Pedagogically-Informed Knowledge Mapping: Representing Contextualised Competences

Knowledge mapping tools in the educational technology domain currently support learners and teachers in creating and visualizing a knowledge repository, usually of subject matter content or links to such content. This research proposes a pedagogically-informed knowledge map design, where knowledge is conceptualised as a contextualized competence, and proposes a tool for creating and visualizing knowledge and recommending appropriate learning and teaching materials. An experiment is reported which found that the use of knowledge mapping and the tool significantly correlated with academic performance.

Competencies Required of Engineering Students Conducting International Projects

Given the importance of students working in international environments, this study identifies the important competencies that engineering students need so that they could work effectively. The list of competencies was identified using a realist synthesis methodology. The context of the research was thirty-seven U.S. students who worked on twenty-two international projects with companies and research centers in India. The outcome was development of multi-media case studies based on the projects. The students spent a semester preparing for the project, eight weeks working on the project, and a semester developing the case studies. Each project was evaluated and students interviewed to identify the competencies that were utilized by the students. Analysis of these evaluations showed that successful projects trained the students to be competent in the technology domain of the project and encouraged them to communicate well with their counterparts.

Open Data Release and Privacy Concerns: Complexity in Mitigating Vulnerability with Controlled Perturbation

The benefits of open data were realised worldwide since the past decades, and the efforts to move more data under the license of open data intensified. There was a steep rise of open data in government repositories. In our study, we point out that privacy is one of the consistent and leading barriers among others. Strong privacy laws restrict data owners from opening the data freely. In this paper, we attempted to study the applied solutions and to the best of our knowledge, we found that anonymity-preserving algorithms did a substantial job to protect privacy in the release of the structured microdata. Such anonymity-preserving algorithms argue and compete in objectivethat not only could the released anonymized data preserve privacy but also the anonymized data preserve the required level of quality. K-anonymity algorithm was the foundation of many of its successor algorithms of all privacy-preserving algorithms. l-diversity claims to add another dimension of privacy protection. Both these algorithms used together are known to provide a good balance between privacy and quality control of the dataset as a whole entity. In this research, we have used the K-anonymity algorithm and compared the results with the addon of l-diversity. We discussed the gap and reported the benefits and loss with various combinations of K and l values, taken in combination with released data quality from an analyst’s perspective. We first used dummy fictitious data to explain the general expectations and then concluded the contrast in the findings with the real data from the food technology domain. The work contradicts the general assumptions with a specific set of evaluation parameters for data quality assessment. Additionally, it is intended to argue in favour of pushing for research contributions in the field of anonymity preservation and intensify the effort for major trends of research, considering its importance and potential to benefit people.

Applications of Cognitive Intelligence in the Information Retrieval Process and Associated Challenges

Information retrieval refers to a noteworthy system of identifying relevant information and recovering it through specific procedures from stored system. These technique is used in many differentiated applications that deal with subjective intelligence. Applications based on information retrieval are identified with various issues, for example, in technology domain, the sudden size changes of the objectives as they approach the sensor. If not taken care of appropriately, the altered changes can present substantial issues in information affiliation and position estimation. Under such a system, the meaning of the objective state is the fundamental advance for programmed comprehension of dynamic scenes. This is the reason of requirement of cognitive models for information retrieval. The existent models move around the connection between data list terms and records.

К ВОПРОСУ О ЦИФРОВЫХ ТЕХНОЛОГИЯХ В ПРЕПОДАВАНИИ ИНОСТРАННЫХ ЯЗЫКОВ

The article examines major tendencies in the education sphere throughout recent decades, analyzing research papers and journalistic writing of national and foreign authors regarding modeling of the current teaching process. The authors of this paper address, in particular, the process of digitalization of education, the main guidance for education development in the modern era, possible methodology, techniques and resources that contribute to the transition from traditional to blended learning. Shifting the focus from the direct teacher-student interaction in the environment of the educational institution to the virtual one places the participants of the process before new challenges, which can relate, in particular, the worldwide development of artificial intelligence in the technology domain. The authors of the article also draw attention to the difficulties that stem from the specificity of teaching foreign languages and suggest a range of possible solutions to the issue at hand.

Empowering ISA95 compliant traditional and smart manufacturing systems with the blockchain technology

Technological advancements in the information technology domain such as cloud computing, industrial internet of things (IIoT), machine to machine (M2M) communication, artificial intelligence (AI), etc. have started to profoundly impact and challenge not only the ISA95 compliant traditional (ISA95-CTS) but also the smart manufacturing systems (SMMS). Our literature survey pinpoints that systems scalability, interoperability, information security, and data quality domains are among those where many challenges occur. Blockchain technology (BCT) is a new breed of technology characterized by decentralized verifiability, transparency, data privacy, integrity, high availability, and data protection properties. Although many researchers leveraged BCT to empower various aspects of industrial manufacturing systems, there is no study dedicated to addressing the challenges impacting the manufacturing systems compliant with the ISA95 standard. Thereby, our study aims to fill the identified research gap systematically. This paper thoroughly analyzes the challenges hampering the ISA95-CTS and SMMS and methodically addresses them with corresponding BCT capabilities. Furthermore, this paper also discusses various aspects, including the weaknesses, of BCT convergence to ISA95-CTS and SMMS.

