scholarly journals Computational Characterization of Activities and Learners in a Learning System

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (7) ◽  
pp. 2208 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alberto Real-Fernández ◽  
Rafael Molina-Carmona ◽  
Faraón Llorens-Largo

For a technology-based learning system to be able to personalize its learning process, it must characterize the learners. This can be achieved by storing information about them in a feature vector. The aim of this research is to propose such a system. In our proposal, the students are characterized based on their activity in the system, so learning activities also need to be characterized. The vectors are data structures formed by numerical or categorical variables such as learning style, cognitive level, knowledge type or the history of the learner’s actions in the system. The learner’s feature vector is updated considering the results and the time of the activities performed by the learner. A use case is also presented to illustrate how variables can be used to achieve different effects on the learning of individuals through the use of instructional strategies. The most valuable contribution of this proposal is the fact that students are characterized based on their activity in the system, instead of on self-reporting. Another important contribution is the practical nature of the vectors that will allow them to be computed by an artificial intelligence algorithm.

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 271 ◽  
Author(s):  
Outmane Bourkoukou ◽  
Essaid El Bachari

Personalized courseware authoring based on recommender system, which is the process of automatic learning objects selecting and sequencing, is recognized as one of the most interesting research field in intelligent web-based education. Since the learner’s profile of each learner is different from one to another, we must fit learning to the different needs of learners. In fact from the knowledge of the learner’s profile, it is easier to recommend a suitable set of learning objects to enhance the learning process. In this paper we describe a new adaptive learning system-LearnFitII, which can automatically adapt to the dynamic preferences of learners. This system recognizes different patterns of learning style and learners’ habits through testing the psychological model of learners and mining their server logs. Firstly, the device proposed a personalized learning scenario to deal with the cold start problem by using the Felder and Silverman’s model. Next, it analyzes the habits and the preferences of the learners through mining the information about learners’ actions and interactions. Finally, the learning scenario is revisited and updated using hybrid recommender system based on K-Nearest Neighbors and association rule mining algorithms. The results of the system tested in real environments show that considering the learner’s preferences increases learning quality and satisfies the learner.


Transfers ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mikkel Thelle

The article approaches mobility through a cultural history of urban conflict. Using a case of “The Copenhagen Trouble,“ a series of riots in the Danish capital around 1900, a space of subversive mobilities is delineated. These turn-of-the-century riots points to a new pattern of mobile gathering, the swarm; to a new aspect of public action, the staging; and to new ways of configuring public space. These different components indicate an urban assemblage of subversion, and a new characterization of the “throwntogetherness“ of the modern public.


Author(s):  
John Kerrigan

That Shakespeare adds a limp to the received characterization of Richard III is only the most conspicuous instance of his interest in how actors walked, ran, danced, and wandered. His attention to actors’ footwork, as an originating condition of performance, can be traced from Richard III through A Midsummer Night’s Dream and As You Like It into Macbeth, which is preoccupied with the topic and activity all the way to the protagonist’s melancholy conclusion that ‘Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player | That struts and frets his hour upon the stage’. Drawing on classical and early modern accounts of how people walk and should walk, on ideas about time and prosody, and the experience of disability, this chapter cites episodes in the history of performance to show how actors, including Alleyn, Garrick, and Olivier, have worked with the opportunities to dramatize footwork that are provided by Shakespeare’s plays.


Author(s):  
B. W. Young

The dismissive characterization of Anglican divinity between 1688 and 1800 as defensive and rationalistic, made by Mark Pattison and Leslie Stephen, has proved more enduring than most other aspects of a Victorian critique of the eighteenth-century Church of England. By directly addressing the analytical narratives offered by Pattison and Stephen, this chapter offers a comprehensive re-evaluation of this neglected period in the history of English theology. The chapter explores the many contributions to patristic study, ecclesiastical history, and doctrinal controversy made by theologians with a once deservedly international reputation: William Cave, Richard Bentley, William Law, William Warburton, Joseph Butler, George Berkeley, and William Paley were vitalizing influences on Anglican theology, all of whom were systematically depreciated by their agnostic Victorian successors. This chapter offers a revisionist account of the many achievements in eighteenth-century Anglican divinity.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-37
Author(s):  
SANGHAMITRA MISRA

