Development of the knowledge‐based learning system for distance education

This article addresses difficulties in developing a knowledge base for application to educational environments. To solve this problem, fundamental principles used for building similar systems are proposed. A mathematical model is chosen to propose a mathematical design of educational materials based on linguistic variables. A membership function of knowledge evaluation and an architecture of fuzzy knowledge were created, on the basis of a set of two types of fuzzy rules that cover all possible situations in the educational environment, with a demonstration of its application based on the original method of selection questions for procedure evaluation of student knowledge. In the end, the studies analyzing the utility of the experiment clearly showed an increase in the efficiency of the educational process, with the advantage of applied models and technologies in the long term. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Multi‐agent system for knowledge‐based event recognition and composition

This work presents a multi‐agent system for knowledge‐based high‐level event composition, which interprets activities, behaviour and situations semantically in a scenario with multi‐sensory monitoring. A perception agent (plurisensory agent and visual agent)‐based structure is presented. The agents process the sensor information and identify (agent decision system) significant changes in the monitored signals, which they send as simple events to the composition agent that searches for and identifies pre‐defined patterns as higher‐level semantic composed events. The structure has a methodology and a set of tools that facilitate its development and application to different fields without having to start from scratch. This creates an environment to develop knowledge‐based systems generally for event composition. The application task of our work is surveillance, and event composition/inference examples are shown which characterize an alarming situation in the scene and resolve identification and tracking problems of people in the scenario being monitored.     

A knowledge‐structure‐based adaptive dynamic assessment system for calculus learning

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of a calculus system that was designed using an adaptive dynamic assessment (DA) framework on performance in the “finding an area using an integral”. In this study, adaptive testing and dynamic assessment were combined to provide different test items depending on students’ abilities. Prompts were provided from among various options. Two hundred fifty‐seven freshmen from one public university in Taiwan participated in the study. The pre‐test was held within one week after the examinees learned how to find an area using an integral. Remedial instruction was completed within two weeks, and the students were administered the post‐ test. Two weeks after the administration of the post‐test, a delayed post‐test was administered to evaluate the students’ retention. When an examinee responded to an item correctly, he received a score. Otherwise, the student was given a prompt. In this study, five experimental groups were compared: three different DA groups, one self‐study group and one remedial group instruction. The results of the study revealed that the instructive effect of the adaptive dynamic assessment approach (the third DA group) was the best and that the proposed methods helped students improve their learning performance.     

Kinetic analysis of manual lifting activities: Part I—Development of a three-dimensional computer model

This paper, the first of a series of two papers, presents the development of a three-dimensional dynamic biomechanical model for analyzing spinal stresses generated in individuals while lifting materials manually. A comparison between model predicted and actual measured ground reaction forces indicates that the proposed model represents significant improvements over existing biomechanical models developed to date for this purpose.     

Translating the impact of knowledge management into knowledge‐based innovation: The neglected and mediating role of knowledge‐worker satisfaction

The purpose of knowledge management is innovation. However, this study proposes that the existence of knowledge management in the knowledge‐worker's work environment can nurture the overall satisfaction of knowledge worker. As the ultimate purpose of knowledge management is innovation performance, therefore, the satisfaction of knowledge worker as an outcome of knowledge management should be greater innovation performance. Consequently, the purpose of this study is to test the mediating role of satisfaction of knowledge worker between knowledge management and innovation. The study collected the data from 306 knowledge workers (engineers and managers) of software houses from Pakistan. The SmartPLS 3 Version 2.7 software that uses the PLS‐SEM (Partial Least Square‐Structural Equation Modelling) technique was used. The results indicate that satisfaction of knowledge worker mediates between two knowledge management processes (knowledge creation and knowledge sharing) and innovation significantly. However, it does not mediate between knowledge utilization and innovation significantly.     

Tool writing: a forgotten art? (software tools)

The author decided to create a tool to fit the needs. In the process, the author discovered something important: writing stand-alone tools that you can combine efficiently with others to handle more demanding tasks appears to be becoming a forgotten art. The author created a metric tool, named ckjm, using the design principles the author outlined earlier. The tool operates on a list of compiled Java classes specified as arguments or read from its standard input. It then prints to its standard output a single line for each class, containing the class name and the six metrics values. Ant Java-based build tool and adding an XML output option.     

