The study aims to identify the efficiency of the university education performance from the perspective of postgraduate and undergraduate students in international and Palestinian universities. The analytical descriptive approach was used for this purpose and the questionnaire was used as a main tool for data collection. The study community consists of: post graduate students, (23850) graduate students and (146355) undergraduate students. The sample of the study was 378 graduate students and 383 undergraduate students. The random stratified sample was (...) used. The Statistical Package of Social Sciences (SPSS) was also used for data analysis. The study reached a number of results, the most important of which are: The level of efficiency of educational performance in Palestinian and international universities from the point of view of postgraduate and undergraduate students was high. And that there are significant differences between the average views of the sample of the study on the efficiency of educational performance in Palestinian and international universities attributed to the University and to the benefit of international universities. The study concluded many recommendations, the most important of which is the necessity of continuing to develop e-learning strategies that affect the efficiency of educational performance and research commensurate with the university's position in the local and international community, which puts it on the best classification between local and international universities through e-learning. (shrink)

The study aimed to identify E- Learning strategies and their relation to the efficiency of research performance in foreign and Palestinian universities (University of Ottawa, Munster, Suez Canal, Al-Azhar, Islamic, Al-Aqsa). The analytical descriptive approach was used for this purpose, and relying on the questionnaire as a main tool for data collection. The study society is from the senior management, where the number of senior management in the universities in question is 206. The random stratified sample was selected (...) and (SPSS) was used for statistical data analysis. The study found a significant relationship between E- Learning strategies and the efficiency of research performance in universities. It also reached the participation of senior management in the research that develops the university performance in the Palestinian universities. The senior management indicated that they do not care to follow the policies of implementing the development of scientific research. While the senior management in foreign universities indicated that they are interested in following up the policies of implementing the development of scientific research. The study also showed that senior management in Palestinian universities does not care about providing the appropriate budget for E- Learning. The study recommended that the senior management of Palestinian universities should provide an E- Learning budget and encourage employees to continue using E- Learning strategies. The administration in the Palestinian universities should adopt and support outstanding research, and the need to encourage interest in the implementation of policies for the development of scientific research. (shrink)

Since its inception, Shannon's information theory has attracted interest for the study of language and music. Recently, a wide range of converging studies have shown how efficient communication pervades language, from phonetics to syntax. Efficient principles imply that more resources should be assigned to highly informative items. For instance, average information content was shown to be a better predictor of word length than frequency, revisiting the famous Zipf's law. However, in spite of the success of the efficient communication framework in (...) the study of language and speech, very little work has investigated its relevance in the analysis of music. Here, we examine the organization of harmonic information in two large corpora of Western music, one made of MIDI files directly sequenced from scores, and the other made of MIDI recordings of live performances of highly skilled piano players. We show that there is a clear positive relationship between (contextual) information content of harmonic sequences and two essential musical properties, namely duration and loudness: the more unexpected a harmonic event is, the longer and the louder it is. (shrink)

This study employs the Porter hypothesis framework to test the moderating role of production cost in the relationship between resource-efficiency actions and financial performance for German small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). For this purpose, we employ the 2012, 2018, and 2021 Flash Eurobarometer surveys to analyze how consistently SMEs adopt resource-efficiency actions, and the impact of these actions on their performance and costs. We also conduct a generalized method of moments regression analysis (GMM). Among the seven (...) resource-efficiency actions proposed, saving water had a significant positive (negative) influence on financial performance in 2012, 2021, and (2018). Saving energy and using renewable energy had a positive and significant (insignificant) effect on financial performance in 2018, 2021, and (2012). Finally, selling scrap material to other companies had a positive and significant impact in all years. Furthermore, increased production costs negatively moderate the relationship between eco-efficiency action scores and financial performance. The results indicate that the “strong” version of the Porter hypothesis is not supported: It only holds when the implementation of eco-efficiency actions reduces production costs and increases financial performance. (shrink)

This article intends to analyze the performance and the efficiency of companies and to identify the key factors that may explain it. It was selected a sample with 15 enterprises: 7 Portuguese and 8 Ukrainian ones, belonging to several industries. Financial and non-financial data was collected for 6 years, during the period of 2009 to 2014. Research questions that guided this work were: Are the enterprises efficient/profitable? What factors influence enterprises’ efficiency/performance? Is there any difference between (...) Ukrainian and Portuguese enterprises’ efficiency/performance, which factors have more influence? Which industrial sector is represented by more efficient/profitable enterprises? The main results showed that in average enterprises were efficient with low level of profitability. According to gained results several indicators were highlighted so that companies would pay more attention to them. (shrink)

