“How do you know that I don’t understand?” A look at the future of intelligent tutoring systems

Many software systems would significantly improve performance if they could adapt to the emotional state of the user, for example if Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITSs), ATM’s, ticketing machines could recognise when users were confused, frustrated or angry they could guide the user back to remedial help systems so improving the service. Many researchers now feel strongly that ITSs would be significantly enhanced if computers could adapt to the emotions of students. This idea has spawned the developing field of affective tutoring systems (ATSs): ATSs are ITSs that are able to adapt to the affective state of students. The term “affective tutoring system” can be traced back as far as Rosalind Picard’s book Affective Computing in 1997.This paper presents research leading to the development of Easy with Eve, an ATS for primary school mathematics. The system utilises a network of computer systems, mainly embedded devices to detect student emotion and other significant bio-signals. It will then adapt to students and displays emotion via a lifelike agent called Eve. Eve’s tutoring adaptations are guided by a case-based method for adapting to student states; this method uses data that was generated by an observational study of human tutors. This paper presents the observational study, the case-based method, the ATS itself and its implementation on a distributed computer systems for real-time performance, and finally the implications of the findings for Human Computer Interaction in general and e-learning in particular. Web-based applications of the technology developed in this research are discussed throughout the paper.     

Remember-Know and source memory instructions can qualitatively change old-new recognition accuracy: The modality-match effect in recognition memory.

Remember-Know (RK) and source memory tasks were designed to elucidate processes underlying memory retrieval. As part of more complex judgments, both tests produce a measure of old-new recognition, which is typically treated as equivalent to that derived from a standard recognition task. The present study demonstrates, however, that recognition accuracy can be qualitatively changed by a RK or source-retrieval orientation. Visual and auditory presentations of words were varied at encoding and at test. The memory test was either a standard (old-new) recognition test, the RK test, or a source (modality) test. No effect of modality match was found on standard recognition. However, recognition accuracy in the RK and modality tests was greater when study and test modalities matched—a result obtained for both 1-step (e.g., R, K, or new?) and 2-step (e.g., old-new decision followed by RK decision for items judged old) versions of these tests. Thus, the RK and source (modality) memory procedures produced a measure of old-new recognition that was qualitatively different than standard recognition, having a greater sensitivity to perceptual information. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Retinal image analysis using curvelet transform and multistructure elements morphology by reconstruction

Retinal images can be used in several applications, such as ocular fundus operations as well as human recognition. Also, they play important roles in detection of some diseases in early stages, such as diabetes, which can be performed by comparison of the states of retinal blood vessels. Intrinsic characteristics of retinal images make the blood vessel detection process difficult. Here, we proposed a new algorithm to detect the retinal blood vessels effectively. Due to the high ability of the curvelet transform in representing the edges, modification of curvelet transform coefficients to enhance the retinal image edges better prepares the image for the segmentation part. The directionality feature of the multistructure elements method makes it an effective tool in edge detection. Hence, morphology operators using multistructure elements are applied to the enhanced image in order to find the retinal image ridges. Afterward, morphological operators by reconstruction eliminate the ridges not belonging to the vessel tree while trying to preserve the thin vessels unchanged. In order to increase the efficiency of the morphological operators by reconstruction, they were applied using multistructure elements. A simple thresholding method along with connected components analysis (CCA) indicates the remained ridges belonging to vessels. In order to utilize CCA more efficiently, we locally applied the CCA and length filtering instead of considering the whole image. Experimental results on a known database, DRIVE, and achieving to more than 94% accuracy in about 50 s for blood vessel detection, proved that the blood vessels can be effectively detected by applying our method on the retinal images.     

