Automatic generation of multiple choice questions using dependency-based semantic relations

In this paper, we present an unsupervised dependency-based approach to extract semantic relations to be applied in the context of automatic generation of multiple choice questions (MCQs). MCQs also known as multiple choice tests provide a popular solution for large-scale assessments as they make it much easier for test-takers to take tests and for examiners to interpret their results. Manual generation of MCQs is a very expensive and time-consuming task and yet they often need to be produced on a large scale and within short iterative cycles. We approach the problem of automated MCQ generation with the help of unsupervised relation extraction, a technique used in a number of related natural language processing problems. The goal of Unsupervised relation extraction is to identify the most important named entities and terminology in a document and then recognise semantic relations between them, without any prior knowledge as to the semantic types of the relations or their specific linguistic realisation. We use these techniques to process instructional texts and identify those facts (terminology, entities, and semantic relations between them) that are likely to be important for assessing test-takers’ familiarity with the instructional material. We investigate an approach to learn semantic relations between named entities by employing a dependency tree model. Our findings show that an optimised configuration of our MCQ generation system is capable of attaining high precision rates, which are much more important than recall in the automatic generation of MCQs. We also carried out a user-centric evaluation of the system, where subject domain experts evaluated automatically generated MCQ items in terms of readability, usefulness of semantic relations, relevance, acceptability of questions and distractors and overall MCQ usability. The results of this evaluation make it possible for us to draw conclusions about the utility of the approach in practical e-Learning applications.     

Feature-Preserved 3D Canonical Form

Measuring the dissimilarity between non-rigid objects is a challenging problem in 3D shape retrieval. One potential solution is to construct the models’ 3D canonical forms (i.e., isometry-invariant representations in 3D Euclidean space) on which any rigid shape matching algorithm can be applied. However, existing methods, which are typically based on embedding procedures, result in greatly distorted canonical forms, and thus could not provide satisfactory performance to distinguish non-rigid models. In this paper, we present a feature-preserved canonical form for non-rigid 3D watertight meshes. The basic idea is to naturally deform original models against corresponding initial canonical forms calculated by Multidimensional Scaling (MDS). Specifically, objects are first segmented into near-rigid subparts, and then, through properly-designed rotations and translations, original subparts are transformed into poses that correspond well with their positions and directions on MDS canonical forms. Final results are obtained by solving nonlinear minimization problems for optimal alignments and smoothing boundaries between subparts. Experiments on two non-rigid 3D shape benchmarks not only clearly verify the advantages of our algorithm against existing approaches, but also demonstrate that, with the help of the proposed canonical form, we can obtain significantly better retrieval accuracy compared to the state of the art.     

Effect of Cathode Designs on Radiation Emission of Compact Diode (CD) Device

A comparative study on the radiation emission such as X-ray yield and efficiency has been carried out in compact diode device. Two different designs of cathode having sharp-edged razor blade (of 0.5 mm thickness with width 2 mm) and a sewing machine needle (of 0.5 mm diameter at tip with length of 39 mm) have been tested for this study. The radiation emission (X-ray yield) was determined by employing two set of PIN diodes at fixed positions. The maximum X-ray yield depends on cathode designs and electrodes separation in few mm. The yield of X-ray is small in the case of sharp-edged razor blade cathode than the sewing machine needle cathode. The X-ray yield, measured by 4π-geometry, shows its dependence on the cathode designs. The maximum X-ray yield is found to be 939.2 ± 65.7 mJ with efficiency of 0.4142 ± 0.0289%. This study indicates that the compact diode device could be optimized to a great extent for optimal X-ray yield by using an appropriate cathode design.     

