Theoretical Biomimetics: A biological design-driven concept for creative problem-solving as applied to the optimal sequencing of active learning techniques in educational theory

The article introduces the author’s concept of applying principles of biological design to drive creative problem-solving. It provides a brief background of the field of Biomimetics, which serves as a context for the reader to appreciate how it began with an established field upon which he constructed and adapted his concept to apply to human-made intangibles. A discussion of Theoretical Biomimetics specifies the differences between it and its predecessor. The final section provides the opportunity to see Theoretical Biomimetics in detail applied to education theory to address a problem related to student learning in higher education and how best to establish optimized sequences to implement evidence-based active-learning techniques to fill a void in the literature demonstrating from nature what has worked. The originality lies in the author taking a multidisciplinary approach to synergize a sequence of existing active-learning techniques and apply them to a new area in a new way

Reputation based Trust Management System for Improving Public Health Care System in Pakistan

Health is the most important facility for the people by the government if it is provided properly.There is a lack of trust among people about healthcare system particularly in public hospitals ofPakistan. People do not trust doctors and hospitals due to poor management and low standardscheck-up by the doctors. This is due to the lack of feedback system which leads to themismanagement of healthcare institutions. In this research, we have developed a reputation-basedfeedback management system that will overcome all the problems related to the trust of the patientsregarding their medical care. This will enhance the system and will let doctors, staff, andmanagement to work honestly to make their repute well

The Role of Agreement Technologies in the Definition of Adaptive Software Architectures

The growing complexity of software systems is causing a re-conception of their development and maintenance strategies. Humans should be relieved from an important part of these tasks, which should be performed by systems themselves, leading to consider self-adaptation as a basic architectural concern. Simultaneously, Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) have been developed as a generic approach to solve complex problems. They describe self-aware structures,conceived to be flexible and to be able to adapt to different situations. Advances approaches use organizations to provide further structuring, taking the form of complex agent architectures. Among them, Agreement Technologies (AT) provides an explicit insight into those architectural abstractions. However, they still do not provide mechanisms to change their composition patterns and element types, which are necessary to achieve real self-adaptivity. In this article, we propose an architectural solution for this: the required dynamism will be supported by an emergent agreement - an evolving architectural structure, based on combining predefined controls and protocols. These are handled in the context of the service-oriented, agent-based and organization-centric framework defined in AT and provided by their implementation within the THOMAS platform. This work provides the first architectural abstractions to support this emergent structure. A real-world example showing the interest of this approach is also provided, and some conclusions about its applicability are finally outlined.Sociedad Argentina de Informática e Investigación Operativ

An educational game to teach children about air quality using augmented reality and tangible interaction with sensors

Air pollution is known to be one of the main causes of injuries to the respiratory system and even premature death. Gases, particles, and biological compounds affect not only the air we breathe outdoors, but also indoors. Children are highly affected by the poor quality of the air they breathe because their organs and immune systems are still in the developmental stages. To contribute to raising children’s awareness to these concerns, this article presents the design, implementation, and experimental validation of an serious augmented reality game for children to playfully learn about air quality by interacting with physical sensor nodes. The game presents visual representations of the pollutants measured by the sensor node, rendering tangible the invisible. Causal knowledge is elicited by stimulating the children to expose real-life objects (e.g., candles) to the sensor node. The playful experience is amplified by letting children play in pairs. The game was evaluated using the Wizard of Oz method in a sample of 27 children aged between 7 and 11 years. The results show that the proposed game, in addition to improving children’s knowledge about indoor air pollution, is also perceived by them as easy to use and a useful learning tool that they would like to continue using, even in other educational contexts.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Proceedings of RSEEM 2006 : 13th Research Symposium on Emerging Electronic Markets

Electronic markets have been a prominent topic of research for the past decade. Moreover, we have seen the rise but also the disappearance of many electronic marketplaces in practice. Today, electronic markets are a firm component of inter-organisational exchanges and can be observed in many branches. The Research Symposium on Emerging Electronic Markets is an annual conference bringing together researchers working on various topics concerning electronic markets in research and practice. The focus theme of the13th Research Symposium on Emerging Electronic Markets (RSEEM 2006) was ?Evolution in Electronic Markets?. Looking back at more than 10 years of research activities in electronic markets, the evolution can be well observed. While electronic commerce activities were based largely on catalogue-based shopping, there are now many examples that go beyond pure catalogues. For example, dynamic and flexible electronic transactions such as electronic negotiations and electronic auctions are enabled. Negotiations and auctions are the basis for inter-organisational trade exchanges about services as well as products. Mass customisation opens up new opportunities for electronic markets. Multichannel electronic commerce represents today?s various requirements posed on information and communication technology as well as on organisational structures. In recent years, service-oriented architectures of electronic markets have enabled ICT infrastructures for supporting flexible e-commerce and e-market solutions. RSEEM 2006 was held at the University of Hohenheim, Stuttgart, Germany in September 2006. The proceedings show a variety of approaches and include the selected 8 research papers. The contributions cover the focus theme through conceptual models and systems design, application scenarios as well as evaluation research approaches

Multi-Agent Systems

A multi-agent system (MAS) is a system composed of multiple interacting intelligent agents. Multi-agent systems can be used to solve problems which are difficult or impossible for an individual agent or monolithic system to solve. Agent systems are open and extensible systems that allow for the deployment of autonomous and proactive software components. Multi-agent systems have been brought up and used in several application domains