Facile synthesis of different morphologies of Te-doped ZnO nanostructures

Te-doped ZnO nanostructures were synthesized by an annealing (vapor–solid) process under ambient conditions, and characterized in terms of their morphological, structural, compositional and optical properties. The structural and morphological characterizations revealed that the synthesized nanostructures were well-defined multipods, needles and spherical particles, and possessed well-crystalline ZnO wurtzite hexagonal phase. Also, in the X-ray diffraction studies, the presence of a shift in the peak positions towards a lower angle, and a decrease in the intensity, with an increase in the Te concentration, as compared to the undoped ZnO, were observed. The chemical composition confirmed the presence of Te, in the case of multipod and needle morphologies. The effect of doping on the crystalline quality and optical properties was also investigated, by using photoluminescence (PL) and Raman spectrometers. The Raman results demonstrated that the doped ZnO nanostructures had a lower crystalline quality than the undoped ZnO. Moreover, the PL results showed a decrease in the band gap for the doped ZnO nanostructures, in comparison to the undoped ZnO. A possible growth mechanism was also proposed.     

Through a narrow window: Sample size and the perception of correlation.

A theoretical analysis (Y. Kareev, 1995b) of the sampling distribution of correlations led to the surprising conclusion that the use of small samples has a potential advantage for the early detection of a correlation. This is so because the distribution is highly skewed, and the smaller the sample size, the more the distribution is skewed. This article describes 2 experiments that were designed as empirical tests of this conclusion. In Experiment 1 (N?=?112), the authors compared the predictions of participants differing in their working-memory capacity (hence in the size of the samples they were likely to consider). In Experiment 2 (N?=?144), the authors compared the predictions of participants who viewed samples of different sizes, whose size was determined by the authors. The results fully supported Y. Kareev's conclusion: In both experiments, participants with lower capacity (or smaller samples) indeed perceived the correlation as more extreme and were more accurate in their predictions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Modified distributed arithmetic based architecture for discrete wavelet transforms

A highly area-efficient multiplier-less filterbank architecture for one-and two-dimensional discrete wavelet transforms (DWT) is presented. The look-up table (LUT) structure in traditional distributed arithmetic (DA)-based filter structures has been dissolved to implement a LUT-less DA-DWT with dual filterbanks, which permits the reuse of the same circuitry for both highpass and lowpass filters.     

Evaluation of halothane sensitivity and prediction of post-mortem muscle metabolism in pigs from a muscle biopsy using (31)P NMR spectroscopy

Phosphorus nuclear magnetic resonance (³¹P NMR) measurements were made on biopsy samples from pig muscles. Two experiments were performed, one in France and one in Czechoslovakia. In experiment 1, the muscle samples were obtained by surgery from the Biceps femoris muscle of 10 pigs with various genetic types (5 Large White, 1 Large White × Landrace, 4 Pietrains). In experiment 2, the muscle samples were obtained by shot biopsy from the Longissimus dorsi muscle of 11 Belgian Landrace × Duroc pigs, of which 6 were halothane-negative and 5 halothane-positive. The pigs were slaughtered by electrostunning and exsanguination respectively 3 weeks and 1 week after the biopsy, and meat quality traits (pH₁, reflectance and water holding capacity) were determined. The changes in adenosine triphosphate (ATP), creatine phosphate (CP), inorganic phosphate (P_i) and pH, as deduced from NMR, were faster in Pietrains than in Large Whites, and in halothane-positive than in halothane-negative pigs. The value of the CP/P_i ratio at 40 min after taking biopsy allowed discrimination between halothane-positive and halothane-negative pigs. The values of pH, creatine phosphate and adenosine triphosphate, as measured at definite times on the biopsies, were correlated with the rate of post-mortem metabolism (r approx 0·8) and with meat quality traits. ³¹P NMR measurements combined with a rapid and efficient biopsy technique appear as an alternative tool for assessment of both halothane sensitivity and prediction of meat quality in pigs.     

Family functioning and interactive patterns in the context of infant psychopathology.

Family functioning and mother–infant relational patterns were examined in 38 clinic-referred infants and 34 matched non-referred infants. Referred infants were diagnosed with the Diagnostic Classification for Zero to Three. On the family level, referred families showed significantly lower family functioning in all domains of emotional and instrumental communication, regardless of the specific infant's diagnoses. On the dyadic level, referred mothers were more intrusive and their infants were more withdrawn during dyadic interactions. Clinic-referred mothers reported higher levels of phobia and depression. Global family functioning was predicted by the infant's clinical status, maternal intrusiveness, and maternal psychopathology. Infant mental health clinicians need to address both family level and dyadic level of functioning, regardless of the reason for the infant's referral. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)