Digital Commons Network^™

Laboratory Learning Objectives Measurement: Relationships Between Student Evaluation Scores And Perceived Learning, Sasha Nikolic, Thomas Suesse, Kosta Jovanovic, Zarko Stanisavljevic

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part B

Contribution: This article provides evidence that perceived learning has a relationship and influences the way students evaluate laboratory experiments, facilities, and demonstrators. Background: Debate continues on the capability and/or reliability of students to evaluate teaching and/or learning. Understanding such relationships can help educators decode evaluation data to develop more effective teaching experiences. Research Question: Does a relationship exist between student evaluation scores and perceived learning? Methodology: Perceived learning across the cognitive, psychomotor, and affective domains was measured using the Laboratory Learning Objectives Measurement (LLOM) tool at an Australian (344 students) and Serbian (181 students) university. A multilevel statistical analysis was …

A Blockchain Based System For Safe Vaccine Supply And Supervision, Binbin Yong, Jun Shen, Xin Liu, Fucun Li, Huaming Chen, Qingguo Zhou

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part B

Immunization is an indispensable mechanism for preventing infectious diseases in modern society, and vaccine safety is closely related to public health and national security. However, issues such as vaccine expiration and vaccine record fraud are still widespread in vaccine supply chains. Therefore, an effective management system for the supervision of vaccine supply chains is urgently required. As the next generation of core technology after the Internet, blockchain is designed to build trust mechanisms that can change current information management methods. Meanwhile, the development of machine learning technologies provides additional ways to analyze the data in information management systems. The main …

From Ideal To Reality: Segmentation, Annotation, And Recommendation, The Vital Trajectory Of Intelligent Micro Learning, Jiayin Lin, Geng Sun, Tingru Cui, Jun Shen, Dongming Xu, Ghassan Beydoun, Ping Yu, David Pritchard, Li Li, Shiping Chen

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part B

The soaring development of Web technologies and mobile devices has blurred time-space boundaries of people’s daily activities. Such development together with the life-long learning requirement give birth to a new learning style, micro learning. Micro learning aims to effectively utilize learners’ fragmented time to carry out personalized learning activities through online education resources. The whole workflow of a micro learning system can be separated into three processing stages: micro learning material generation, learning materials annotation and personalized learning materials delivery. Our micro learning framework is firstly introduced in this paper from a higher perspective. Then we will review representative segmentation …

Four-Dimensional (Bio-)Printing: A Review On Stimuli-Responsive Mechanisms And Their Biomedical Suitability, Pedro Morouco, Bahareh Azimi, Mario Milazzo, Fatemeh Mokhtari, Cristiana Fernandes, Diana Reis, Serena Danti

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part B

The applications of tissue engineered constructs have witnessed great advances in the last few years, as advanced fabrication techniques have enabled promising approaches to develop structures and devices for biomedical uses. (Bio-)printing, including both plain material and cell/material printing, offers remarkable advantages and versatility to produce multilateral and cell-laden tissue constructs; however, it has often revealed to be insufficient to fulfill clinical needs. Indeed, three-dimensional (3D) (bio-)printing does not provide one critical element, fundamental to mimic native live tissues, i.e., the ability to change shape/properties with time to respond to microenvironmental stimuli in a personalized manner. This capability is in …

Susceptibility Artifact Correction For Sub-Millimeter Fmri Using Inverse Phase Encoding Registration And T1 Weighted Regularization, Soan Duong, Son Lam Phung, Abdesselam Bouzerdoum, Harriet Boyd Taylor, A Puckett, Mark M. Schira

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part B

© 2020 Elsevier B.V. Background: Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) enables non-invasive examination of both the structure and the function of the human brain. The prevalence of high spatial-resolution (sub-millimeter) fMRI has triggered new research on the intra-cortex, such as cortical columns and cortical layers. At present, echo-planar imaging (EPI) is used exclusively to acquire fMRI data; however, susceptibility artifacts are unavoidable. These distortions are especially severe in high spatial-resolution images and can lead to misrepresentation of brain function in fMRI experiments. New method: This paper presents a new method for correcting susceptibility artifacts by combining a T1-weighted (T1w) image …

An Unsupervised Deep Learning Technique For Susceptibility Artifact Correction In Reversed Phase-Encoding Epi Images, Soan Duong, Son Lam Phung, Abdesselam Bouzerdoum, Mark M. Schira

