Computer Based School System Monitoring with Feedback to Teachers

in Proceedings of World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia and Telecommunications 2008 (2008), 2008(1), 5065-5070

Educational multimedia focuses traditionally on the design of computer aided learning environments. Evaluation has to be viewed as an essential part of the learning environment. Beyond opportunities ... [more ▼]

Educational multimedia focuses traditionally on the design of computer aided learning environments. Evaluation has to be viewed as an essential part of the learning environment. Beyond opportunities provided by its computerization (behaviours tracking, richer interactions, etc.), Computer Based Assessment provides teachers a measurement instrument where their students are put together with larger groups of students on the same assessment scale, using a unique competency model. It provides feedback to teachers that enable them to early detect shortcomings of their courses, pedagogical approach. ICT provides in this case a flexible way for the results collection, feedback reporting raising strengths and weaknesses, assurance of anonymity, data privacy. Moreover, it would give decision makers of the educational system information on the educational system steering efficiency. This paper describes ongoing assessment based on the TAO platform (http://www.tao.lu) with feedback to teachers done in Luxembourg. [less ▲]

L'influence du droit européen de la consommation sur le droit des contrats

in Droit & Patrimoine (2008)

Non-destructive Damage Assessment Using Non-linear Vibration

in International Modal Analysis Conference, IMAC-XXVI (2008)

The impact of assessment goals on representativeness biases in teachers' assessments

in International Journal of Psychology (2008), 43

Desirable Tie-breaking Rules in Collective Decision Making

in Annales du LAMSADE (2008)

Judgment aggregation (JA) studies how to aggregate individual judgments to form collective decisions. Examples are expert panels, legal courts, boards, and councils. The problems investigated in this new ... [more ▼]

Judgment aggregation (JA) studies how to aggregate individual judgments to form collective decisions. Examples are expert panels, legal courts, boards, and councils. The problems investigated in this new field are relevant and common to many situations. Nevertheless, the existing procedures are idealized and, likewise the related problems of preference aggregation in social choice theory, the field is plagued by impossibility theorems. In this paper, we extend standard JA in order to offer a more realistic framework and to escape the impossibility results. We propose to distinguish between abstainers and neutral judgment as well as to model the notion of confidence a group member may have in the decision rule by assigning to each criterion a normalized weight. We then show how this new framework may help us to avoid indecision in most cases. [less ▲]

Damage assessment of a gradually damaged pre-stressed concrete bridge using static load tests and non-linear vibration characteristic

in International Conference on Noise and Vibration Engineering (2008)

Bearing capacity of SFRC flat slabs with openings in the column area: experimental and numerical investigation

in Proceedings of the 7th RILEM-Symposium of Fiber Reinforced Concrete (2008)

Structural Health Monitoring of a Composite Bridge

in International Modal Analysis Conference (IMAC-XXVI) (2008)

Hedaquin: A reputation-based health data quality indicator

in Electronic Notes in Theoretical Computer Science (2008), 1997(2), 159-167

Verzerrte Aufmerksamkeitslenkung auf Heroinreize bei opioidsubstituierten Patienten

in Sucht (2008), 54(3), 155-155

Adaptive and Dynamic Intrusion Detection by Means of Idiotypic Networks Paradigm

in The 21th IEEE International Parallel and Distributed Processing Symposium (IPDPS), NIDISC Workshop. (2008)

In this paper we present a novel intrusion detection architecture based on Idiotypic Network Theory (INIDS), that aims at dealing with large scale network attacks featuring variable properties, like ... [more ▼]

In this paper we present a novel intrusion detection architecture based on Idiotypic Network Theory (INIDS), that aims at dealing with large scale network attacks featuring variable properties, like Denial of Service (DoS). The proposed architecture performs dynamic and adaptive clustering of the network traffic for taking fast and effective countermeasures against such high-volume attacks. INIDS is evaluated on the MIT'99 dataset and outperforms previous approaches for DoS detection applied to this set. [less ▲]