Managers face an ethical dilemma in the allocation of scarce resources to corporate social responsibility (CSR) because the underlying managerial incentives behind such CSR spending can range from pure altruism to complete financial orientation. Despite the importance of the managerial role in implementing CSR, prior studies generally have treated the role of managers as an exogenous factor. This study builds on recent studies on the managerial characteristics in studies on CSR by examining how managerial efficiency influences the outcomes of (...) CSR. Using a newly developed measure of managerial efficiency, we find that, on average, managerial efficiency is positively associated with a subsequent change in corporate social performance (CSP), although the association is weak in the level of total CSP. We find that efficient managers are more likely to engage in the product-related CSR that directly connects to corporate financial performance (CFP) but are less likely to engage in environment-related CSR. We also find that CSP is positively associated with CFP with efficient managers. Our findings contribute to management and other stakeholders’ understanding of the association of CSR to its outcomes, CSP and/or CFP, which is hinged by the indispensable moderating role of managerial efficiency. (shrink)

Managers face an ethical dilemma in the allocation of scarce resources to corporate social responsibility because the underlying managerial incentives behind such CSR spending can range from pure altruism to complete financial orientation. Despite the importance of the managerial role in implementing CSR, prior studies generally have treated the role of managers as an exogenous factor. This study builds on recent studies on the managerial characteristics in studies on CSR by examining how managerial efficiency influences the outcomes of CSR. (...) Using a newly developed measure of managerial efficiency, we find that, on average, managerial efficiency is positively associated with a subsequent change in corporate social performance, although the association is weak in the level of total CSP. We find that efficient managers are more likely to engage in the product-related CSR that directly connects to corporate financial performance but are less likely to engage in environment-related CSR. We also find that CSP is positively associated with CFP with efficient managers. Our findings contribute to management and other stakeholders’ understanding of the association of CSR to its outcomes, CSP and/or CFP, which is hinged by the indispensable moderating role of managerial efficiency. (shrink)

As an advanced network calculation mode, cloud computing is becoming more and more popular. However, with the proliferation of large data centers hosting cloud applications, the growth of energy consumption has been explosive. Surveys show that a remarkable part of the large energy consumed in data center results from over-provisioning of the network resource to meet requests during peak demand times. In this paper, we propose a solution to this problem by constructing a dynamic energy-efficient resource management scheme. As a (...) way of saving energy as well as maintaining cloud user’s quality of experience, the scheme presents a multitier cloud architecture by configuring physical machines into two pools: a hot pool and a warm pool. Each PM is configured with a resource search engine that finds an available virtual machine for the request, and a synchronous sleep mechanism is introduced to the warm pool. To analyze the end-to-end performance of the cloud system’s service with the proposed scheme, we establish a hybrid queueing system composed of three stochastic submodels by using a matrix-geometric solution. Accordingly, the average latency of requests and the energy-saving rate of the system are derived. Through numerical results, we show the influence of the synchronous sleep mechanism on the system performance. Moreover, from the perspective of economics, we build a system cost function to study the trade-off between different performance measures. An improved Salp Swarm Algorithm is presented to minimize the system cost and optimize the sleep parameter. (shrink)

Academics and practitioners have paid close attention to waste, energy, and resource management due to growing awareness of its effects on sustainable performance. This study aims to explore the status and challenges of efficient resource management in China, an under-researched area. Moreover, it proposes a theoretical framework to fill the academic and practical gap how efficient resource management practices can build sustainable performance. This study justifies the need to explore the need of efficient resource management practices in emerging (...) economies like China. Empirical data derived using a cross-sectional survey of 265 employees from oil and gas firms in China were used to test the theoretical framework developed from mainstream literature. Empirical findings of this study highlight the role of efficient resource management practices such as CSR, process and equipment, human resource practices, product design, and manufacturing planning which have a positive and significant impact on sustainable performance. In addition, innovative culture plays a moderating role in enhancing firms' sustainable performance. The findings suggest that there is further scope to utilize the efficient resource management practices for encouraging innovative culture to build sustainable performance. This study creates a basis for future research of building sustainable organizational performance by integrating efficient resource management practices. This study also highlights gaps in the system and provides insights into policymakers and manufacturing sector employees on holistically building a sustainable organization. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIt is proposed that experts are able to integrate prior contextual knowledge with emergent visual information to make complex predictive judgments about the world around them, often under heightened levels of uncertainty and extreme time constraints. However, limited knowledge exists about the impact of anxiety on the use of such contextual priors when forming our decisions. We provide a novel insight into the combined impact of contextual priors and anxiety on anticipation in soccer. Altogether, 12 expert soccer players were required (...) to predict the actions of an oncoming opponent while viewing life-sized video simulations of 2-versus-2 defensive scenarios. Performance effectiveness and processing efficiency were measured under four conditions: no contextual priors about the action tendencies of the opponent and low anxiety ; no CP and high anxiety ; CP and LA; CP and HA. The provision of contextual priors did not affect processing efficiency, but it improved performance effectiveness... (shrink)

This paper is a portrayal of how social responsibility performance evaluation can act as an accounting measure of management efficiency. In fact, it has given much importance to socio-economic and socio-human obligations to others. The paper attempts to show that these days there is a great need to emphasise more clearly social responsibility, which the corporate sector can and should undertake. The theme of the paper is that the scope of corporate social responsibility encompasses not only economic well-being (...) but also the human aspects of life. In addition, if management of a corporation performs its social responsibility well, one may say that management has done its job efficiently. This study is based on mainly literature review. Analytical thinking is also another building block of this paper. However, the limitation of this study is that no data of the existing situation of Bangladesh or India pertaining to the subject matter referred to in the present paper has been used. (shrink)