Abstract This article studies two seismic decades in the history of the Garo community, marked out in colonial records as among the most violent and isolated people that British rule encountered in eastern and northeastern India. Through a densely knit historical narrative that hinges on an enquiry into the colonial reordering of the core elements of the regional political economy of eastern and northeastern India, it will train its focus on the figure of the rebellious Garo peasant and on the arresting display of Garo recalcitrance between 1807 and 1820. Reading a rich colonial archive closely and against the grain, the article will depart from extant historiography in its characterization of the colonial state in the early nineteenth century as well as of its relationship with ‘tribes’/‘peasants’ in eastern and northeastern India. A critique of the idea of primitive violence and the production of the ‘tribe’ under conditions of colonial modernity will occupy the latter half of the article. Here it will argue that the numerous and apparently disparate acts of headhunting, raids, plunder, and burning by the Garos on the lowlands of Bengal and Assam were in fact an assembling of the first of a series of sustained peasant rebellions in this part of colonial India—a powerful manifestation of a community's historical consciousness of the loss of its sovereign self under British rule.


2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 2473011420S0011
Author(s):  
D. Anthony Barcel ◽  
Susan M. Odum ◽  
Taylor Rowe ◽  
Jefferson B. Sabatini ◽  
Samuel E. Ford ◽  
...  

Category: Midfoot/Forefoot; Diabetes; Other Introduction/Purpose: Non-traumatic lower extremity amputations (LEA), especially those performed in dysvascular and diabetic patients, are known to have poor long-term prognosis. Perioperative mortality has been reported at between 4 and 10%, and the 1 and 5 year mortality rates range between 22-33% and 39-69%, respectively. While poor outcomes in these patients have been described, there is no consensus as to the predictors of mortality. The purpose of the study is to determine the percentage of patients who had a complication following transmetatarsal amputation (TMA) and identify associated risk factors for complications and mortality. Methods: We queried our institution’s administrative database to identify 247 TMA procedures performed in 229 patients between January, 2002 and December, 2016. Electronic health records were reviewed to document complications defined as reoperation, amputation and mortality. Mortality was also verified using the National Death Index. Additionally, we recorded risk factors including diabetes, A1c level, end stage renal disease (ESRD), cardiovascular disease (CVD), peripheral vascular disease (PVD), history of revascularization, contralateral amputation, and neuropathy. The majority of the study patients were males (157, 69%) and the average age was 57 years (range 24-91). The median BMI was 28 (range 16-58) and 29% of the study patients were obese with a BMI ≥ 30. Fishers Exact tests were used to compare categorical variables. Kruskal-Wallis and Independent T-tests were used to compare numeric data. All data were analyzed using SAS/STAT software version 9.4 (Carey, NC) and a 0.05 level of significance was defined apriori. Results: The conversion rate to below (BKA) or above knee amputation (AKA) was 26% (64 of 247). Males (p=.0274), diabetics (p=.0139), patients in ESRD (p=.019), and patients with a history of CVD (p=.0247) or perioperative revascularization (p=.022) were more likely to undergo further amputation following an index TMA. BMI was significantly higher in patients requiring BKA/AKA (p=.0305). There were no significant differences in age (p=.2723) or A1c levels (p=.4219). The overall mortality rate was 35% (84 of 229). Diabetes (p=.0272), ESRD (p=.0031), history of CVD (p<.0001) or PVD (p=.0179) were all significantly associated with mortality. Patients who died were significantly older (p=.0006) and had significantly higher A1c levels (p=.0373). BMI was not significantly associated with mortality. Twenty-two patients who had 23 further amputations subsequently died. Conclusion: In our series of patients undergoing TMA, 26% underwent further amputation and 35% of patients died. Conversion rate to BKA or AKA occurred at a high rate regardless of preoperative revascularization or the use of tendo-achilles or gastrocnemius lengthening procedures. Male sex, diabetes, ESRD, history of CVD or revascularization are significant risk factors for further amputation. ESRD, diabetes, history of CVD or PVD, older age and higher A1c levels are significant risk factors for mortality. These data provide useful insight into risk factors to be emphasized when counseling patients and their families to establish realistic postoperative expectations.