BODYF - A Parameterless Broadcasting Protocol over Dynamic Forests

in special session on Parallel and Grid Computing for Optimization as part of The 2008 International Conference High Performance Computing & Simulation (HPCS'08) and in conjunction with The 22nd European Conference on Modeling and Simulation (ECMS 2008) (2008)

Influence of Inelastic Processes on Fast-Atom-Surface Diffraction

in Journal of Physics: Conference Series (2008), 133

Diffraction of fast helium atoms at alkali-halide surfaces under grazing angles of incidence shows intriguing diffraction patterns. The persistence of quantum coherence is remarkably strong, even though ... [more ▼]

Diffraction of fast helium atoms at alkali-halide surfaces under grazing angles of incidence shows intriguing diffraction patterns. The persistence of quantum coherence is remarkably strong, even though high surface temperatures and high (keV) kinetic energies of the incident atoms would strongly suggest the dominance of dissipative and decohering processes. The main source of decoherence is the excitation or absorption of surface vibrations upon impact. The momentum transfer between the surface and the incident helium atom depends on the amplitude of the thermal vibrations of the surface atoms and the energy of the incident particle. We present an ab initio simulation of the quantum diffraction of fast helium beams at a LiF (100) surface in the < 110 > direction, and compare with recent experimental diffraction data. [less ▲]

Attack and Improvement of a Secure S-Box Calculation Based on the Fourier Transform

in Advances in Cryptography (2008)

Feedback Reduction in Uplink MIMO OFDM Systems by Chunk Optimization

in IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC) (2008)

Feedback design in multiuser MIMO systems using quantization splitting and hybrid instantaneous/statistical channel information

in Proceedings ICT Mobile and Wireless Communications Summit (2008)

In the design of next generation multiuser communication systems, multiple antenna transmission is an essential part providing spatial multiplexing gain and allowing efficient use of resources. A major ... [more ▼]

In the design of next generation multiuser communication systems, multiple antenna transmission is an essential part providing spatial multiplexing gain and allowing efficient use of resources. A major limiting factor in the resource allocation is the amount of channel state information (CSI) available at the transmitter, particularly in multiuser systems where the feedback from each user terminal must be limited. To this effect we propose two independent approaches for an efficient representation of the channel in multiuser MIMO systems. In the first approach, channel quantization is considered where the total number of feedback bits is limited. A resource allocation scheme is proposed where the available rate is split between the scheduling phase, where all users feed back a coarse CSI quantization, and the precoding phase where the selected receivers refine their CSI. The optimum splitting of the available feedback rate provides a large increase in performance and even simple heuristic splitting gives a noticeable advantage. In the second approach, we exploit a combination of instantaneous and statistical channel information. For spatially correlated Rayleigh and Ricean channels, it is shown that the CSI to large extent can be represented by the channel norm when the long-term channel statistics are known. Within a minimum mean square error (MMSE) estimation framework, feedback of a few bits of the quantized channel norm is sufficient to perform efficient resource allocation and achieve performance close to that of full CSI. [less ▲]

Value orientations and solidarity in intergenerational family relations

in Invited talk at the Colloquia Psychologica, Sminatio internazionale. Athenaeum Center for Family Studies and Research – Catholic University of Milan, Milan, Italy. (2008)

A New DPA Countermeasure Based on Permutation Tables

in Advances in Cryptography (2008)

A Generic Weaver for supporting Product Lines

in Early Aspects Workshop at E (2008)

A web-based quality control system for assessment processes

in International Journal of Psychology (2008), 43

Computer-Based School System Monitoring with Feedback to Teachers

in Proceedings of World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia and Telecommunications (2008)

Educational multimedia focuses traditionally on the design of computer aided learning environments. Evaluation has to be viewed as an essential part of the learning environment. Beyond opportunities ... [more ▼]