With the rise of the so-called military-entertainment complex, critical scholars note with alarm the integration of the political economies of entertainment companies and the military, in particular its potential influence on millions of young people who consume its concomitant films, toys and especially video games. Seen from a broad perspective, a potentially productive means of understanding the complexities of this sphere is through the lens of Michel Foucault’s notion of governmentality—a concept that ties together the actions and preferred outcomes of (...) the modern surveillance state with the microlevel actions of individual behavior. In this analytical framework, social norms are inculcated through subtle forms of coercion, where the state establishes the field of action in which state subjects ultimately perform self-discipline. This article argues that the first person shooter genre inculcates what I refer to as the governmentality of battlefield space: a form of discipline in which players adhere to gamic norms of performance—efficiency, proficiency, and masculine performativity—which are delineated by ludic structures and largely understood on terms which originate within the social ecology of gaming. The genre accomplishes this though disciplinary techniques such as informational verisimilitude, statistics, and masculinized “gamer” discourse, particularly during multiplayer instances, in which players constitute social understandings of what is “good” and “bad” play. It is on these terms that virtual combat performance and player performance become conflated in a kind of masculinized performance, which both adheres to and undermines traditional, hegemonic norms of (Western) military masculinity. This phenomenon transcends local social realities, and highlights the ways in which particular aspects of gaming and combat appear to have increasingly overlapping phenomenological and ontological qualities, working to produce a form of self-performance that may be required of tomorrow’s soldiers. (shrink)

Buildings energy consumption is growing gradually and put away around 40% of total energy use. Predicting heating and cooling loads of a building in the initial phase of the design to find out optimal solutions amongst different designs is very important, as ell as in the operating phase after the building has been finished for efficient energy. In this study, an artificial neural network model was designed and developed for predicting heating and cooling loads of a building based on a (...) dataset for building energy performance. The main factors for input variables are: relative compactness, roof area, overall height, surface area, glazing are a, wall area, glazing area distribution of a building, orientation, and the output variables: heating and cooling loads of the building. The dataset used for training are the data published in the literature for various 768 residential buildings. The model was trained and validated, most important factors affecting heating load and cooling load are identified, and the accuracy for the validation was 99.60%. (shrink)

Neurofeedback is a complex learning scenario, as the task consists of trying out mental strategies while processing a feedback signal that signifies activation in the brain area to be self-regulated and acts as a potential reward signal. In an attempt to dissect these subcomponents, we obtained whole-brain networks associated with efficient self-regulation in two paradigms: parallel, where the task was performed concurrently, combining feedback with strategy execution; and serial, where the task was performed consecutively, separating feedback processing from strategy execution. (...) Twenty participants attempted to control their anterior midcingulate cortex using functional magnetic resonance imaging NF in 18 sessions over 2 weeks, using cognitive and emotional mental strategies. We analyzed whole-brain fMRI activations in the NF training runs with the largest aMCC activation for the serial and parallel paradigms. The equal length of the strategy execution and the feedback processing periods in the serial paradigm allows a description of the two task subcomponents with equal power. The resulting activation maps were spatially correlated with functionally annotated intrinsic connectivity brain maps. Brain activation in the parallel condition correlates with the basal ganglia network, the cingulo-opercular network, and the frontoparietal control network ; brain activation in the serial strategy execution condition with the default mode network, the FPCN, and the visual processing network; while brain activation in the serial feedback processing condition predominantly with the CON, the DMN, and the FPCN. Additional comparisons indicate that BG activation is characteristic to the parallel paradigm, while supramarginal gyrus and superior temporal gyrus activations are characteristic to the serial paradigm. The multifaceted view of the subcomponents allows describing the cognitive processes associated with strategy execution and feedback processing independently in the serial feedback task and as combined processes in the multitasking scenario of the conventional parallel feedback task. (shrink)

As Social Economy financial institutions, credit unions have traditionally been considered less efficient than traditional banking entities. However, like banks and savings banks, they have to be as efficient and competitive as possible to survive in today’s business environment, especially at times of crisis. To date, there have been very few studies on their efficiency and practically none for the crisis period. Moreover, almost all the existing studies assess only financial efficiency, without considering their social function. This study (...) examines the levels of both financial and social efficiency in Spanish credit unions as well as their main determinants during the recent crisis. We apply the two-stage double bootstrap data envelopment analysis methodology based on panel data corresponding to all the credit unions active in Spain between 2008 and 2013. The empirical results indicate that financial and social efficiency achieved an acceptable level, although on average the former was slightly greater than the latter. We also find that both age and merger and acquisition activity were positively influential on the financial efficiency of credit unions but had a significant negative effect on their social efficiency. Moreover, the regional location of such entities and the financial crisis were also crucial determinants of both types of efficiency. Our findings are therefore useful for all the stakeholders of credit unions to know if these entities have been efficient according to a double bottom line accounting in the crisis period and hence to maintain successful social management that is compatible with satisfactory financial efficiency. (shrink)