2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 77-79
Author(s):  
Y Hanna ◽  
P Tandon ◽  
V W Huang

Abstract Background Women with active inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) are at increased risk of adverse pregnancy outcomes such as preeclampsia. Though aspirin prophylaxis is prescribed in the general population (prior to 16 weeks’ gestation) for those at high-risk of preeclampsia, its use in patients with IBD has not been established. Aims To determine the frequency of and risk factors for adverse pregnancy outcomes in women with IBD, and to evaluate the risk for preeclampsia and the use of aspirin for primary prevention. Methods All pregnant women with IBD (Crohns disease (CD), ulcerative colitis (UC) and IBD-unclassified (IBDU)) seen at Mount Sinai Hospital from 2016–2020 were retrospectively identified. Demographics, reproductive history, and IBD characteristics including therapy and activity during pregnancy were recorded. Adverse pregnancy outcomes were also identified. Active disease during pregnancy was defined as a fecal calprotectin &gt; 250 ug/g and/or using clinical disease activity scores. Categorical variables were compared using the Chi-square (x2) test and continuous variables using the Mann-Whitney test. A two-sided p-value less than 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results 127 patients (66 with CD, 60 with UC, 1 with IBDU) were included with a median age of 32 years at conception. The majority were Caucasian (70.9%), married (82.7%), completed post-secondary education (69.3%), had no prior or current smoking (78.7%) or alcohol use history (67.7%), and had no other comorbidities (81.9%). 50.4% of women had a prior pregnancy. 3 had a history of preeclampsia and 15/127 were prescribed aspirin prophylaxis. 73.2% of women were in clinical remission at conception. Compared to women with CD, women with UC were more likely to have infants with low birth weight (LBW) (p=0.031), small for gestational age (SGA) (p=0.002) and had higher rates of active IBD during pregnancy (p=0.005). 13 women with IBD developed preeclampsia (6 with UC and 7 with CD). IBD type (p=0.844) and disease activity (p=0.308) were not associated with preeclampsia. Married women (p=0.001) while those who had a preconception consultation (50/127) (p=0.009) had lower rates of preeclampsia while those with a prior history of preeclampsia had higher rates (p=0.002). Among women who developed preeclampsia, pregnancy outcomes were comparable to those who did not. Women on aspirin prophylaxis (5/13) had a higher rate of preeclampsia (p=0.012), although they were also more likely to have a history of preeclampsia (p=0.002). Aspirin use was not associated with subsequent disease activity in pregnancy (p=0.830). Conclusions Women receiving aspirin prophylaxis had higher rates of preeclampsia, likely owing to a higher baseline risk. Preeclampsia prevention with aspirin prophylaxis does not appear to result in disease flares but larger studies are needed to confirm this finding. Funding Agencies None


2021 ◽  
Vol 80 (Suppl 1) ◽  
pp. 340.1-341
Author(s):  
N. Ziade ◽  
J. El-Hajj ◽  
J. Rassi ◽  
S. Hlais ◽  
C. López-Medina ◽  
...  