Educational multimedia focuses traditionally on the design of computer aided learning environments. Evaluation has to be viewed as an essential part of the learning environment. Beyond opportunities provided by its computerization (behaviours tracking, richer interactions, etc.), Computer Based Assessment provides teachers a measurement instrument where their students are put together with larger groups of students on the same assessment scale, using a unique competency model. It provides feedback to teachers that enable them to early detect shortcomings of their courses, pedagogical approach. ICT provides in this case a flexible way for the results collection, feedback reporting raising strengths and weaknesses, assurance of anonymity, data privacy. Moreover, it would give decision makers of the educational system information on the educational system steering efficiency. This paper describes ongoing assessment based on the TAO platform with feedback to teachers done in Luxembourg. [less ▲]

TAO: Paving the Way New Assessment Instruments using an open and versatile Computer-Based Platform

in International Journal of Psychology (2008), 43

Stress: a second chance to consolidate your first impression

in Abstracts - Society for Neuroscience (2008), 38

A nation-wide, computer-based school monitoring program

in International Journal of Psychology (2008), 43(3/4), 860-862

Doppler-Variant Modeling of the Vocal Tract

in Proceedings of IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing (2008)

A common technique to deploy linear prediction to non-stationary signals is time segmentation and local analysis. Variations of a process within such a segment cause inaccuracies. In this paper, we model ... [more ▼]

A common technique to deploy linear prediction to non-stationary signals is time segmentation and local analysis. Variations of a process within such a segment cause inaccuracies. In this paper, we model the temporal changes of linear prediction coef?cients (LPCs) as a Fourier series. We obtain a compact description of the vocal tract model limited by the predictor order and the maximum Doppler frequency. Filter stability is guaranteed by all-pass ?ltering, deploying the human ear?s insensitivity to absolute phase. The periodicity constraint induced by the Fourier series is counteracted by oversampling in the Doppler domain. With this approach, the number of coef?cients required for the vocal tract modeling is signi?cantly reduced compared to a LPC system with block-wise adaptation while exceeding its prediction gain. As a by-product it is found that the Doppler frequency of the vocal tract is in the order of 10 Hz. A generalization of the algorithm to an auto-regressive moving average model with time-correlated ?lter coef?cients is straight forward. [less ▲]

Computation of Moments in the Trellis

in Proceedings of IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory (2008)

Decisions on sources with memory transmitted over independent channels can be taken by employing trellis calculations. In this paper, it is shown that for a certain class of functions their moments can be ... [more ▼]

Decisions on sources with memory transmitted over independent channels can be taken by employing trellis calculations. In this paper, it is shown that for a certain class of functions their moments can be computed in the trellis, too. This is done by generalizing the forward/backward recursion known from the BCJR algorithm [1]. In analogy to the symbol probabilities, by introducing a constraint at a certain depth in the trellis we obtain symbol moments. These moments are required for an ef?cient implementation of the discriminated belief propagation algorithm in [2], and can furthermore be utilized to compute conditional entropies in the trellis. The moment computation algorithm has the same asymptotic complexity as the BCJR algorithm. It is applicable to any commutative semi-ring, thus also providing a generalization of the Viterbi algorithm [3]. [less ▲]

Antidepressive therapy with escitalopram improves mood, cognitive symptoms, and identity memory for angry faces in elderly depressed patients

in European Psychiatry (2008), 23(Supplement 2), 206-206

On quantum and classical Poisson algebras

in Banach Center Publications (2007), 76

Development of Light Concrete Bricks with Improved Heat-Insulating Properties

in Proceedings of the third Scottish Conference for Postgraduate Researchers of the Built & Natural Environment – ProBE 2007 (2007)

Adding Roles to Relationship Patterns

in Proceedings of WOA07 (2007)

In this paper we study how roles can be added to patterns modelling relationships in Object Oriented programming, and which new relationship patterns can be introduced using roles. Relationships can be ... [more ▼]

