Description:
This article aims to demonstrate how the definitions of slopes can be extended to multi-valued mappings between metric spaces and applied for characterizing metric regularity. Several kinds of local and nonlocal slopes are defined and several metric regularity properties for set-valued mappings between metric spaces are investigated.
Description:
This article aims to demonstrate how the definitions of slopes can be extended to multi-valued mappings between metric spaces and applied for characterizing metric regularity. Several kinds of local and nonlocal slopes are defined and several metric regularity properties for set-valued mappings between metric spaces are investigated.
Description:
Technical and vocational education and training (TVET) research has become a recognized and well-defined area of interdisciplinary research. This is the first handbook of its kind that specifically concentrates on research and research methods in TVET. The book’s sections focus on particular aspects of the field, starting with a presentation of the genesis of TVET research. They further feature research in relation to policy, planning and practice. Various areas of TVET research are covered, including on the vocational disciplines and on TVET systems. Case studies illustrate different approaches to TVET research, and the final section of the book presents research methods, including interview and observation methods, as well as of experimentation and development. This handbook provides a comprehensive coverage of TVET research in an international context, and, with special focus on research and research methods, it is a cutting-edge resource and reference.
Description:
Cultural studies in science education have been gaining more attention in recent years. One much-debated theme in this area is teaching culturally related knowledge in modern school science. Within the context of science education, “culturally related knowledge” refers to the knowledge that can be treated as science, but has different cultural origins from that of Western Modern Science (WMS) or Euro-centric science (Aikenhead and Ogawa 2007). Different points of view about the nature of science and the relationship between science education and culture have a direct influence on people’s opinions of the content and pedagogy of science teaching in school. "From introduction"
Description:
With the rapid development of e-commerce and the expansion of e-commerce system scale, scalable trust in e-commerce becomes critical. This article examines scalable trust of multiagent e-commerce system (MECS) and proposes a fuzzy model for scalable trust in e-commerce. It also discusses the realization of scalable trust from the viewpoint of engineering. The proposed approach will facilitate research and development of trust, multiagent systems, e-commerce and e-services
Description:
Rated Multiple Classification Ripple Down Rules (RM) and Ripple Down Models (RDM) are two of the successful prudent RDR approaches published. To date, there has not been a published, dedicated comparison of the two. This paper presents a systematic preliminary evaluation and analysis of the two techniques. The tests and results reported in this paper are the first phase of direct evaluations of RM and RDM against each other.
Description:
This chapter considers the characteristics of employer practices concerning age management, with specific reference to career management and learning among European employers. Using data collected for a recent European study of employer behaviour regarding workforce ageing we conceptualise the policy approach in organizations and how this is manifested in the experiences of employees. The chapter begins by examining recent changes in the way career management and learning are viewed, particularly the shift away from conceptualisations based on the notion that career management and learning are the prerogative of the young towards a perspective based on a more inclusive notion of career management learning taking place at different transition points in the lifecycle.
Description:
Abstract In this chapter the findings of five studies are reported. Two research instruments were used: the Mathematics and Technology Attitudes Scale (MTAS), and the Survey of Attitudes Toward Statistics Scale (SATS). The aims, methods, data analyses, selected findings and conclusions are presented, as well as implications for the teaching and learning of mathematics and statistics. The studies involved samples from Australia and Greece. Findings from the three MTAS studies revealed that there is a complex nexus of relationships between secondary mathematics students’ mathematics confidence, confidence with technology, attitude to learning mathematics with technology, affective engagement and behavioural engagement, achievement, and gender. Findings from the SATS studies indicated that male Greek tertiary students had more positive attitudes toward statistics than female students; there was no gender gap for the Australian tertiary students. Secondary students’ attitudes towards ICT use for mathematics learning require further scrutiny in order to bring about gender equity and to facilitate improved outcomes for all students. Gender and cultural sensitivity are paramount in the instructional planning, decision making, and implementation of secondary mathematics and tertiary statistics.
Description:
In Australia, as in most other industrialized economies, there is growing concern about the work capacity of older workers and their retention in the workforce against a background of population aging and efforts to prolong working lives. It is widely recognized that working later will be promoted by equipping industry and workers with instruments that can gauge working potential. Although policy makers in most industrialized nations now consider an extension of working lives as the basis of sustaining welfare systems and offsetting decline in the number of young labor market entrants, globalization and the competition this fosters present as a strong countervailing force for both government and employers. Certain groups, including older workers with few or outdated skills, and those with declining health may be particularly affected by job insecurity and long-term unemployment. Reconciling these seemingly countervailing tensions is a problem now facing a number of industrialized economies. A resilient older worker whose skills and capabilities can easily adjust as the requirements of the market shift would help maintain labor productivity growth even as populations age (Hagemann and Nicoletti 1989). "From Introduction"
Description:
In this paper a novel feature selection technique based on mutual dependency modelling between genes is proposed for multiclass microarray gene expression classification. Several studies on analysis of gene expression data has shown that the genes (whether or not they belong to the same gene group) get co-expressed via a variety of pathways. Further, a gene may participate in multiple pathways that may or may not be co-active for all samples. It is therefore biologically meaningful to simultaneously divide genes into functional groups and samples into co-active categories. This can be done by modeling gene profiles for multiclass microarray gene data sets based on mutual dependency models, which model complex gene interactions. Most of the current works in multiclass microarray gene expression studies are based on statistical models with little or no consideration of gene interactions. This has led to lack of robustness and overly optimistic estimates of accuracy and noise reduction. In this paper, we propose multivariate analysis techniques which model the mutual dependency between the features and take into account complex interactions for extracting a subset of genes. The two techniques, the cross modal factor analysis (CFA) and canonical correlation analysis(CCA) show a significant reduction in dimensionality and class-prediction error, and improvement in classification accuracy for multiclass microarray gene expression datasets.