The present study examined the effects of transcranial direct current stimulation using Halo Sport on the time to exhaustion in relation with muscle activities and corticomuscular coupling of agonist and antagonist muscles during a sustained isometric fatiguing contraction performed with the elbow flexors. Twenty healthy male college students were randomly assigned to tDCS group and control group. The two group participants performed two experimental sessions which consisted of pre-fatigue isometric maximal voluntary contraction, sustained submaximal voluntary contractions performed to exhaustion, and (...) post-fatigue MVC with the right elbow flexor muscles. Sham stimulation and tDCS were applied for control and tDCS group participants 20 min prior to the second session test, respectively. MVC strength in pre- and post-fatigue test, TTE, electroencephalogram, and electromyography of biceps brachii and triceps brachii were recorded during the tests. It was found that tDCS using the Halo Sport device significantly increased TTE and thus improved muscular endurance performance. The improvement may be partly related to the improvement of neuromuscular efficiency as reflected by decrease of antagonistic muscle coactivation activities, which may be related to cortical originated central processing mechanism of neuromuscular activities. (shrink)

As Social Economy financial institutions, credit unions have traditionally been considered less efficient than traditional banking entities. However, like banks and savings banks, they have to be as efficient and competitive as possible to survive in today’s business environment, especially at times of crisis. To date, there have been very few studies on their efficiency and practically none for the crisis period. Moreover, almost all the existing studies assess only financial efficiency, without considering their social function. This study (...) examines the levels of both financial and social efficiency in Spanish credit unions as well as their main determinants during the recent crisis. We apply the two-stage double bootstrap data envelopment analysis methodology based on panel data corresponding to all the credit unions active in Spain between 2008 and 2013. The empirical results indicate that financial and social efficiency achieved an acceptable level, although on average the former was slightly greater than the latter. We also find that both age and merger and acquisition activity were positively influential on the financial efficiency of credit unions but had a significant negative effect on their social efficiency. Moreover, the regional location of such entities and the financial crisis were also crucial determinants of both types of efficiency. Our findings are therefore useful for all the stakeholders of credit unions to know if these entities have been efficient according to a double bottom line accounting in the crisis period and hence to maintain successful social management that is compatible with satisfactory financial efficiency. (shrink)

We model happiness as a measurement tool used to rank alternative actions. Evolution favors a happiness function that measures the individual’s success in relative terms. The optimal function, in particular, is based on a time-varying reference point –or performance benchmark –that is updated over time in a statistically optimal way in order to match the individual’s potential. Habits and peer comparisons arise as special cases of such updating process. This updating also results in a volatile level of happiness that (...) continuously reverts to its long-term mean. Throughout, we draw a parallel with a problem of optimal incentives, which allows us to apply statistical insights from agency theory to the study of happiness. (shrink)

The continuous development of information communication technology facilitates the conventional grid in transforming into an automated modern system. Internet-of-Things solutions are used along with the evolving services of end-users to the electricity service provider for smart grid applications. In terms of various devices and machine integration, adequate authentication is the key to an accurate source and destination in advanced metering infrastructure (AMI). Various protocols are deployed to lead the identification between two parties, which require high computation time and communicational bit (...) operations for system development. Therefore, Kerberos-based authentication protocols were designed in this study with the assistance of elliptic curve cryptography to manage the mutual authentication between two parties and reduce the time and bit operations. The protocols were evaluated in a widely adopted tool, AVISPA, which builds an understanding of the proposed protocol and ensures mutual authentication without unauthorized knowledge. In addition, upon comparing security and performance assessments to the current schemes, it was found that the protocol in this study required less time and bits to transmit information. Consequently, it effectively provides multiple security features making it suitable for resource constraint smart meters in AMI. (shrink)

Attention has been theorized as a system comprising three networks that can be estimated reliably by the attention network test ; the three networks are defined as alerting, orienting, and conflict control. The present study aims to identify the attention networks that are crucial for elite shooting and archery athletes and to examine whether mindfulness training can improve elite athletes' attention networks. We compared the performances in ANT between 62 elite athletes from the Chinese national team of shooting and archery (...) and 49 athletes from a provincial team in China. The results indicate three well-functioned attention networks in both groups, but elite athletes in the national team responded faster overall than athletes in the provincial team. The 62 elite athletes in the national team then received mindfulness training with varied periods ranging from 5 to 8 weeks, after which the ANT was re-administered. After mindfulness training, the elite athletes improved in orienting and conflict control networks compared with their pre-training performances. These results suggest that elite shooting and archery athletes in the national team are more efficient in all three attention networks, which means that they are able to reach the alerting state faster, make better use of environmental information, and suppress interference from distractors more efficiently. Moreover, the orienting and conflict control networks of the elite shooting and archery athletes can be improved by mindfulness training. We conclude that mindfulness practice should be considered as a useful addition to daily training for shooting and archery athletes. (shrink)