In this paper we study how roles can be added to patterns modelling relationships in Object Oriented programming, and which new relationship patterns can be introduced using roles. Relationships can be introduced in programming languages either by reducing them to attributes of the objects which participate in the relationship, or by modelling the relationship itself as a class whose instances have the participants of the relationships among their attributes. However, even if roles have been recognized as an essential component of relationships, also in modelling languages like UML, they have not been introduced in Object Oriented programming when it is necessary to model relationships. Introducing roles allows to add attributes and behaviors to the participants in the relationship, rather than to the relationship itself, and to distinguish natural types as classes participating in the relationships from the roles the participants acquire in the relationships. In this paper we show how the role model proposed in powerJava can be used to endow relationships with roles, both in the relationship as attribute and in the relationship object pattern. Finally, since these patterns have different advantages and limitations, we propose a third pattern based on roles which benefits from the advantages of the two previous patterns when modelling relationships. [less ▲]

Health status among French, Polish and Romanian students

in Health Psychology and Society. Congressboock (2007)

Research question. Students face many school and living difficulties which alter health status and favour substance use which were assessed in this study among university students from France, Poland and ... [more ▼]

Research question. Students face many school and living difficulties which alter health status and favour substance use which were assessed in this study among university students from France, Poland and Romania. Methods. In total 934 French, 480 Polish, and 195 Romanian students from the Universities of Metz, Iaşi, and Silésie, completed a self-administred questionnaire. The data were analyzed using adjusted odds ratios (OR) and variance analysis taking age and sex into account, vs. French. Results. Mean age 20 (SD = 2) years. Female represented 58% French and 80% Polish/Romanian. Although most students were satisfied with their university integration (81-97%), many students had deteriorated heath status compared with the period before the university (13-22%), suffered from tiredness (11-85%), nervousness (42-56%), sleep disorders (19-48%), financial difficulty (15-39%), and being alone (8-23%). Were also common increasing tobacco use (15-32%), alcohol use every day (15-40%), tranquilizer pill use (1-6%), hashish/marijuana use (2-42%), suicide thinking (15-19%), and frequent consultation of health professionals (7-30%). Bad heath status was more frequent among French and Romanian overall, and suicide thinking among Polish. Higher PSS-14 and GHQ-12 scores among Polish compared with their French counterparts who used more hashish/marijuana. Satisfied social support was similar between the three groups. Conclusion. A better guidance for those who are in need of adapted mental health care seem nevertheless recommended to support them through their university success. [less ▲]

The Influence of Central Alpha2-Adrenoreceptor Agonism and Antagonism on the Cardiac Modulation of Acoustic Startle

in Psychophysiology (2007), 44(Supplement 1), 29-29

What You should Believe

in Proceedings of The 19th Belgian-Dutch Conference on Artificial Intelligence (BNAIC 2007) (2007)

Improvement of Load Bearing Capacity in Design of Anchor Plates with Headed Shear Studs in Concrete Columns

in 2nd International Symposium on Connections between Steel and Concrete (2007)

A typical constructional solution for load bearing elements at the intersection between steel and concrete in high-rise- as well as multi-storey-buildings is the anchor plate in steel. Tests on the ... [more ▼]

A typical constructional solution for load bearing elements at the intersection between steel and concrete in high-rise- as well as multi-storey-buildings is the anchor plate in steel. Tests on the positive effects of reinforcement in constructions with small edge distances such as columns and wall edges show that the design solutions still can be improved compared to the regulations in technical approvals. The ambition of this research is the determination of the load flux between anchor plate, concrete and reinforcement, improved design and use of shear/tension hanger reinforcement, reduction of allowable edge distances and increase of allowable load in combination with reinforcement. Tests with different topologies of anchor plates and concrete structures were conducted. Explored are the ultimate forces in correlation to edge distance, anchorage reinforcement and load eccentricity. These forces are compared to ultimate allowable forces which are calculated according to current technical approvals for headed studs. [less ▲]

Aspects of Steel Structures in Marine Environment including Corrosion Using Eurocode 3 and National Annex

in Aspects of Steel Structures in Marine Environment including Corrosion Using Eurocode 3 and National Annex (2007)

