Using Space-based Data for Humanitarian Causes

in ROOM: The Space Journal (2018)

Using the Blockchain Technology for Trust Improvement of Processes in Logistics and Transportation

Doctoral thesis (2021)

This thesis address the general problem of safe and secure transport of dangerous goods (TDG). The TDG is very complicated to manage because of risk for the environment and human life. Currently, it ... [more ▼]

This thesis address the general problem of safe and secure transport of dangerous goods (TDG). The TDG is very complicated to manage because of risk for the environment and human life. Currently, it suffers from a lack of efficiency, trust, and t ransparency. In this thesis, we propose a novel method to specify the workflow aspects of TDG by considering all TDG process stages during its entire lifecycle. This method aims to facilitate the specifications of the TDG workflow management system that is entirely based on existing regulatory frameworks ensuring the compliance, trust, and transparency of all underlying processes. The proposed system design method is based on the so-called model-driven architecture (MDA) approach and enhancing it to consider blockchain properties. The first stage is the formal analysis of the process of TDG and its alignment with the regulatory frameworks. The proposed design method aims, at this stage, to allow the formal definition and verification of the design of the system with regard to the regulatory frameworks. The next stages of the method rely strongly on the model transformation that is a salient aspect of the proposed design method. Model transformation allows to automatically discover peer system components and authorized interactions. The last stage of the whole model transformations is the specification of digital twin profiles for all potential s t akeholders. All the interactions in the real world between stakeholders are transformed into interactions in the digital world, while the interactions with the environment are achieved through the use of IoT. The proposed approach enables interactions between components of the systems (digital twins, IoT devices, etc.) only if this is compliant with the regulatory framework. Thanks to blockchain technology, our design method allows improving trust and transparency in the process of TDG from the perspective of stakeholder collaborations. Smart contract technological capabilities are also a cornerstone of the proposed solution. This thesis also contributes to improving the semantic of smart contracts to capture supply chain management specifications as well as dangerous goods specificities in terms of t ransportation. Dynamic concepts related to the supply chain management of dangerous goods such as time-related and geographic constraints, digital certification, anomaly detection and multi-party smart contract, managing emergencies, and shared responsibility have been addressed at the level of the smart contract. In particular, this thesis proposes applying temporal logic for the formal specification and verification of smart contracts. This thesis proposes an integrated approach for blockchain and IoT to support the dynamic aspects in the supply chain of dangerous goods. Data collected from various IoT devices along the physical supply chain (goods, vehicles, country borders, etc.) are transmitted to the blockchain and further processed by the system following the workflow logic that was specified and automatically triggering related smart contracts and corresponding actions. The last contribution in this thesis is the implementation of a proof-of-concept system to validate the different aspects of the contribution, namely the design method, the trust and transparency assurance, and the automatic triggering of actions and information flows. [less ▲]

Using the Empowerment Scale with unemployed people in lifelong learning: Is the tool sound and useful?

in Psychology Research (2016), 6(11), 648-659

Empowerment is a widely used construct in research on social work, mental health and community interventions, but has only been exploited indirectly with the unemployed. But job finding is an important ... [more ▼]

Empowerment is a widely used construct in research on social work, mental health and community interventions, but has only been exploited indirectly with the unemployed. But job finding is an important dimension of empowerment and could be used to test the accuracy of the concept and of its measures. The Making Decisions Empowerment Scale was used with 97 unemployed people who had been jobless for 6 months. Even though the psychometric qualities of the 5 subscales and the total scale were mixed, convergent and discriminant validity with several adaptive and non-adaptive dimensions could be established for the global scale and for the Esteem, Power, Control and, to a lesser degree, the Activism subscales. The results were only marginally better for the 28 items global scale compared to the 9 items Esteem scale. Empowerment could be adequately modelled by using three dimensions: change coping, depression, and chance control of unemployment. Comparing 6 months later those who had found a job with the still unemployed, the 2 groups differed significantly on 2 of the 5 subscales (Activism and Control) though not on the total empowerment scale, nor on the other psychometric scales. The results throw some doubt on the accuracy of an aggregate measure that sums up divergent dimensions. Instead, it is proposed that more specific and individualized constructs be used, at least in unemployment research. [less ▲]

Using the Intergeo Platform for Teaching and Research

in Bardini, Caroline; Fortin, Philippe; Oldknow, Adrian (Eds.) et al Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Technology in Mathematics Teaching (2009)

The main objective of the Intergeo Project (http://i2geo.net) is to make digital content for mathematics teaching in Europe more accessible, usable and exploitable. So far, Intergeo provides an Internet ... [more ▼]

The main objective of the Intergeo Project (http://i2geo.net) is to make digital content for mathematics teaching in Europe more accessible, usable and exploitable. So far, Intergeo provides an Internet platform that offers content in a searchable and metadata-tagged form. In particular, teachers can search for suitable content based on the key concepts and themes of their curriculum. Once found, the content can be used either directly on the web or using the software of choice. Another very important aspect is that all material used in the classroom should adhere to certain pedagogical and mathematical quality standards. Intergeo facilitates the evaluation of material by means of a quality-testing framework that aids teachers and researchers in assessing the educational value of the digital content. The questionnaire used for this can be answered both quickly as well as in depth. In this workshop we will show how to use the platform and how to participate in the project as a user or by becoming an associate partner. Also, we will help software and tool authors to be able to read and write the new standard format for interactive geometry, i2g. [less ▲]