Development of paracetamol-caffeine co-crystals to improve compressional,formulation and in vivo performance

Paracetamol, a frequently used antipyretic and analgesic drug, has poor compression moldability owing to its low plasticity. In this study, new co-crystals of paracetamol (PCM) with caffeine (as a co-former) were prepared and delineated. Co-crystals exhibited improved compaction and mechanical behavior. A screening study was performed by utilizing a number of methods namely dry grinding, liquid assisted grinding (LAG), solvent evaporation (SE), and anti-solvent addition using various weight ratios of starting materials. LAG and SE were found successful in the screening study. Powders at 1:1 and 2:1 weight ratio of PCM/CAF by LAG and SE, respectively, resulted in the formation of co-crystals. Samples were characterized by PXRD, DSC, and ATR-FTIR techniques. Compressional properties of PCM and developed co-crystals were analyzed by in-die heckle model. Mean yield pressure (Py), an inverse measure of plasticity, obtained from the heckle plots decreased significantly (p?In vitro dissolution studies on tablets also showed enhanced dissolution profiles (～90–97%) in comparison to the tablets of PCM prepared by direct compression (～55%) and wet granulation (～85%) methods. In a single dose sheep model study, co-crystals showed up to twofold increase in AUC and C_max. A significant (p?in vitro and in vivo profile. Enhancement in AUC and C_max of PCM by co-crystallization might suggest the dose reduction and avoidance of side effects.     

Sections-based bibliographic coupling for research paper recommendation

Scientometrics - Digital libraries suffer from the problem of information overload due to immense proliferation of research papers in journals and conference papers. This makes it challenging for...     

Systematic study of(MoTa)xNbTiZr medium-and high-entropy alloys for biomedical implants-In vivo biocompatibility examination

In this study,the application of medium-and high-entropy(MoTa)xNbTiZr alloys in biomedical implants was systematically analyzed.The alloy with the best combination of mechanical properties was selected and characterized for in vitro and in vivo response for the first time to examine its biomedical properties.A logarithmic increase in the hardness and the yield strength was observed as a function of the Mo and Ta content.Alloys with up to 0.4 mol fraction of Mo and Ta showed a plastic strain of more than 30％under compression.The nanoindentation results showed that the addition of Mo and Ta increased the elastic modulus of the system linearly.It was surmised that the addition of Ta and Mo above a critical concentra-tion(mole fraction=0.4)was unfavorable from a biomedical perspective as it increased the brittleness and elastic modulus and decreased the ductility of the system.Therefore,the(MoTa)0.2NbTiZr alloy is a potential structural material for biomedical implants because of its excellent strength and ductility.The developed alloy was investigated for its corrosion properties and compared with commercial biomedical alloys.Furthermore,the biocompatibility of the alloy was examined using an in vivo examination.The alloy was implanted in the skeletal muscles of mice for four weeks and the histology of the surround-ing tissue was studied.The alloy exhibited strong passive behavior in a phosphate buffer solution and non-toxic soft tissue response.     

Bimetallic NiCo–NiCoO2 nano-heterostructures embedded on copper foam as a self-supported bifunctional electrode for water oxidation and hydrogen production in alkaline media

Earth-abundant, non-precious metal-based bifunctional electrocatalysts with efficient water splitting activity are of valuable importance in the limitation of energy losses in an alkaline environment. Herein, we report NiCo–NiCoO₂ nano-heterostructures embedded on the oxidized surface of copper foam (NiCo–NiCoO₂@Cu₂O@CF) as an efficient bifunctional electrocatalyst for overall water splitting in 1 M KOH electrolyte solution. In this study, metallic Ni and Co interlinkage with NiCoO₂ nanoparticles (NPs) are suggested to form by thermal decomposition of nickel-cobalt hydroxide precursors embedding on copper foam under a nitrogen environment. Bimetallic thin layered nano-heterostructures of NiCo–NiCoO₂@Cu₂O@CF exhibits a synergic effect of doubly active metals Ni and Co to achieve remarkable small overpotentials of 133 and 327 mV to achieve a current density of 10 mA cm^?2 for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER). The influential synergetic and structural effects have been extensively discussed to understand the overall water splitting for designing an efficient electrocatalyst. Hence, this phenomenon for surface modification of conductive substrate (CF) with a suitable combination of metal/metal oxide alloying as catalytic material helps us to design and synthesize low cost, highly efficient, non-precious metal-based electrocatalysts for overall water splitting.     