We propose an approach for texture segmentation based on weak supervised learning. The weak supervision implies that the user marks only a single small patch for each class in the input image. These patches are used for training. We employ the method of graph cuts for the segmentation task. Our work demonstrates that even under such weak training, texture segmentation can be achieved efficiently and with good accuracy via graph cuts. Moreover, our approach uses a simpler feature representation than that (...) in similar contemporary segmentation approaches. We also provide a brief discussion indicating the good performance of our approach. We validate our method on various standard texture mosaics and also on segmentation of natural images with large texture variations. (shrink)

Brain–machine interfaces are systems that allow the control of a device such as a robot arm through a person’s brain activity; such devices can be used by disabled persons to enhance their life and improve their independence. This paper is an extended version of a work that aims at discriminating between left and right imagined hand movements using a support vector machine classifier to control a robot arm in order to help a person to find an object in the environment. (...) The main focus here is to search for the best features that describe efficiently the electroencephalogram data during such imagined gestures by comparing two feature extraction methods, namely the continuous wavelet transform and the empirical modal decomposition, combined with the principal component analysis that were fed through a linear and radial basis function kernel SVM classifier. The experimental results showed high performance achieving an average accuracy across all the subjects of 92.75% with an RBF kernel SVM classifier using CWT and PCA compared to 80.25% accuracy obtained with EMD and PCA. The proposed system has been implemented and tested using data collected from five male subjects and it enabled the control of the robot arm in the right and the left direction. (shrink)

BackgroundSocially assistive devices (care robots, companions, smart screen assistants) have been advocated as a promising tool in elderly care in Western healthcare systems. Ethical debates indicate various challenges. One of the most prevalent arguments in the debate is the double-benefit argument claiming that socially assistive devices may not only provide benefits for autonomy and well-being of their users but might also be more efficient than other caring practices and might help to mitigate scarce resources in healthcare. Against this background, we (...) used a subset of comparative empirical studies from a comprehensive systematic review on effects and perceptions of human-machine interaction with socially assistive devices to gather and appraise all available evidence supporting this argument from the empirical side.MethodsElectronic databases and additional sources were queried using a comprehensive search strategy which generated 9851 records. Studies were screened independently by two authors. Methodological quality of studies was assessed. For 39 reports using a comparative study design, a narrative synthesis was performed.ResultsThe data shows positive evidential support to claim that some socially assistive devices (Paro) might be able to contribute to the well-being and autonomy of their users. However, results also indicate that these positive findings may be heavily dependent on the context of use and the population. In addition, we found evidence that socially assistive devices can have negative effects on certain populations. Evidence regarding the claim of efficiency is scarce. Existing results indicate that socially assistive devices can be more effective than standard of care but are far less effective than plush toys or placebo devices.DiscussionWe suggest using the double-benefit argument with great caution as it is not supported by the currently available evidence. The occurrence of potentially negative effects of socially assistive devices requires more research and indicates a more complex ethical calculus than suggested by the double-benefit argument. (shrink)

In an era characterized by fast technological progress that introduces new unpredictable scenarios every day, working in the law field may appear very difficult, if not supported by the right tools. In this respect, some systems based on Artificial Intelligence methods have been proposed in the literature, to support several tasks in the legal sector. Following this line of research, in this paper we propose a novel method, called PRILJ, that identifies paragraph regularities in legal case judgments, to support legal (...) experts during the redaction of legal documents. Methodologically, PRILJ adopts a two-step approach that first groups documents into clusters, according to their semantic content, and then identifies regularities in the paragraphs for each cluster. Embedding-based methods are adopted to properly represent documents and paragraphs into a semantic numerical feature space, and an Approximated Nearest Neighbor Search method is adopted to efficiently retrieve the most similar paragraphs with respect to the paragraphs of a document under preparation. Our extensive experimental evaluation, performed on a real-world dataset provided by EUR-Lex, proves the effectiveness and the efficiency of the proposed method. In particular, its ability of modeling different topics of legal documents, as well as of capturing the semantics of the textual content, appear very beneficial for the considered task, and make PRILJ very robust to the possible presence of noise in the data. (shrink)

Teaching the art of profession-related communication to students of non-linguistic study fields allows instructors to explain their students how to keep up the conversation using facts, data, concepts etc. specific to the area of their future profession. It activates the acquisition processes as well as increases students' motivation to study. The formation of oral monologue speaking skills in students of non-linguistic study fields is one of the tasks within the course of Foreign ( English) Language for Specific Purposes.This process is (...) associated with certain difficulties, which can inhibit learning and demotivated students to study. Among strategies and techniques aiding learning that can be used to improve performance and study outcomes during the course and can be implemented for the enhancement of speaking on occupation-related topics, the mind mapping technique is of specific relevance. It can serve as an interesting and useful tool serving to enhance quality of oral speaking skills in students majoring in Psychology as the representatives of non-linguistic study fields. The article analyses the carried out research concerning the facilitating impact of mind mapping on the oral speech performance of Psychology students. The study hypothesis implies that the use of the mind-mapping technique in the process of preparing for and presenting the talk in the study sessions enhances students' oral monologue speech performance. In order to check the hypothesis, we have conducted the experiment in Bohdan Khmelnytsky National University of Cherkasy at the Department of Psychology. The study involved 46 first-year students, including 34 female and 12 male participants. The respondents were randomly assigned to the experimental mind-mapping group of 23 students ( including 6 males) and the control group of 23 students ( including 6 males as well). The students in the experimental group were involved into the experiment using the mind-mapping technique during their study, and the students in the control group continued their study in the usual way. The hypothesis was confirmed. The mind map use stimulates activity of both brain hemispheres, thus making it easier for students to memorize thematic vocabulary, follow the logical sequence of the talk when speaking. The research findings have shown the effectiveness of implementing the mind-mapping technique into the university course teaching English for Specific Purposes to develop, advance and master students' professional communicative competence. Consistent use of mind maps will also promote the educational process efficiency and have positive effects on the general formation of competitive skilled specialists. (shrink)