Using the LLTM to evaluate an item-generating system for reading comprehension

in Psychology Science Quarterly (2008), 50(3), 345-362

Due to inconclusive findings concerning the components responsible for the difficulty of reading comprehension items, this paper attempts to set up an item-generating system using hypothesis-driven ... [more ▼]

Due to inconclusive findings concerning the components responsible for the difficulty of reading comprehension items, this paper attempts to set up an item-generating system using hypothesis-driven modeling of item complexity applying Fischer’s (1973) linear logistic test model (LLTM) to a German reading comprehension test. This approach guarantees an evaluation of the postulated item-generating system; moreover construct validity of the administered test is investigated. Previous findings in this field are considered; additionally, some text features are introduced to this debate and their impact on item difficulty is discussed. Results once more show a strong influence of formal components (e.g. the number of presented response options in a multiple-choice-format), but also indicate how this effect can be minimized. [less ▲]

Using the Moles and the Mini Moles software sytem to bridge the gap between indoor and outdoor learning experiences

in IADIS International Journal on WWW/Internet (2006), 4(2), 48-58

Using the theory of planned behavior to identify key beliefs underlying pro-environmental behavior in high-school students: Implications for educational interventions

in Journal of Environmental Psychology (2015)

Using UML for Modeling Procedural Legal Rules: Approach and a Study of Luxembourg’s Tax Law

in 17th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Model Driven Engineering Languages and Systems (MODELS'14) (2014)

Many laws, e.g., those concerning taxes and social benefits, need to be operationalized and implemented into public administration procedures and eGovernment applications. Where such operationalization is ... [more ▼]

Many laws, e.g., those concerning taxes and social benefits, need to be operationalized and implemented into public administration procedures and eGovernment applications. Where such operationalization is warranted, the legal frameworks that interpret the underlying laws are typically prescriptive, providing procedural rules for ensuring legal compliance. We propose a UML-based approach for modeling pro- cedural legal rules. With help from legal experts, we investigate actual legal texts, identifying both the information needs and sources of com- plexity in the formalization of procedural legal rules. Building on this study, we develop a UML profile that enables more precise modeling of such legal rules. To be able to use logic-based tools for compliance analysis, we automatically transform models of procedural legal rules into the Object Constraint Language (OCL). We report on an application of our approach to Luxembourg’s Income Tax Law providing initial evidence for the feasibility and usefulness of our approach. [less ▲]

Using Virtual Desktop Infrastructure to Improve Power Efficiency in Grinfy System

in IEEE 8th International Conference on Cloud Computing Technology and Science(CloudCom), Luxembourg 2016 (2016, December 13)

Saving power becomes one of the main objectives in information technology industry and research. Companies consume a lot of money in the shape of power consuming. Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) is a ... [more ▼]

Saving power becomes one of the main objectives in information technology industry and research. Companies consume a lot of money in the shape of power consuming. Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) is a new shape of delivering operating systems remotely. Operating systems are executing in a cloud data center. Users desktops and applications can be accessed by using thin client devices. Thin client device is consisting of screen attached with small CPU. VDI has benefits in terms of cost reduction and energy saving. In this paper, we increase the power saved by Grinfy system. Without VDI, Grinfy can save at least 30% of energy consumption to its users companies. By integrating VDI in computing systems and using Grinfy, the power efficiency and saving can be improved and save more than 30%. The improving and increasing of energy saving features of VDI are also illustrated by experiment and will be integrated to Grinfy system to increase percentage of energy saved. [less ▲]

Using word vector models to trace conceptual change over time and space in historical newspapers, 1840–1914

in Digital Humanities Quarterly (2022), 16(2),

Linking large digitized newspaper corpora in different languages that have become available in national and state libraries opens up new possibilities for the computational analysis of patterns of ... [more ▼]

Linking large digitized newspaper corpora in different languages that have become available in national and state libraries opens up new possibilities for the computational analysis of patterns of information flow across national and linguistic boundaries. The significant contribution this article presents is to demonstrate how word vector models can be used to explore the way concepts have shifted in meaning over time, as they migrated across space, by comparing newspapers from different countries published between 1840 and 1914. We define a concept, rather pragmatically, as a key term or core idea that has been used in historical discourse: an abstraction or mental representation that has served as a building block for thoughts and beliefs. We use historical newspapers in English, Finnish, German and Swedish from collections in the UK, US, Germany, and Finland, as well as the Europeana collection. As use cases, we analyze how the different conceptual constructs of “nation” and “illness” emerged and changed between 1840 and 1920. Conceptual change over time is simulated by creating a series of overlapping word vector models, each spanning ten years. Historical vocabularies are retrieved on the basis of vector space proximity. Conceptual change across space is simulated by comparing the historical change of vocabularies in newspaper collections from different nations in several languages. This computational approach to conceptual history opens up new ways to identify patterns in public discourse over longer periods of time and across borders. [less ▲]