Adaptive digital signal processing Java teaching tool

This publication presents a JAVA program for teaching the rudiments of adaptive digital signal processing (DSP) algorithms and techniques. Adaptive DSP is on of the most important areas of signal processsing, and provides the core algorithmic means to implement applications ranging from mobile telephone speech coding, to noise cancellation, to communication channel equalization. Over the last 30 years adaptive digital signal processing has progressed from being a strictly graduate level advanced class in signal processing theory to a topic that is part of the core curriculum for many undergraduate signal processing classes. The JAVA applet presented in this publication has been devised for students to use in combination with lecture notes and/or one of the recognised textbooks such that they can quickly and conveniently simulate algorithms such as the LMS (least mean squares), RLS (recursive least squares) and so on in a variety of applications without requiring to write programs or scripts or using any special purpose software. By the very nature of the JAVA code therefore, the applet can be run from any browser, even over a low bandwidth modem connection

Adaptive hypermedia for education and training

Adaptive hypermedia (AH) is an alternative to the traditional, one-size-fits-all approach in the development of hypermedia systems. AH systems build a model of the goals, preferences, and knowledge of each individual user; this model is used throughout the interaction with the user to adapt to the needs of that particular user (Brusilovsky, 1996b). For example, a student in an adaptive educational hypermedia system will be given a presentation that is adapted specifically to his or her knowledge of the subject (De Bra & Calvi, 1998; Hothi, Hall, & Sly, 2000) as well as a suggested set of the most relevant links to proceed further (Brusilovsky, Eklund, & Schwarz, 1998; Kavcic, 2004). An adaptive electronic encyclopedia will personalize the content of an article to augment the user's existing knowledge and interests (Bontcheva & Wilks, 2005; Milosavljevic, 1997). A museum guide will adapt the presentation about every visited object to the user's individual path through the museum (Oberlander et al., 1998; Stock et al., 2007). Adaptive hypermedia belongs to the class of user-adaptive systems (Schneider-Hufschmidt, Kühme, & Malinowski, 1993). A distinctive feature of an adaptive system is an explicit user model that represents user knowledge, goals, and interests, as well as other features that enable the system to adapt to different users with their own specific set of goals. An adaptive system collects data for the user model from various sources that can include implicitly observing user interaction and explicitly requesting direct input from the user. The user model is applied to provide an adaptation effect, that is, tailor interaction to different users in the same context. In different kinds of adaptive systems, adaptation effects could vary greatly. In AH systems, it is limited to three major adaptation technologies: adaptive content selection, adaptive navigation support, and adaptive presentation. The first of these three technologies comes from the fields of adaptive information retrieval (IR) and intelligent tutoring systems (ITS). When the user searches for information, the system adaptively selects and prioritizes the most relevant items (Brajnik, Guida, & Tasso, 1987; Brusilovsky, 1992b)

Putting a Price Tag on the Common Core: How Much Will Smart Implementation Cost?

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for English language arts and mathematics represent a sea change in standards-based reform and their implementation is the movement's next -- and greatest -- challenge. Yet, while most states have now set forth implementation plans, these tomes seldom address the crucial matter of cost. Putting a Price Tag on the Common Core: How Much Will Smart Implementation Cost? estimates the implementation cost for each of the forty-five states (and the District of Columbia) that have adopted the Common Core State Standards and shows that costs naturally depend on how states approach implementation. Authors Patrick J. Murphy of the University of San Francisco and Elliot Regenstein of EducationCounsel LLC illustrate this with three models

ELM-ART - An Interactive and Intelligent Web-Based Electronic Textbook

This paper present provides a broader view on ELM-ART, one of the first Web-based Intelligent Educational systems that offered a creative combination of two different paradigms - Intelligent Tutoring and Adaptive Hypermedia technologies. The unique dual nature of ELM-ART contributed to its long life and research impact and was a result of collaboration of two researchers with complementary ideas supported by talented students and innovative Web software. The authors present a brief account of this collaborative work and its outcomes. We start with explaining the "roots" of ELM-ART, explain the emergence of the "intelligent textbook" paradigm behind the system, and discuss the follow-up and the impact of the original project

Computerization of workflows, guidelines and care pathways: a review of implementation challenges for process-oriented health information systems

There is a need to integrate the various theoretical frameworks and formalisms for modeling clinical guidelines, workflows, and pathways, in order to move beyond providing support for individual clinical decisions and toward the provision of process-oriented, patient-centered, health information systems (HIS). In this review, we analyze the challenges in developing process-oriented HIS that formally model guidelines, workflows, and care pathways. A qualitative meta-synthesis was performed on studies published in English between 1995 and 2010 that addressed the modeling process and reported the exposition of a new methodology, model, system implementation, or system architecture. Thematic analysis, principal component analysis (PCA) and data visualisation techniques were used to identify and cluster the underlying implementation ‘challenge’ themes. One hundred and eight relevant studies were selected for review. Twenty-five underlying ‘challenge’ themes were identified. These were clustered into 10 distinct groups, from which a conceptual model of the implementation process was developed. We found that the development of systems supporting individual clinical decisions is evolving toward the implementation of adaptable care pathways on the semantic web, incorporating formal, clinical, and organizational ontologies, and the use of workflow management systems. These architectures now need to be implemented and evaluated on a wider scale within clinical settings

Towards automatic construction of adaptable courseware storyboards

In last twenty years, researchers have conducted intensive research in the area of principal models, software architectures and practical system development of adaptive e-learning platforms. Brains are fascinated by great opportunities for radical improvement of the teaching process by means of applying adaptability at different levels. There are two general issues of adaptive e-learning – enabling different educational content delivered to different individuals or groups and, as well, differently formed sequencing and presentation of that content delivery. This paper presents two approaches for creating and delivering training courses adaptable to learners with different learning styles. The first one is implemented within a platform for building edutainment (education plus entertainment) services called ADOPTA (ADaptive technOlogy-enhanced Platform for eduTAinment). By means of ADOPTA, e-learning courses can be created manually by an instructor as directed storyboard graphs. Another feasible approach is to generate them automatically on-the-fly by the adaptive engine. The article discusses advantages and drawbacks of these two approaches for adaptive e-learning course constructio

A Plugable Web Based Intelligent Tutoring System

With the development of WWW technology, web-based ITSs are becoming mainstream area of research and development. The major benefit of web-based ITS is that, the ITS installed and supported in one place can be used by thousands of learners all over the world. Although many web-based educational systems appeared recently, most of them emerged from their predecessor legacy standalone systems. Therefore, they not only restrict themselves in functionality, but also fail to take advantage of distributed nature of Internet. This paper describes an open architecture based adaptable web-based intelligent tutoring system with pluggable domain modules. The system is based client/server architecture and has distinct and separable domain modules and a generic module. Such architecture not only provides salability in the Internet environment but also allows the same architecture to be used for multiple subject domains

Evaluating Digital Libraries: A Longitudinal and Multifaceted View

published or submitted for publicatio

Using ontology in query answering systems: Scenarios, requirements and challenges

Equipped with the ultimate query answering system, computers would finally be in a position to address all our information needs in a natural way. In this paper, we describe how Language and Computing nv (L&C), a developer of ontology-based natural language understanding systems for the healthcare domain, is working towards the ultimate Question Answering (QA) System for healthcare workers. L&C’s company strategy in this area is to design in a step-by-step fashion the essential components of such a system, each component being designed to solve some one part of the total problem and at the same time reflect well-defined needs on the prat of our customers. We compare our strategy with the research roadmap proposed by the Question Answering Committee of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), paying special attention to the role of ontology