We used agent-based modelling to highlight the advantages and disadvantages of several management styles in biology, ranging from centralized to egalitarian ones. In egalitarian groups, all team members are connected with each other, while in centralized ones, they are only connected with the principal investigator. Our model incorporated time constraints, which negatively influenced weakly connected groups such as centralized ones. Moreover, our results show that egalitarian groups outperform others if the questions addressed are relatively simple or when the communication among (...) agents is limited. Complex epistemic spaces are explored best by centralized groups. They outperform other team structures because the individual members can develop their own ideas with less interference of the opinions of others. The optimal ratio between time spent on experimentation and dissemination varies between different organizational structures. Furthermore, if the evidence is shared only after a relevant degree of certainty is reached, all investigated groups epistemically profit. We discovered that the introduction of seminars to the model changes the epistemic performance in favour of weakly connected teams. Finally, the abilities of the principal investigator do not seem to outperform cognitive diversity, as group performances were not strongly influenced by the increase of her abilities. (shrink)

Artificial intelligence techniques in general and convolutional neural networks in particular have attained successful results in medical image analysis and classification. A deep CNN architecture has been proposed in this paper for the diagnosis of COVID-19 based on the chest X-ray image classification. Due to the nonavailability of sufficient-size and good-quality chest X-ray image dataset, an effective and accurate CNN classification was a challenge. To deal with these complexities such as the availability of a very-small-sized and imbalanced dataset with image-quality (...) issues, the dataset has been preprocessed in different phases using different techniques to achieve an effective training dataset for the proposed CNN model to attain its best performance. The preprocessing stages of the datasets performed in this study include dataset balancing, medical experts’ image analysis, and data augmentation. The experimental results have shown the overall accuracy as high as 99.5% which demonstrates the good capability of the proposed CNN model in the current application domain. The CNN model has been tested in two scenarios. In the first scenario, the model has been tested using the 100 X-ray images of the original processed dataset which achieved an accuracy of 100%. In the second scenario, the model has been tested using an independent dataset of COVID-19 X-ray images. The performance in this test scenario was as high as 99.5%. To further prove that the proposed model outperforms other models, a comparative analysis has been done with some of the machine learning algorithms. The proposed model has outperformed all the models generally and specifically when the model testing was done using an independent testing set. (shrink)

Benchmarking is the major reason for the widespread use of DEA models for efficiency analysis. Determining the closest targets for DMUs, DEA models play a key role in benchmarking their best performance. In fact, these models help develop certain performance enhancement plans that need fewer attempts made by DMUs. Therefore, this study proposes a novel method based on the network DEA to determine the most appropriate target for every stage in addition to benchmarking the DMUs. The proposed (...) model differs from those proposed by other studies in the fact that all DEA models of benchmarking consider input and output values to be linear. However, in real-world problems, many DMU inputs and outputs have nonlinear values, something which was taken into account in the modeling process in this study. The proposed model was employed to benchmark cement factories listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange. (shrink)

This study examined the relations between properties of attentional networks and Mind Wandering across individuals. For the attentional networks, we measured three components of attention, known as alerting, orienting, and executive control, using the Attention Network Test . To investigate MW, we measured thought probes embedded in the Sustained Attention to Response Task . Moreover, four performance characteristics of the SART were calculated as behavioral indices of MW. Three of them showed significant associations with probed MW. Most research regarding (...) MW focused on its relation to executive functions, while the present study revealed that MW, as indexed by self-reports and RT variability, was negatively correlated with orienting, specifically the exogenous orienting system. Furthermore, there was a positive association between RT variability and executive control. Our results suggest that individuals with higher tendency of MW are less sensitive to irrelevant external stimuli, supporting the decoupling hypothesis of MW. (shrink)

With the development of mobile communication technology, location-based services are booming prosperously. Meanwhile privacy protection has become the main obstacle for the further development of LBS. The k-nearest neighbor search is one of the most common types of LBS. In this paper, we propose an efficient private circular query protocol with high accuracy rate and low computation and communication cost. We adopt the Moore curve to convert two-dimensional spatial data into one-dimensional sequence and encrypt the points of interest information with (...) the Brakerski-Gentry-Vaikuntanathan homomorphic encryption scheme for privacy-preserving. The proposed scheme performs the secret circular shift of the encrypted POIs information to hide the location of the user without a trusted third party. To reduce the computation and communication cost, we dynamically divide the table of the POIs information according to the value of k. Experiments show that the proposed scheme provides high accuracy query results while maintaining low computation and communication cost. (shrink)