Description:
This chapter explores the current ideological ethos of the Greek-Cypriot national curriculum and its implications for multicultural education understandings. Cyprus has been and still remains a deeply divided (and segregated) society due to the protracted nature of conflict between Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots. The goal of this chapter is to map the curriculum dynamics, mainly in subjects that are important to issues of identity and culture (specifically, Modern Greek Language, History and a special subject called ‘I Know, I Don’t Forget and I Struggle’), of the national curriculum for primary education (implemented since 1996) and discuss the potential consequences for multicultural education in light of the increasing presence of various minorities in Cyprus. This analysis is important at this point and time because there are efforts for comprehensive curriculum reform and thus it is valuable to clarify the theoretical assumptions and implications of existing curriculum dynamics.
Description:
Recently, we have been witnessing an exponential growth in mobile health (mHealth) for health care. These solutions are all designed ultimate to enable the consumer to enjoy better health-care delivery and/or wellness. In order to understand this growing area, we believe it is necessary to develop a framework to analyse and evaluate these solutions. The purpose of this chapter is to proffer a suitable taxonomy to do this.
Description:
The role of spirituality in human life has continued to receive much attention as attested to by the number of disciplines represented in this book. However, more consideration needs to be given to the impact of the dark side of spirituality in the lives of individuals and communities especially in a world characterized by issues related to globalization, materialism and religious and cultural diversity. Nurturing spirituality may be one way of promoting individual and communal wellbeing and social cohesion through self-knowledge and awareness of others. This chapter, then, serves as the introduction to the topic upon which this book is based: spirituality across disciplines. It examines the notion of spirituality as it is being used in today's world across a variety of disciplines. It notes that, in general, researchers tend to avoid offering a definition of the term so that some levels of ambiguity surround the concept. This, in turn, has the potential to reduce the impact of research and application and creates problems of authenticity for the discipline. Therefore, this chapter offers a rationale for investigating the concept of spirituality as it is being understood and applied across a range of disciplines to bring some clarity to various understandings so that current research studies will be better able to inform future research and practice.
Description:
The role of spirituality in human life has continued to recieve much attention as attested to by the number of disciplines represented in this book. However, more consideration needs to be given to the impact of the dark side of spirituality in the lives of individuals and communities especially in a world characterized by issues related to globalization, materialism and religious and cultural diversity. Nurturing spirituality may be one way of promoting individual and communal wellbeing and social cohesion through self-knowledge and awareness of others. This chapter, then, serves as the introduction to the topic upon which this book is based: spirituality across disciplines. It examines the notion of spirituality as it is being used in todays' world across a variety of disciplines. It notes that, in general, researchers tend to avoid offering a definition of the term so that some levels of ambiguity surround the concept. This, in turn, has the potential to reduce the impact of research and application and creates problems of authenticity for the discipline. Therefore, this chapter offers a rationale for investigating the concept of spirituality as it is being understood and applied across a range of disciplines to bring some clarity to various understandings so that current research studies will be better able to inform future research and practice.
Description:
Music genre classification has attracted a lot of research interest due to the rapid growth of digital music. Despite the availability of a vast number of audio features and classification techniques, genre classification still remains a challenging task. In this work we propose a class centric feature and classifier ensemble selection method which deviates from the conventional practice of employing a single, or an ensemble of classifiers trained with a selected set of audio features. We adopt a binary decomposition technique to divide the multiclass problem into a set of binary problems which are then treated in a class specific manner. This differs from the traditional techniques which operate on the naive assumption that a specific set of features and/or classifiers can perform equally well in identifying all the classes. Experimental results obtained on a popular genre dataset and a newly created dataset suggest significant improvements over traditional techniques.
Description:
Brittleness of rock is one of the most critical features for design of underground excavation project. Therefore, proper assessing of rock brittleness can be very useful for designers and evaluators of geotechnical applications. In this study, feasibility of genetic programming (GP) model and non-linear multiple regression (NLMR) in predicting brittleness of intact rocks is examined. For this purpose, a dataset developed by conducting various rock tests including uniaxial compressive strength, Brazilian tensile strength, unit weight and brittleness via punch penetration on rock samples gathered from 48 tunnels projects around the world is utilized herein. Considering multiple inputs, several GP models were constructed to estimate brittleness index of the rock and finally, the best GP model was selected. Note that, GP can make an equation for predicting output of the system using model inputs. To show applicability of the developed GP model, non-linear multiple regression (NLMR) was also applied and developed. Considering some model performance indices, performance prediction of the GP and NLMR models were evaluated and it was found that the GP model is superior to NLMR one. Based on coefficient of determination (R (2)) of testing datasets, by proposing GP model, it can be improved from 0.882 (obtained by NLMR model) to 0.904. It is worth mentioning that the proposed predictive models in this study should be planned and used for the similar types of rock and the established inputs ranges.