Lung metastasis detection and visualization on CT images: a knowledge‐based method

A solution to the problem of lung metastasis detection on computed tomography (CT) scans of the thorax is presented. A knowledge‐based top‐down approach for image interpretation is used. The method is inspired by the manner in which a radiologist and radiotherapist interpret CT images before radiotherapy is planned. A two‐dimensional followed by a three‐dimensional analysis is performed. The algorithm first detects the thorax contour, the lungs and the ribs, which further help the detection of metastases. Thus, two types of tumors are detected: nodules and metastases located at the lung extremities. A method to visualize the anatomical structures segmented is also presented. The system was tested on 20 patients (988 total images) from the Oncology Department of La Chaux‐de‐Fonds Hospital and the results show that the method is reliable as a computer‐aided diagnostic tool for clinical purpose in an oncology department. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A design for a common‐sense knowledge‐enhanced decision‐support system: Integration of high‐frequency market data and real‐time news

According to efficient markets theory, information is an important factor that affects market performance and serves as a source of first‐hand evidence in decision making, in particular with the rapid rise of Internet technologies in recent years. However, a lack of knowledge and inference ability prevents current decision support systems from processing the wide range of available information. In this paper, we propose a common‐sense knowledge‐supported news model. Compared with previous work, our model is the first to incorporate broad common‐sense knowledge into a decision support system, thereby improving the news analysis process through the application of a graphic random‐walk framework. Prototype and experiments based on Hong Kong stock market data have demonstrated that common‐sense knowledge is an important factor in building financial decision models that incorporate news information.     

Daily living activities in older adults: Part I—a review of physical activity and dietary intake assessment methods

The aging process is expected to change advanced activities of daily living (such as employment and work activities), to basic activities of daily living (BADL; such as self-care activities, which is also considered work among older adults). In effect, older adults spend more energy on physical activities related to BADL, compared to heavy physical activity in any industrial work. Hence, accurate assessment of the type and extent of physical activity becomes critical for estimation of the activity metabolism, especially in older adults. Once an assessment of activity metabolism is made, energy balance can be quantified by comparing energy expenditure (including resting activity, and digestive metabolism) with caloric intake. Instruments and techniques available to quantify physical activity in older adults, and caloric intake in older adults are reviewed in this paper. The emphasis in this review is on questionnaire-based instruments that minimize burden on the investigator and the participant. Validity and reliability of the assessment instruments are also discussed.

Relevance to industry

Since most work activities requiring energy expenditure among older adults, especially retirees, consist of BADL, accurate assessment of activity metabolism and dietary intake is necessary for designing these work activities for older adults.     

Seine: a dynamic geometry‐based shared‐space interaction framework for parallel scientific applications

While large‐scale parallel/distributed simulations are rapidly becoming critical research modalities in academia and industry, their efficient and scalable implementations continue to present many challenges. A key challenge is that the dynamic and complex communication/coordination required by these applications (dependent on the state of the phenomenon being modeled) are determined by the specific numerical formulation, the domain decomposition and/or sub‐domain refinement algorithms used, etc. and are known only at runtime. This paper presents Seine, a dynamic geometry‐based shared‐space interaction framework for scientific applications. The framework provides the flexibility of shared‐space‐based models and supports extremely dynamic communication/coordination patterns, while still enabling scalable implementations. The design and prototype implementation of Seine are presented. Seine complements and can be used in conjunction with existing parallel programming systems such as MPI and OpenMP. An experimental evaluation using an adaptive multi‐block oil‐reservoir simulation is used to demonstrate the performance and scalability of applications using Seine. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

GPROC—an integrated system for the processing of numerical scientific data

Work done on an interactive graphical processing system is described. An overview is given of the uses to which a system could be put, with especial reference to aspects of solid state physics. Algorithms which may be usefully included in such a system, when used in a technical scientific environment, are described. The problems of implementing such a system on small microcomputer systems are outlined, and some possible areas of future development are discussed.     

An accurate physical knowledge‐based model for behavioral modeling and digital predistortion of power amplifiers

The objective of this article is to present an accurate model for behavioral modeling and digital predistortion of power amplifiers (PAs) using physical knowledge. Starting with the physically meaningful block model, we present a novel approach to simplify the block model and propose a simplified physical knowledge‐based (SPK) model. The SPK model's performance was experimentally assessed by two types of PAs (a LDMOS Doherty PA and a GaN Doherty PA) and two signals (a single carrier 16QAM signal and a 2‐carrier WCDMA signal). All experimental results prove the superiority of the SPK model. Compared with the 1st‐dynamic deviation reduction (DDR) approach and the 2nd‐simplified DDR approach, the SPK approach achieves average ACPR improvements of 4.4 dB and 2.5 dB, respectively. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J RF and Microwave CAE 23: 682–689, 2013.     