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part B

© 2020 Elsevier Inc. Echo planar imaging (EPI) is a fast and non-invasive magnetic resonance imaging technique that supports data acquisition at high spatial and temporal resolutions. However, susceptibility artifacts, which cause the misalignment to the underlying structural image, are unavoidable distortions in EPI. Traditional susceptibility artifact correction (SAC) methods estimate the displacement field by optimizing an objective function that involves one or more pairs of reversed phase-encoding (PE) images. The estimated displacement field is then used to unwarp the distorted images and produce the corrected images. Since this conventional approach is time-consuming, we propose an end-to-end deep learning technique, …

Understanding Gender And Factors Affecting Fishing In An Artisanal Shellfish Fishery, Steven Purcell, Alejandro Tagliafico, Brian R. Cullis, Beverley J. Gogel

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part B

Fishing strategies, effort and harvests of small-scale fishers are important to understand for effective planning of regulatory measures and development programs. Gender differences in fishing can highlight inequities deserving transformative solutions, but might mask other important factors. We examined fishing modes, fishing frequency, catch-per-unit-effort (CPUE), resource preferences and perceptions of fishery stock among artisanal gastropod (trochus) fishers in Samoa using structured questionnaires and mixed effects models. The fishery has an extremely modest carbon footprint of 18-23 tons of CO2 p.a., as few fishers used motorized boats. Trochus (Rochia nilotica), an introduced gastropod, was the second-most harvested resource, after fish, despite …

Teaching Sample Survey Design—A Project Using A Virtual Population, Carole L. Birrell

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part B

© 2020, © 2020 The Author(s). Published with license by Taylor and Francis Group, LLC. Sample survey design is a topic usually taught to students undertaking a minor or major in statistics in the latter part of their bachelor’s degree. This article describes an assessment project that fosters active learning and helps to develop a set of essential skills for statistical practice. The project is completed in pairs and submitted in two parts. This allows feedback from the first part to be acted upon for the second part. Ideally, students would gain experience sampling from an actual population. However, the …

Cancer Risk Analysis Based On Improved Probabilistic Neural Network, Chaoyu Yang, Jie Yang, Ying Liu, Xianya Geng

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part B

© Copyright © 2020 Yang, Yang, Liu and Geng. The problem of cancer risk analysis is of great importance to health-service providers and medical researchers. In this study, we propose a novel Artificial Neural Network (ANN) algorithm based on the probabilistic framework, which aims to investigate patient patterns associated with their disease development. Compared to the traditional ANN where input features are directly extracted from raw data, the proposed probabilistic ANN manipulates original inputs according to their probability distribution. More precisely, the Naïve Bayes and Markov chain models are used to approximate the posterior distribution of the raw inputs, which …

Risk Factors Discovery For Cancer Survivability Analysis Using Graph-Rule Mining, Chaoyu Yang, Jie Yang, Zhenyu Yang

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part B

Mining and understanding patients' disease-development pattern is a major healthcare need. A huge number of research studies have focused on medical resource allocation, survivability prediction, risk management of diagnosis, etc. In this article, we are specifically interested in discovering risk factors for patients with high probability of developing cancers. We propose a systematic and data-driven algorithm and build around the idea of association rule mining. More precisely, the rule-mining method is firstly applied on the target dataset to unpack the underlying relationship of cancer-risk factors, via generating a set of candidate rules. Later, this set is represented as a rule …

Attention-Based High-Order Feature Interactions To Enhance The Recommender System For Web-Based Knowledge-Sharing Servic, Jiayin Lin, Geng Sun, Jun Shen, Tingru Cui, David Pritchard, Dongming Xu, Li Li, Wei Wei, Ghassan Beydoun, Shiping Chen

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part B

Providing personalized online learning services has become a hot research topic. Online knowledge-sharing services represents a popular approach to enable learners to use fragmented spare time. User asks and answers questions in the platform, and the platform also recommends relevant questions to users based on their learning interested and context. However, in the big data era, information overload is a challenge, as both online learners and learning resources are embedded in data rich environment. Offering such web services requires an intelligent recommender system to automatically filter out irrelevant information, mine underling user preference, and distil latent information. Such a recommender …

Biomechanics Of Lower Limb In Badminton Lunge: A Systematic Scoping Review, Wing Lam, Duo Wong, Winson Lee

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part B

Background. Badminton is a popular sport activity in both recreational and elite levels. A lot of biomechanical studies have investigated badminton lunge, since good lunge performance may increase the chances to win the game. This review summarized the current trends, research methods, and parameters-of-interest concerning lower-extremity biomechanics in badminton lunges. Methodology. Databases including Web of Science, Cochrane Library, Scopus, and PubMed were searched from the oldest available date to September 2020. Two independent authors screened all the articles and 20 articles were eligible for further review. The reviewed articles compared the differences among playing levels, footwear designs, and lunge directions/variations, …

