further work should use a completely inert tDCS sham condition.
A new QR decomposition based RLS algorithm using the split Bregman method for L1 regularized problems
Venue: Signal Process.
Year: 2016

The split Bregman (SB) method can solve a broad class of L1 regularized optimization problems and has been widely used for sparse signal processing in a variety of applications. To achieve lower complexity and to cope with time varying environments, we develop a new adaptive version of the SB method for finding online sparse solutions. This algorithm is derived from the recursive least squares (RLS) optimization problem, where the SB method is used to separate the regularization term from the constrained optimization. This algorithm is numerically more stable and easily amenable to multivariate implementation due to the use of a QR decomposition (QRD) structure. An efficient method is further developed for selecting the thresholding rule, which controls the sparsity level of the estimator. Moreover, the SB QRRLS algorithm is extended to a multivariate version to solve the sparse principal component analysis (SPCA) problem. Simulation results are presented to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithms in sparse system estimation and SPCA. We show that the convergence and tracking performance of the proposed algorithms compares favorably with conventional algorithms. A new adaptive split Bregman algorithm for L1 regularized problems.QR decomposition based RLS algorithm for implementation.Regularization parameter selection formulae for sparsity control.Multivariate version for sparse principal component analysis.
The Relationship Between Math Anxiety and Math Performance: A Meta Analytic Investigation
Venue: Front. Psychol.
Year: 2019

Math anxiety (MA) has been suggested to decrease the math performance of students. However, it remains unclear what factors moderate this relationship. The aim of this research was to explore the link between MA and math performance. Studies that explored the math anxiety performance link, conducted from 2000 to 2019 (84 samples, N 8680) were identified and statistically integrated with a meta analysis method. The results indicated a robust negative math anxiety performance link. Furthermore, regarding the analysis of moderator variables, this negative link was stronger in the studies that involved Asian students, but this link was the weakest in the studies that involved European students. Moreover, this negative link was stronger in the studies within a senior high school group, whereas it was the weakest in the studies within an elementary group. Finally, this negative link was strongest among studies that used a custom test and studies that assessed problem solving skills. Potential explanations and implications for research and practice are discussed.
PERANCANGAN BOILER PLANT SIMULATOR DENGAN HMI WONDERWARE INTOUCH DAN PROSES AKUISISI DATA MENGGUNAKAN MIKROKONTROLER
Year: 2011

Perkembangan teknologi sistem kontrol dalam proses di industri dewasa ini sangat pesat. Namun hal itu akan sulit bagi mahasiswa untuk menjadikan real plan yang berada di industri sebagai media pembelajaran. Oleh karena itu, dirancanglah suatu simulator plant, dalam hal ini berupa pengaturan level dan pressure pada boiler. Simulator dibangun dengan bantuan Wonderware InTouch. Simulator memiliki fasilitas fasilitas seperti data logger, trend, dan alarm system. Selain itu simulator ini dilengkapi dengan proses akuisisi data berbasis bantuan mikrokontroler. Untuk komunikasi antara mikrokontroler dengan PC menggunakan komunikasi serial dengan bantuan Visual Basic 6.0. Sedangkan untuk komunikasi antara Visual Basic 6.0 dengan Wonderware InTouch menggunakan protokol komunikasi DDE. PLC Siemens S7 300 berfungsi sebagai kontroler, dan kontroler yang digunakan adalah PID yang dibangun dengan menggunakan ladder diagram dari software Step7Lite. Dari hasil penelitian, didapatkan untuk komunikasi data digital, panjang data yang dikirim adalah 8 bit dengan waktu tunda rata rata 3.7ms. Sedangkan untuk komunikasi data analaog, nilai MSE tegangan sebesar 0.0336V dengan waktu tunda 3.55ms. Dari implementasi kontroler, didapatkan t pengaturan level boiler 9.8s dan t pengaturan pressure boiler 6.71s.
Physical Activity in Cardiac Rehabilitation: Towards Citizen Centered Digital Evidence Based Interventions.
Venue: Studies in health technology and informatics
Year: 2020

Physical activity is a vital part of cardiac rehabilitation (CR) However, heart healthy physical activity levels in people with cardiovascular disease drop significantly after CR. This exploratory study employs qualitative and survey methods within a co creation approach. The aim is to understand the mechanisms of healthy behavior and habit formation in order to create a novel evidence based (post )rehabilitation approach that employs digital means to sustain long term physical activity levels in people with cardiovascular disease.
Rutting Resistance of Rubberized Asphalt Concrete Pavements Containing Reclaimed Asphalt Pavement Mixtures
Year: 2007

Improved understanding of rutting resistance of a rubberized asphalt concrete pavement that contains reclaimed asphalt pavement RAP is important to stimulating the use of rubberized asphalt mixtures. Use of RAP in the past has proved to be economical, environmentally sound, and effective in increasing the rutting resistance of asphalt mixtures. Rubberized asphalt has been used success fully in improving the mechanical characteristics, such as rutting resistance, of typical hot mix asphalt HMA mixture around the country and the world. The objective of this research was to investigate the rutting resistance characteristics of the rubberized asphalt mixtures through a laboratory testing program. The experimental design included use of two rubber types ambient and cryogenically produced, four rubber contents, and three crumb rubber sizes. The results of the experiments indicated that the use of RAP and crumb rubber in the HMA can effectively improve the rut resistance of these mixes.