Steel structures in the marine environment like Steel Sheet Pile walls at quays and harbors, undergo continuous corrosion subjected to prolong sea water environment. The design of these steel structures ... [more ▼]

Steel structures in the marine environment like Steel Sheet Pile walls at quays and harbors, undergo continuous corrosion subjected to prolong sea water environment. The design of these steel structures currently is been practiced by using respective national annexure in alliance with the Eurocodes. But the correct statistical properties which fit into the semi-probabilistic safety concept of the Eurocodes still have to be determined. Steel Sheet pile retaining walls will obligatorily be analyzed according to the Eurocodes on and after the year 2010 [1]. Eurocodes 1 and 3 for load assumptions and structural steel design are introduced to various countries by building authorities even now. The work on Eurocodes 1997-1:2004 has been recently completed; to focus on the harmonization of all the national annexures and an economical design of steel sheet piles must guaranteed remain. The current paper highlights mainly upon the difference in the design aspects with special consideration to the usage of partial safety factor dealt in the Eurocodes, versus using initial practice of the respective national annexure and various geotechnical factors affecting the same. Analytical examples of typical cross sections of sheet piles will be evaluated using annexure and in conjunction with Eurocode and FEM packages. [less ▲]

Full Diversity Detection in MIMO Systems with a Fixed-Complexity Sphere Decoder

in Proceedings IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing (2007)

L'énergie éolienne en Allemagne entre succès et opposition

in Actes du Festival International de Géographie du 4 au 7 octobre 2007, La planète en mal d’énergies, St. Dié (2007)

Spaces - A Replication Scheme for Sharing Tagged Files in Hybrid Wireless Networks

in International Conference on Mobile Ubiquitous Computing, Systems, Services and Technologies (UBICOMM 2007) (2007)

Do male and female adolescents differ in the effect of individual and family characteristics on their use of psychotropic drugs?

in Abstract book of 10th European Congress of Psychology (2007)

Objectives. To assess the effects of individual and family characteristics on psychotropic drug use among male and female adolescents. Design and methods. The sample included 2,396 subjects attending two ... [more ▼]

Objectives. To assess the effects of individual and family characteristics on psychotropic drug use among male and female adolescents. Design and methods. The sample included 2,396 subjects attending two middle schools and two high schools. Respondents completed self-administered questionnaires covering gender, age, body mass index, smoking, alcohol use, illicit drug use, tiredness during the daytime, self-reported personality traits, family conditions, and psychotropic drug use. The data were analyzed using logistic models. Results. The prevalence of frequent psychotropic drug use (for headache, tiredness, nervousness/anxiety, insomnia) was 43.0% overall; twice as high among girls than boys. In girls, frequent psychotropic drug use was associated with frequent tiredness during the daytime (adjusted odds ratio OR 2.03, 95%CI 1.61-2.57), smoking (2.02, 1.50-2.71), alcohol use (1.34, 1.04-1.74), higher body mass index (18 kg/m2, 1.54, 1.16-2.04), poor family atmosphere (1.33, 1.03-1.72), and being worried (1.93, 1.53-2.43) or easily becoming irritable (1.28, 1.01-1.62). In boys the factors with significant ORs were frequent tiredness during the daytime (2.21, 1.67-2.93), alcohol use (1.52, 1.15-2.01), and being worried (1.70, 1.28-2.26) or easily becoming irritable (1.42, 1.06-1.89); univariate analysis revealed a significant relationship with smoking and family atmosphere. An association was also observed for illicit drug in both sexes and for age17 years in girls. Conclusions. Individual and family characteristics have marked influences on psychotropic drug use among both male and female adolescents. This finding may be useful for the psychologists, the physicians, the parents and the school staff to be more aware of the risks and to find remedial measures. [less ▲]

Breaking the silence – Mortality salience, state anxiety and coping strategies in the context of cancer

in Abstract paper of the Annual Conference of the Canadian Association of Psychosocial Oncology. Winnipeg, Canada (2007)