Geogrid-Confined Pervious Geopolymer Concrete Piles With Frp-Pvc-Confined Concrete Core: Analytical Models, Haiqiu Zhang, Muhammad N. S Hadi

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part B

2019 Institution of Structural Engineers The geogrid-confined pervious geopolymer concrete pile (GPGCP) with fibre reinforced polymer (FRP)-polyvinyl chloride (PVC)-confined concrete core (FPCC) is a new form of composite piles proposed in a previous study, which consists of a circular geogrid outer tube, a FPCC, and pervious geopolymer concrete (PGC) filled in between. For FPCC, the normal geopolymer concrete (NGC) was used to fill the FRP-PVC tubes. In this study, new analytical models are proposed to simulate the axial compressive behaviour of GPGCPs without and with FPCC. According to the characteristics of the mechanical behaviour of GPGCPs, analytical models are proposed …

Examining The Impact Of Pedagogical Agents On Students Learning Experience In Virtual Worlds, Foteini Grivokostopoulou, Michael Paraskevas, Isidoros Perikos, Sasha Nikolic, Konstantinos Kovas, Ioannis Hatzilygeroudis

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part B

Virtual worlds constitute an important part of the educational landscape that possesses unique learning capabilities and opens up new horizons in education. A vital part of 3D virtual worlds concerns the intelligent pedagogical agents that are integrated in the environments and aim to improve the interaction with the users and enhance their learning experience. The main purpose of this study is to assess the impact that the pedagogical agents have on students' engagement and learning experiences during training activities in virtual worlds. Specifically, we examine how students perceive the role of pedagogical agents as learning companions during specific exercises and …

Contradictions In Information Technology Mediated Work In Long-Term Care: An Activity Theoretic Ethnographic Study, Siyu Qian, Ping Yu, Anol Bhattacherjee

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part B

Background: The growing demand for aged care services coupled with a global shortage of skilled nursing staff has hindered long-term care facilities' ability to provide necessary services to their residents. Healthcare information technology is expected to mitigate this challenge by streamlining nursing work, while also improving quality of care and productivity.

Objectives: This study set out to examine how nurses and care workers work, the role of information technology (IT) in their work and what contradictions they face in their IT mediated work.

Design: Ethnographic study informed by six components of activity theory: subject, object, tool, rule, …

Effects Of Foot Orthoses On Dynamic Balance And Basketball Free-Throw Accuracy Before And After Physical Fatigue, Wing-Kai Lam, Winson Lee, Siu-On Ng, Yi Zheng

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part B

While it is not uncommon for athletes to use foot orthoses to relieve pain and improve sports performance, little has been known about their effects on basketball performance. Free-throw basketball shooting is very important. However, fatigue deteriorates postural balance which might decrease free-throw shooting performance. This study investigated the effects of foot orthoses on dynamic balance and accuracy performance during free-throw shooting before and after physical fatigue was induced. Thirteen male recreational basketball players were tested with two foot orthoses (medial-arch support versus flat control) and fatigue conditions (before and after fatigue), when they performed standard free-throw shooting on a …

A Novel Cloud Based Auxiliary Medical System For Hypertension Management, Rui Zhou, Yunshan Cao, Rui Zhou, Qingwei Zhou, Jun Shen, Qingguo Zhou, Haifeng Zhang

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part B

As a common disease, hypertension (HTN) can lead to severe complications such as heart failure, renal failure and stroke. However, delayed diagnosis often happens because of no obvious symptoms in earlier stage. This paper addresses the issue through a novel cloud based auxiliary medical system for HTN. Nowadays, telemedicine has been used to diagnose and monitor HTN by sharing and consulting personal health status with doctors. Its high flexibility and processing ability have helped to reduce the overall cost of medical care and enhanced the control rate. Technically, telemedicine uses communication, holographic imaging and computer science to achieve the management …

Optimal Learning Group Formation: A Multi-Objective Heuristic Search Strategy For Enhancing Inter-Group Homogeneity And Intra-Group Heterogeneity, Soheila Garshasbi, Yousef Mohammadi, Sabine Graf, Samira Garshasbi, Jun Shen

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part B

In modern education systems, plenty of research suggests that clustering the learners into optimal learning groups based on their multiple characteristics is a determining effort in enhancing the effectiveness of collaborative learning. Although there have been several evidences on developing and implementing appropriate computational tools to handle classification processes in expert and intelligent systems, the effectiveness and accuracy of optimal grouping algorithms are still worth improving. For instance, the majority of grouping processes in collaborative learning environments is orchestrated through single-objective optimization algorithms, which need to be revisited due to some intrinsic limitations. In this paper, we propose a novel …