In this article, we present a new approach for frequent pattern mining that runs fast for both sparse and dense databases. Two algorithms, FEM and DFEM, based on our approach are also introduced. FEM applies a fixed threshold as the condition for switching between the two mining strategies; meanwhile, DFEM adopts this threshold dynamically at runtime to best fit the characteristics of the database during the mining process, especially when minimum support threshold is low. Additionally, we present optimization techniques for (...) the proposed algorithms to speed the mining process, reduce the memory usage, and optimize the I/o cost. We also analyze in depth the performance of FEM and DFEM and compare them with several existing algorithms. The experimental results show that FEM and DFEM achieve a significant improvement in execution time and consume less memory than many popular FPM algorithms including the well-known Apriori, FP-growth, and Eclat. (shrink)

Due to the huge amount of data being generating from different sources, the analyzing and extracting of useful information from these data becomes a very complex task. The difficulty of dealing with big data optimization problems comes from many factors such as the high number of features, and the existing of lost data. The feature selection process becomes an important step in many data mining and machine learning algorithms to reduce the dimensionality of the optimization problems and increase the (...) class='Hi'>performance of the classification or clustering algorithms. In this paper, a set of hybrid and efficient genetic algorithms are proposed to solve feature selection problem, when the handled data has a large feature size. The proposed algorithms use a new gene-weighted mechanism that can adaptively classify the features into strong relative features, weak or redundant features, and unstable features during the evolution of the algorithm. Based on this classification, the proposed algorithm gives the strong features high priority and the weak features less priority when generating new candidate solutions. In the same time, the proposed algorithm tries to more concentrate on unstable features that sometimes appear and sometimes disappear from the best solutions of the population. The performance of proposed algorithms is investigated by using different datasets and feature selection algorithms. The results show that our proposed algorithms can outperform the other feature selection algorithms and effectively enhance the classification performance over the tested datasets. (shrink)

This paper is motivated by the increasing popularity of efficient designs for stated choice experiments. The objective in efficient designs is to create a stated choice experiment that minimizes the standard errors of the estimated parameters. In order to do so, such designs require specifying prior values for the parameters to be estimated. While there is significant literature demonstrating the efficiency improvements of employing efficient designs, the bulk of the literature tests conditions where the priors used to generate the (...) efficient design are assumed to be accurate. However, there is substantially less literature that compares how different design types perform under varying degree of error of the prior. The literature that does exist assumes small fractions are used, which is in contrast to computer-aided surveys that readily allow for large fractions. Further, the results in the literature are abstract in that there is no reference point to provide clear insight on the magnitude of any issue. Our objective is to analyze the robustness of different designs within a typical stated choice experiment context of a trade-off between price and quality. We use as an example transportation mode choice, where the key parameter to estimate is the value of time. Within this context, we test many designs to examine how robust efficient designs are against a misspecification of the prior parameters. The simple mode choice setting allows for insightful visualizations of the designs themselves and also an interpretable reference point for the range in which each design is robust. Not surprisingly, the D-efficient design is most efficient in the region where the true population VOT is near the prior used to generate the design: the prior is $20/h and the efficient range is $10–$30/h. However, the D-efficient design quickly becomes the most inefficient outside of this range, and the estimation significantly degrades above $50/h. The orthogonal and random designs are robust for a much larger range of VOT. The robustness of Bayesian efficient designs varies depending on the variance that the prior assumes. Implementing two-stage designs that first use a small sample to estimate priors are also not robust relative to uninformative designs. Arguably, the random design performs as well as any design, and it will perform even better if data cleaning is done to remove choice tasks where one alternative dominates the other. (shrink)

Responsible risk management is central to banking ethics. With the 1999 publication of the Basel Committee's proposal, Basel II, for a New Capital Accord to replace the 1988 agreement, Basel I, an attempt has been made to address the problem of correlating banks' risk management with their capital requirements. The Basel II framework, finalised in June 2004, is designed to improve risk management by using models based on past performance to help set the amount of capital banks are required (...) to hold by regulators, with the purpose of improving the efficiency of capital allocation. The objectives of this study are to investigate how banks generally, but particularly those located in China, could improve their risk management systems and what the implications of these new regulations are for them. Three relevant propositions were formulated, namely, Basel II will improve risk management; Basel II will improve capital allocation efficiency; and compliance with advanced risk management systems is biased in favour of the large banks. Evidence was assembled with which to evaluate these three propositions by gathering relevant primary data by means of a representative survey of Chinese banking executives involved in risk management. The findings strongly support the first two of the above propositions and partly support the third proposition. (shrink)