ON THE IMPORTANCE OF THE EMPIRICAL IDIOSYNCRASY IN EFFICIENT COMMUNICATION OF COMPUTER SCIENCE AND E-BUSINESS TERMINOLOGY

The domain of computer science is extremely versatile and dynamic, its complexity leading to the coinage of numerous new terms in a relatively short period of time. Their origin is, more often than not, empirical and these new terms have practical value. Moreover, they are customary and easy to remember, thus making the “science” behind the domain under scrutiny more appealing and easier to understand by non-specialists. The present paper aims at investigating the computer science terminology from a different perspective; it intends to devote special attention to the words which have acquired a new meaning, transgressing boundaries from general vocabulary to the active vocabulary of the non-specialist computer user. The novelty of this research lies in its focus on devising a new classification of these words which have their origin in the general English, thus helping non-specialist computer users to easily understand and use them. Consequently, the everyday English words assimilated by the information technology domain will be divided into six broad categories, i.e. standalone words, open compounds, closed or transparent compounds, compounds written as hyphenated words or that have a preposition or a conjunction as a linking element, words derived with the suffix –er, each of these encompassing a plethora of explained examples, which are very common in the aforementioned sphere

Is hackathon in oncology a plausible way to foster innovation? An experiential narrative account of conducting Hacking Cancer

BackgroundHackathons are a popular trend in the technology domain and is considered a powerful tool to spur creativity and innovation. In a health hackathon, an interdisciplinary team of health, technology and management experts work collaboratively to solve a common problem. Health hackathon can be one of the quickest means to derive technology or process-based solutions to the challenges faced by clinicians.MethodsA 2-day hackathon: Hacking Cancer was conducted at a tertiary cancer centre in India to develop quick, cost-effective solutions in cancer care. Twelve oncology-related problem statements were explored. Undergraduate and postgraduate students of health and dental sciences, pharmacy, nursing, engineering and business management were the participants.OutcomesOne hundred and fifty-seven participants expressed interest, and 90 participated in the event. The participants did a time-bound exploration of 12 challenges in oncology elucidated problem statements. The oncology specialists mentored the participants during the hackathon. Seventeen teams presented their solutions. Judges reviewed the solutions and scored the teams based on feasibility, relevance and applicability. The top-scoring three projects were acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL) better-improving adherence to treatment in ALL patients, Donate Life—application for voluntary blood donation and Lumiflex—a novel illuminated flexible abdominal retractor. They received seed funding to develop prototypes and implement their ideas.ConclusionHacking Cancer was an effective way of developing quick, cost-effective solutions to the common problems faced in cancer care. The pool of local participants developed solutions that were relevant and applicable to the practice setting. This one was the first oncology themed hackathon in the country.

Towards Energy-Efficient Mobile Ad Optimization: An App Developer Perspective

Advertising over smart devices is one of the growing trends in the information technology domain. Most of the Android application (app) developers generate revenue through the use of ads, but on the other hand, the end users get the free app. However, the excessive number of ads infers hidden costs with respect to energy consumption, network utilization, and user comfort. These factors affect the app rating and reviews. Consequently, developers require a technique to balance app performance through optimized mobile ad usage. Therefore, in this paper, we extend an existing work and propose an energy-efficient method that uses gamma correction to reduce the hidden costs of a mobile app. In this approach, gamma correction efficiently balances the app performance by minimizing the size of ads. The size of the mobile ad is reduced by adjusting its pixels, reducing background color, and illuminating the content of the ad. After several experiments, it is deduced that our proposed approach efficiently saves mobile battery and developers can apply this approach to improve app rank and feedback.

Agricultural Informatics as a Branch of Study in Information Sciences and Technology Domain-A Proposal towards Digital Agriculture

Agricultural Informatics is a valuable domain in the field of interdisciplinary sciences. This is responsible for the applications of Information Technology, Computing and similar technologies into the agricultural activities. This is the combination of Agricultural Science and Information Sciences. The field due to technological nature is much closed with the Agricultural Engineering or Agricultural Technology. There are many allied and similar nomenclature of the fields but all of these are primarily responsible for the same purpose. The field is rapidly increasing in recent past and most practiced in the developed nation. However, in developing countries as well Agricultural Informatics becomes an emerging field of practice and growing rapidly. Agricultural Informatics is growing both in pre and post agricultural activity. This branch is considered as branch of Information Sciences & Technology due to its technological applications in the field of agriculture and allied areas. Information Sciences are the broadest field within the allied branches and growing rapidly. Agricultural Informatics educational programs have started in recent past in different level and stream of education viz. science and technology. However within the broad periphery of Information Sciences it could be offered in other streams and under the wide variety of Information Sciences. This paper is broad and interdisciplinary in nature and deals with the aspects of the Information Sciences and Technology including features, nature, scope and also the potentialities in respect of Agricultural Informatics.