Smart Security Framework for Educational Institutions Using Internet of Things (IoT)

Educational institutions are soft targets for the terrorist with massive and defenseless people. In the recent past, numbers of such attacks have been executed around the world. Conducting research, in order to provide a secure environment to the educational institutions is a challenging task. This effort is motivated by recent assaults, made at Army Public School Peshawar, following another attack at Charsada University, Khyber Pukhtun Khwa, Pakistan and also the Santa Fe High School Texas, USA massacre. This study uses the basic technologies of edge computing, cloud computing and IoT to design a smart emergency alarm system framework. IoT is engaged in developing this world smarter, can contribute significantly to design the Smart Security Framework (SSF) for educational institutions. In the emergency situation, all the command and control centres must be informed within seconds to halt or minimize the loss. In this article, the SSF is proposed. This framework works on three layers. The first layer is the sensors and smart devices layer. All these sensors and smart devices are connected to the Emergency Control Room (ECR), which is the second layer of the proposed framework. The second layer uses edge computing technologies to process massive data and information locally. The third layer uses cloud computing techniques to transmit and process data and information to different command and control centres. The proposed system was tested on Cisco Packet Tracer 7. The result shows that this approach can play an efficient role in security alert, not only in the educational institutions but also in other organizations too.     

Thermally and mechanically superior hybrid epoxy–silica polymer films via sol–gel method

Hybrid organic–inorganic polymer films composed of an epoxy resin crosslinked with a flexible diamine hardener, and a silica reinforcing phase were produced and their thermo-mechanical properties were determined. Two types of hybrid epoxy–silica polymer films, named EAS-1 and EAS-2, were obtained by hydrolysis and condensation of various amounts of tetraethoxysilane within epoxy network matrix. In EAS-2 hybrids, minor amounts of an amine silane coupling agent were added to enhance interfacial compatibility. FTIR spectroscopy confirmed the formation of organic and inorganic networks. The grafting of amine silane on to the epoxy resin influenced the size and distribution of hyper-branched clusters of silica as indicated by transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The dynamic mechanical and thermal analysis (DMTA) and thermo-gravimetric analysis (TGA) results showed an increase in the storage modulus, the glass-transition temperature, and the thermal stability of hybrid polymer films as compared to the neat matrix. The integration of amine silane coupling agent produced smaller, effectively dispersed silica nanoparticles and consequently improved the ultimate properties of polymer films.     

A systematic review of search-based testing for non-functional system properties

Search-based software testing is the application of metaheuristic search techniques to generate software tests. The test adequacy criterion is transformed into a fitness function and a set of solutions in the search space are evaluated with respect to the fitness function using a metaheuristic search technique. The application of metaheuristic search techniques for testing is promising due to the fact that exhaustive testing is infeasible considering the size and complexity of software under test. Search-based software testing has been applied across the spectrum of test case design methods; this includes white-box (structural), black-box (functional) and grey-box (combination of structural and functional) testing. In addition, metaheuristic search techniques have also been applied to test non-functional properties. The overall objective of undertaking this systematic review is to examine existing work into non-functional search-based software testing (NFSBST). We are interested in types of non-functional testing targeted using metaheuristic search techniques, different fitness functions used in different types of search-based non-functional testing and challenges in the application of these techniques. The systematic review is based on a comprehensive set of 35 articles obtained after a multi-stage selection process and have been published in the time span 1996–2007. The results of the review show that metaheuristic search techniques have been applied for non-functional testing of execution time, quality of service, security, usability and safety. A variety of metaheuristic search techniques are found to be applicable for non-functional testing including simulated annealing, tabu search, genetic algorithms, ant colony methods, grammatical evolution, genetic programming (and its variants including linear genetic programming) and swarm intelligence methods. The review reports on different fitness functions used to guide the search for each of the categories of execution time, safety, usability, quality of service and security; along with a discussion of possible challenges in the application of metaheuristic search techniques.