Willusionists claim that recent developments in psychology and neuroscience demonstrate that consciousness is causally inefficient [Carruthers, 2007; Eagleman, 2012; Wegner, 2002]. In section 1, I show that willusionists provide two types of evidence: first, evidence that we do not always know the causes of our actions; second, evidence that we lack introspective awareness of the causal efficiency of our intentional acts.In section 2, I analyze the first type of evidence. Recent research in the field of social psychology has shown (...) that irrelevant factors affect human behavior. For example, it has been shown that pleasant smells make a person more helpful toward strangers [Baron, 1997], whereas images of eyes that a person sees on a poster reduce the likelihood of cheating [Bateson, Nettle, & Roberts, 2006]. I argue that minor influences do not necessarily lead to something more sinister, and the contrary has not been empirically proven so far.In section 3, I analyze the second type of evidence that Daniel Wegner [2002] provides in favor of willusionism. Wegner claims that conscious will is usually understood in one of two ways: «as something that is experienced when we perform an action» [Wegner, 2002, p. 3] or «as a force of mind, a name for the causal link between our minds and our actions» [ibid.]. According to Wegner, it is a conceptual truth that for something to count as an instance of conscious will it must both be felt as voluntary, and causally efficient in bringing about a certain effect. Wegner claims that what satisfies can fail to satisfy, and vice versa. The major part of Wegner’s book is the review and analysis of diverse psychological phenomena: automatisms, hypnosis, illusions of control, influence of unconscious factors on human behavior, as well as some neuroscientific data. I briefly review the data provided by Wegner, and come to the conclusion that, although they show that there is a double dissociation between consciously willed processes and the acts that are supposedly caused by these processes, they do not justify further conclusions made by Wegner.According to Wegner, the feeling of conscious will is just an indicator of unconscious processes which, in fact, cause our behavior. I argue that the data considered by Wegner do not provide direct information about the neuronal processes that underlie conscious intentional processes. Moreover, double dissociation can only show that one process neither a necessary nor sufficient cause of another process. It cannot show that one process is not among the causes leading to another process.In section 4, I argue that the experimental data discussed in the article are important for philosophical theories of intentionality. (shrink)

Automatic incident detection plays a vital role among all the safety-critical applications under the parasol of Intelligent Transportation Systems to provide timely information to passengers and other stakeholders in smart cities. Moreover, accurate classification of these incidents with respect to type and severity assists the Traffic Incident Management Systems and stakeholders in devising better plans for incident site management and avoiding secondary incidents. Most of the AID systems presented in the literature are incident type-specific, i.e., either they are designed for (...) the detection of accident or congestion. While traveling along the road, one may come across different types of traffic incidents, such as accidents, congestion, and reckless driving. This necessitates that the AID system detects and classifies not only all the popular traffic incident types, but severity as well that is associated with these incidents. Therefore, this study aims to propose an efficient incident detection and classification framework for smart cities, by incorporating the efficacy of model stacking, to classify the incidents with respect to their types and severity levels. The experimental results showed that the proposed E-IDC framework achieved performance gains of 5%–56% in terms of incident severity classification and 1%–14% in terms of incident type classification when applied with different classifiers. We have also applied the Wilcoxon test to benchmark the performance of our proposed framework that reflects the significance of our approach over existing individual incident predictors in terms of severity and type classification. Moreover, it has been observed that the proposed E-IDC framework outperforms the existing ensemble technique, such as XGBoost used for the classification of incidents. (shrink)

Sensory feedback, which can be presented in different modalities - single and combined, aids task performance in human-robot interaction (HRI). However, combining feedback modalities does not always lead to optimal performance. Indeed, it is not known how feedback modalities affect operator performance under stress. Furthermore, there is limited information on how feedback affects neural processes differently for males and females and under stress. This is a critical gap in the literature, particularly in the domain of surgical robotics, (...) where surgeons are under challenging socio-technical environments that burden them physiologically. In the present study, we posited operator performance as the summation of task performance and neurophysiological cost of maintaining that performance. In a within-subject design, we used functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) to assess cerebral activations of 12 participants who underwent a 3D manipulation task within a virtual environment with concurrent feedback (visual and visual + haptic) in the presence and absence of a cognitive stressor. Cognitive stress was induced with the serial-7 subtraction test. We found that while task performance was higher with visual than visual + haptic feedback, it degraded under stress. The two feedback modalities were found to be associated with varying neural activities and neural efficiencies, and these were stress- and gender-dependent. Our findings engender further investigation into effectiveness of feedback modalities on males and females under stressful conditions in HRI. (shrink)

The problem of determining an optimal benchmark to inefficient decision-making units is an important issue in the field of performance analysis. Previous methods for determining the projection points of inefficient DMUs have only focused on one objective and other features have been ignored. This paper attempts to determine the best projection point for each DMU when the inputs and outputs data are in stochastic form and presents an alternative definition for the best projection by considering three main aspects: technical (...) efficient, minimal cost, and maximal revenue as much as possible. Considering the important role of the electricity industry in the economic growth of each country, a practical example has been implemented on 16 regional electricity companies in Iran in 9 consecutive periods. The efficiency score along with the projection points of the three technical models ), cost, and stochastic revenue are compared with the projection point obtained from the model presented in this article, which simultaneously meets these three objectives, showing the improvement of companies’ performance. (shrink)