Evaluating The Managing Medicines For People With Dementia Website Version 2, Pippa Burns, Judy Mullan, Robyn J. Gillespie, Lindsey Harrison, Khin Than Win, Amanda Ann Baker, Victoria Traynor, Catherine Kostovski, Rhett Jay Thomas-Lee, Holly Gleeson, Frances Horne, Zoran Velev

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part B

The Managing Medicines for People With Dementia version 2 website was developed in three languages, English, Italian, and Macedonian, to assist informal caregivers in the task of managing medications. Medication management is a complex task with potentially high stakes health outcomes, including hospitalization and death. A mixed-methods evaluation was carried out. A survey was available to site users and Web log data were collected over a 3-month period. Subsequently, the quality and suitability of the information and readability and usability of the Web site were evaluated. Focus groups and interviews were conducted with end users from all three language groups. …

Mobile Health Interventions For Self-Control Of Unhealthy Alcohol Use: Systematic Review, Ting Song, Siyu Qian, Ping Yu

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part B

Background: Unhealthy alcohol use (UAU) is one of the major causes of preventable morbidity, mortality, and associated behavioral risks worldwide. Although mobile health (mHealth) interventions can provide consumers with an effective means for self-control of UAU in a timely, ubiquitous, and cost-effective manner, to date, there is a lack of understanding about different health outcomes brought by such interventions. The core components of these interventions are also unclear.

Objective: This study aimed to systematically review and synthesize the research evidence about the efficacy of mHealth interventions on various health outcomes for consumer self-control of UAU and to identify …

Engineering Students At Day Zero: Selection And Concerns By Gender, Sasha Nikolic, Thomas F. Suesse, Thomas Goldfinch

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part B

The importance of attracting students to STEM disciplines such as engineering is well understood. Many developed countries are trying to grow numbers in the field by attracting a greater proportion of females than currently exists. This study explores student engineering selection decisions and initial concerns by gender prior to official commencement of classes within common first year engineering.

Student-Supervisor-University Expectation Alignment In The Undergraduate Engineering Thesis, Brad Stappenbelt, Abheek Basu

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part B

Given the lack of student research experience, the undergraduate thesis is necessarily focussed primarily on development of research skills (i.e. it is process oriented). Since postgraduate supervision is research output focussed, the lessons learnt from this field are not always directly transferable. In contrast to the vast body of work in the field of doctoral research supervision, there exists a dearth of literature on undergraduate dissertation supervision. To address this shortcoming, the present study examined the alignment of university, supervisor and student expectations regarding responsibilities in the undergraduate engineering thesis. University expectations, having undergone rigorous review, outline the sound pedagogical …

Vitamin D Deficiency During Pregnancy And Its Associated Factors Among Third Trimester Malaysian Pregnant Women, Fui Chee Woon, Yit Siew Chin, Intan Hakimah Ismail, Marijka Batterham, Amir Latiff, Wan Ying Gan, Geeta Appannah, Siti Hussien, Muliana Edi, Meng Tan, Yoke Mun Chan

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part B

Background Despite perennial sunshine, vitamin D deficiency is prevalent among Malaysians especially pregnant women. This study determines the vitamin D status and its associated factors among third trimester pregnant women attending government health clinics in Selangor and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Methods Information on socio-demographic characteristics, obstetrical history, and sun exposure were obtained through face-to-face interviews. Vitamin D intake was assessed using a semi-quantitative food frequency questionnaire (FFQ). Serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D concentration was measured and classified as deficient (< 30 nmol/L), insufficient (30-50 nmol/L), and sufficient ( ≥ 50 nmol/L).

Results Of the 535 pregnant women recruited, 42.6% were vitamin D deficient. They consumed an average of 8.7 ± 6.7 μg of …

Anatomical Deformation Due To Horizontal Rotation: Towards Gantry-Free Radiation Therapy, Jarryd Buckley, Robba Rai, Gary P. Liney, Jason A. Dowling, Lois C. Holloway, Peter E. Metcalfe, Paul J. Keall