Background:In patients with spondyloarthritis (SpA), root joint diseases (RJD), i.e. hip or shoulder involvement, may be associated with a distinct disease phenotype compared to those with other affected joints. The ASAS-PerSpA study (PERipheral involvement in SPondyloArthritis) [1], offers a unique opportunity to study the phenotypes of patients with RJD in a global cohort.Objectives:Primary objective was to compare the clinical characteristics of SpA patients with and without RJD. Secondary objectives were to compare the prevalence of RJD across the different SpA subtypes and the different regions of the world, compare the severity of axial disease as well as the disease burden in SpA patients with and without RJD.Methods:This is a post-hoc analysis of the ASAS-PerSpA study, which included 4,465 patients with any subtype of SpA (axial SpA (axSpA), peripheral SpA (pSpA), psoriatic arthritis (PsA), inflammatory bowel disease associated SpA (IBD-SpA), reactive arthritis (ReA) and Juvenile SpA (Juv-SpA)) according to the rheumatologist’s diagnosis. RJD was defined as a positive answer by the investigator to the following question: “Do you consider that the patient has ever suffered from RJD (e.g. hip, shoulder) related to SpA?” In case of a positive answer, a potential specific treatment (e.g. Total Articular Replacement) was investigated. The patient’s characteristics were compared between those with and without RJD involvement, using Chi-2 or Fisher exact test for the categorical variables and t-test for the continuous variables. Two separate multivariable stepwise binary logistic regression analyses were conducted to identify factors associated with the dependent variables “hip involvement” and “shoulder involvement”.Results:RJD occurred in 1,503 patients (33.7%), with more prevalent hip (24.2%) than shoulder (13.2%) involvement. The prevalence of RJD as a group was the highest in Juv-SpA (52.7%), followed by pSpA (44.3%) and axSpA (33.9%). The highest prevalence of RJD was found in Asia and the lowest in Europe and North America. Among patients with hip involvement, 6.0% had a history of hip replacement (highest in the Middle East and North Africa and Latin America); among patients with shoulder involvement, 0.8% had a history of shoulder replacement. Hip had a distinct pattern of associations compared to shoulder involvement (Figure 1). Hip involvement was significantly associated with the SpA main diagnosis (highest in pSpA, lowest in PsA), younger age at first SpA symptom, lower prevalence of family history of psoriasis, positive HLA-B27, occiput-to-wall distance>0, and treatment with cs-DMARDs and b-DMARDs. Shoulder involvement was associated with the SpA main diagnosis (highest in Juv-SpA and pSpA, lowest in axSpA), older age at first SpA symptom, higher prevalence of enthesitis, dactylitis, tender joints count, IBD, occiput-to-wall distance>0, EQ5D score and treatment with cs-DMARDs.Conclusion:Hip involvement was more prevalent than shoulder involvement in patients with SpA, and had a distinct phenotype resembling axial disease whereas shoulder involvement was mostly associated with features of peripheral disease. Hip and shoulder involvement should be analyzed separately in future studies rather than under the RJD entity.References:[1]Lopez-medina, C. et al. Prevalence and Distribution of Peripheral Musculoskeletal Manifestations in Axial Spondyloarthritis, Peripheral Spondyloarthritis and Psoriatic Arthritis: Results of the International, Cross-sectional ASAS-PerSpA Study. RMD Open; 2021;7:e001450.Disclosure of Interests:None declared


2006 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 84-86
Author(s):  
Jennifer Paustenbaugh

PurposeThe purpose of the paper is to provide a tribute to the life and work of library fund‐raiser Gwen Leighty.Design/methodology/approachThe paper uses personal knowledge and references to Academic Libraries Advancement and Development Network (ALADN) and LIBDEV web sites.FindingsThe paper finds that fundraising is connecting with people and the journey that each development officer must make while raising funds for their library.Originality/valueThe paper presents a brief history of ALADN and the valuable contribution one person made to the cause of library fund‐raising.


Diagnostics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 390
Author(s):  
Camilo G. Sotomayor ◽  
Stan Benjamens ◽  
Hildebrand Dijkstra ◽  
Derya Yakar ◽  
Cyril Moers ◽  
...  

Ultrasound examination is advised for early post-kidney transplant assessment. Grayscale median (GSM) quantification is novel in the kidney transplant field, with no systematic assessment previously reported. In this prospective cohort study, we measured the post-operative GSM in a large cohort of adult kidney transplant recipients (KTR) who consecutively underwent Doppler ultrasound directly after transplantation (within 24 h), compared it with GSM in nontransplanted patients, and investigated its association with baseline and follow-up characteristics. B-mode images were used to calculate the GSM in KTR and compared with GSM data in nontransplanted patients, as simulated from summary statistics of the literature using a Mersenne twister algorithm. The association of GSM with baseline and 1-year follow-up characteristics were studied by means of linear regression analyses. In 282 KTR (54 ± 15 years old, 60% male), the median (IQR) GSM was 55 (45–69), ranging from 22 to 124 (coefficient of variation = 7.4%), without differences by type of donation (p = 0.28). GSM in KTR was significantly higher than in nontransplanted patients (p < 0.001), and associated with systolic blood pressure, history of cardiovascular disease, and donor age (std. β = 0.12, −0.20, and 0.13, respectively; p < 0.05 for all). Higher early post-kidney transplant GSM was not associated with 1-year post-kidney transplant function parameters (e.g., measured and estimated glomerular filtration rate). The data provided in this study could be used as first step for further research on the application of early postoperative ultrasound in KTR.


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