SANA - Network Protection through artificial Immunity

in Abstract book of 2nd International Workshop on Theory of Computer Viruses (TCV 2007) (2007)

On the Integration of Mobility in a Fault-Tolerant e-HealthWeb Information System

in Advanced Information Networking and Applications Workshops, 2007, AINAW '07. 21st International Conference on (Volume:2 ) (2007)

The e-health domain has for objective to assist and manage citizens health. It concerns many actors like patient, doctors, hospitals and administration. Current and forthcoming generations of application ... [more ▼]

The e-health domain has for objective to assist and manage citizens health. It concerns many actors like patient, doctors, hospitals and administration. Current and forthcoming generations of application will be web based and will integrate more and more mobile devices. In such application domain, dependability is a key notion. This paper presents, through a case study, how we can develop an application that controls the insulin injection and that is embedded in a mobile device belonging to an e-health Web Information System (WIS). In order to ensure the dependability of the control systems, we show how to use Coordinated Atomic Actions (CAA). In order to implement our design, we explain how to use a development framework that we have made to implement CAA, which originally was not tailored for mobile fault-tolerant applications. Thus, in this paper, we also explain how we have adapted and used CAA-DRIP for mobile devices. [less ▲]

Grandparents and Grandchildren: Relationship Quality and Perceived Support

in Abstract book of 13th European Conference on Developmental Psychology (2007)

Associations of deprivation with musculoskeletal, cardiovascular, respiratory diseases and disabilities

in Psychology and Health (2007)

On The Road Towards The Comprehension Of The Internet Traffic Behavior: Simulation And Analysis Of An End-To-End Connection With NS-2

in Abstract book of 10th Communications and Networking Simulation Symposium CNS'07 (2007), (Proceedings of the 10th Communications and Networking Simulation Symposium CNS'07 Norfolk Marriott Waterside, Norfolk, VA, USA, March 25 - 29, 2007),

Collaborative Filtering in Artefact-based m-Learning Environments

in International Workshop on Mobile and Ubiquitous Learning Environments (MULE 2007) held in conjunction with 15th International Conference on Computers in Education (ICCE 2007) (2007)

A Normative Multi-Agent Systems Approach to the Use of Conviviality for Digital Cities

in Coordination, Organizations, Institutions, and Norms in Agent Systems III (2007)

A Certified Email Protocol Using Key Chains

in Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Advanced Information Networking and Applications Workshops - Volume 01 (AINAW'07) (2007)

Absorption of BN nanotubes under the influence of a perpendicular electric field

in Physica Status Solidi B. Basic Research (2007), 244(11), 4288-4292

We calculate the optical absorption spectra of prototype (6,6) and (9,9) BN nanotubes in the presence of a perpendicular electric field. This model mimics a gated BN nanotube device. Even though the band ... [more ▼]

We calculate the optical absorption spectra of prototype (6,6) and (9,9) BN nanotubes in the presence of a perpendicular electric field. This model mimics a gated BN nanotube device. Even though the band-gap of the tubes decreases strongly as a function of the electric field strength, the absorption spectrum of the pure tubes remains remarkably constant up to high field-strength. We show that, in contrast, the levels which are responsible for defect-mediated photo-luminescence are shifted by the electric field. We address the use of BN nanotubes for optoelectronic applications. 0 2007 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim. [less ▲]

Low energy quasiparticle dispersion of graphite by angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy

in Physica Status Solidi B. Basic Research (2007), 244(11), 4129-4133

The low energy electron dispersion in graphite is measured by angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy. The measured photoemission intensity maxima are compared to a tight-binding calculation of the ... [more ▼]

The low energy electron dispersion in graphite is measured by angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy. The measured photoemission intensity maxima are compared to a tight-binding calculation of the electronic band structure. We observe a strong trigonal warping of the equi-energy contour which is well reproduced by the calculations. Furthermore we clearly show that the concept of Dirac Fermions breaks down for AB stacked graphite. (c) 2007 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim. [less ▲]