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part B

Gantry-free radiation therapy systems may be simpler and more cost effective, particularly for MRI-guided photon or hadron therapy. This study aims to understand and quantify anatomical deformations caused by horizontal rotation with scan sequences sufficiently short to facilitate integration into an MRI-guided workflow. Rigid and non-rigid pelvic deformations due to horizontal rotation were quantified for a cohort of 8 healthy volunteers using a bespoke patient rotation system and a clinical MRI scanner. For each volunteer a reference scan was acquired at 0° followed by sequential faster scans in 45° increments through to 360°. All fast scans were registered to the …

Driver Intention Based Coordinate Control Of Regenerative And Plugging Braking For Electric Vehicles With In-Wheel Pmsms, Wenfei Li, Haiping Du, Weihua Li

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part B

Electric vehicles have been the focus of the automotive industry in recent years. However, relatively small driving range of electric vehicles makes it not be broadly adopted in the market. Regenerative braking is one of the most effective ways to extend the endurance of electric vehicles. To sufficiently utilise the regenerative braking of electric vehicles and explore the potential of the electric motor plugging braking capability to simplify the braking system structure and reduce the cost, a new braking strategy based on the driver's braking intention and motor working characteristics is proposed. Driver's braking intention is classified as the emergency …

Static Force Dependency Of Bone Conduction Transducer As Sensory Feedback For Stump-Socket Based Prosthesis, Raphael Mayer, Alireza Mohammadi, Gursel Alici, Peter Choong, Denny Oetomo

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part B

The dependency of a novel sensory feedback for stump-socket based prosthesis on the static force is presented using a bone conduction transducer as feedback source. The stimulation was induced onto the bony landmarks of the elbow, specifically the Ulna and presented in an interval halving method. The perception threshold in the range of tactile and auditory perception at three different force levels has been tested. The inter subject variability is bigger than the intra subject variation. The small static force variation suggests a similar approach as in bone conduction hearing aids and therefore a static force bigger than 6N should …

Changes In Gait And Plantar Foot Loading Upon Using Vibrotactile Wearable Biofeedback System In Patients With Stroke, Christina Ma, Yong-Ping Zheng, Winson Lee

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part B

Background: Patients with stroke walk with excessive foot inversion at the affected side, which may disturb their balance and gait. Objectives: This study aimed to investigate the effects of instant biofeedback of plantar force at the medial and lateral forefoot regions on gait and plantar foot loading in patients with stroke. Methods: A total of eight patients with hemiplegic stroke, who had flexible rearfoot varus deformity at the affected side, participated in this study. A vibrotactile biofeedback system was developed and evaluated. It analyzed forces at the medial and lateral forefeet, and instantly provided vibration clues when the plantar force …

Thermal Comfort For Occupants Of Nursing Homes: A Field Study, Federico Tartarini, Paul Cooper, Richard Fleming

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part B

The primary aim of this research was to assess the quality of the thermal environment of six Australian nursing homes, and to understand and quantify the impacts of the indoor thermal environment on the perceptions and comfort of staff, residents and other occupants. The impact of the thermal environment on perceptions and comfort of building occupants of six nursing homes was determined through: 1) a long-term building evaluation survey (staff members only); and 2) a point-in-time thermal comfort study, involving 322 residents and 187 non-residents. In addition, a combination of spot-measurements and long-term monitoring of indoor air temperatures was used …

Mhealth Applications: A Tool For Behaviour Change In Weight Management, Elena Vlahu-Gjorgievska, Suparna Mulakaparambil Unnikrishnan, Khin Than Win

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part B

Obesity has become a public concern all over the world and weight management is of interest to consumers. Heavy intake of food and lack of exercise are the foremost factors for obese condition. Self-management programs are essential for the prevention and treatment of obesity and weight management. Mobile health (m-Health) applications for weight management can be a useful tool in monitoring behaviour and self-management programs, thus engaging consumers in lifestyle changes to mitigate the risk of obesity. The aim of this review is to identify and compare the features supported in mHealth applications for weight management.

Differential Gene Expression Analysis Tools Exhibit Substandard Performance For Long Non-Coding Rna-Sequencing Data, Alemu Assefa, Katrijn De Paepe, Celine Everaert, Pieter Mestdagh, Olivier Thas, Jo Vandesompele

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part B

Background: Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) are typically expressed at low levels and are inherently highly variable. This is a fundamental challenge for differential expression (DE) analysis. In this study, the performance of 25 pipelines for testing DE in RNA-seq data is comprehensively evaluated, with a particular focus on lncRNAs and low-abundance mRNAs. Fifteen performance metrics are used to evaluate DE tools and normalization methods using simulations and analyses of six diverse RNA-seq datasets.

Results: Gene expression data are simulated using non-parametric procedures in such a way that realistic levels of expression and variability are preserved in the simulated data. Throughout …