Estimation of radiation characteristics of different slotted microstrip antennas using a knowledge‐based neural networks model

In this article, a common neural model incorporated with prior knowledge is suggested for estimating radiation characteristics (i.e., resonance frequencies, gains, directivities, antenna efficiencies, and radiation efficiencies) of four‐slotted microstrip antennas with inserted air‐gap for dual‐frequency operation. By incorporating prior knowledge in the existing neural networks, the required numbers of training patterns are drastically reduced. Further, the proposed approach is capable for accurately estimating the radiation characteristics in extrapolation region too. The proposed neural approach is also validated with measured results. A very good agreement is achieved in simulated, estimated, and measured results. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J RF and Microwave CAE 24:673–680, 2014.     

Expert system for castability evaluation: Using a fixed-features based design approach

In the metal-processing industry, casting is the most popular means for achieving a desired shape (net shape) in a single step. The purpose of this work is to predict possible casting defects at the design stage in order to minimize repeated trial and error in the casting process. A knowledge-based expert system called EXCAST has been developed to facilitate the design of axisymmetrical casting components and to evaluate the manufacturability of the design at the design stage using a fixed-features based design approach. Axisymmetrical casting parts are modeled into a simplified fixed-feature representation so that we can (i) simplify a complex geometrical shape for manufacturability evaluation, (ii) extract common rules for manufacturability evaluation, and (iii) produce a simple and dynamic database for use in other systems. The manufacturability evaluation is carried out for tolerancing, minimum thickness, draft angle, shrinkage, hot junction, parting line, rounding, boss, and solidification. The EXCAST system was tested for eight flywheels in production and found to predict major casting problems.     

The effect of process tailoring on software project performance: The role of team absorptive capacity and its knowledge‐based enablers

Software process tailoring (SPT) is a team‐based and learning‐intensive activity that addresses the particular dynamic characteristics of a development project. Because SPT critically influences how projects are conducted, its performance should be investigated. However, the extant literature lacks empirical evidence on how the underlying effects of SPT performance and its team‐supportive factors operate and influence software project performance. From the knowledge perspective, this study adopts dynamic capabilities theory and considers the learning ability and absorptive capacity of software project teams to develop a theoretical model to address this gap. The results of an empirical examination of the model with 135 software project teams advance our understanding of how team‐level learning antecedents—experience, communication quality and trust—dynamically facilitate teams' absorptive capacity (AC) when they conduct SPT, which in turn reinforces project performance. The mediating effects of the proposed model are unveiled and discussed, and theoretical implications as well as practical guidance for how AC and these factors promote SPT and project performance are suggested.     

Task‐based conceptual graphs as a basis for automating software development

It is widely recognized that requirements engineering is a knowledge‐intensive process and cannot be dealt with using only a few general principles. Since knowledge plays a crucial role in software development, software engineers have to describe and organize various aspects of knowledge before the program can be written. A recent work by Robillard reveals that software development can be further improved by recognizing the relevant knowledge structures. In this paper, we propose the use of a task‐based conceptual graphs (TBCB) framework as a basis for automating software development. By structuring and operationalizing conceptual graphs, TBCG specifications can be transformed into executable programs automatically. To construct a conceptual model, task‐based specification methodology is used as the mechanism to structure the knowledge captured in conceptual models, whereas conceptual graphs are adopted as the formalism to express task‐based specifications and to provide a reasoning capability for the purpose of automation. Once task‐based graphs have been constructed and verified, a blackboard system will automatically transform TBCG specifications into a software system composed of database schemas, knowledge base, and user interfaces. A meeting scheduling system is used as an illustrative example to demonstrate our approach. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Internet (WWW) based system of ultrasonic image processing tools for remote image analysis

Ultrasonic Doppler color imaging can provide anatomic information and simultaneously render flow information within blood vessels for diagnostic purpose. Many researchers are currently developing ultrasound image processing algorithms in order to provide physicians with accurate clinical parameters from the images. Because researchers use a variety of computer languages and work on different computer platforms to implement their algorithms, it is difficult for other researchers and physicians to access those programs. A system has been developed using World Wide Web (WWW) technologies and HTTP communication protocols to publish our ultrasonic Angle Independent Doppler Color Image (AIDCI) processing algorithm and several general measurement tools on the Internet, where authorized researchers and physicians can easily access the program using web browsers to carry out remote analysis of their local ultrasonic images or images provided from the database. In order to overcome potential incompatibility between programs and users' computer platforms, ActiveX technology was used in this project. The technique developed may also be used for other research fields.