Neuro-fuzzy knowledge processing in intelligent learning environments for improved student diagnosis

In this paper, a neural network implementation for a fuzzy logic-based model of the diagnostic process is proposed as a means to achieve accurate student diagnosis and updates of the student model in Intelligent Learning Environments. The neuro-fuzzy synergy allows the diagnostic model to some extent "imitate" teachers in diagnosing students' characteristics, and equips the intelligent learning environment with reasoning capabilities that can be further used to drive pedagogical decisions depending on the student learning style. The neuro-fuzzy implementation helps to encode both structured and non-structured teachers' knowledge: when teachers' reasoning is available and well defined, it can be encoded in the form of fuzzy rules; when teachers' reasoning is not well defined but is available through practical examples illustrating their experience, then the networks can be trained to represent this experience. The proposed approach has been tested in diagnosing aspects of student's learning style in a discovery-learning environment that aims to help students to construct the concepts of vectors in physics and mathematics. The diagnosis outcomes of the model have been compared against the recommendations of a group of five experienced teachers, and the results produced by two alternative soft computing methods. The results of our pilot study show that the neuro-fuzzy model successfully manages the inherent uncertainty of the diagnostic process; especially for marginal cases, i.e. where it is very difficult, even for human tutors, to diagnose and accurately evaluate students by directly synthesizing subjective and, some times, conflicting judgments

A fuzzy-based approach for classifying students' emotional states in online collaborative work

(c) 2016 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other users, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted components of this work in other works.Emotion awareness is becoming a key aspect in collaborative work at academia, enterprises and organizations that use collaborative group work in their activity. Due to pervasiveness of ICT's, most of collaboration can be performed through communication media channels such as discussion forums, social networks, etc. The emotive state of the users while they carry out their activity such as collaborative learning at Universities or project work at enterprises and organizations influences very much their performance and can actually determine the final learning or project outcome. Therefore, monitoring the users' emotive states and using that information for providing feedback and scaffolding is crucial. To this end, automated analysis over data collected from communication channels is a useful source. In this paper, we propose an approach to process such collected data in order to classify and assess emotional states of involved users and provide them feedback accordingly to their emotive states. In order to achieve this, a fuzzy approach is used to build the emotive classification system, which is fed with data from ANEW dictionary, whose words are bound to emotional weights and these, in turn, are used to map Fuzzy sets in our proposal. The proposed fuzzy-based system has been evaluated using real data from collaborative learning courses in an academic context.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

A model for providing emotion awareness and feedback using fuzzy logic in online learning

Monitoring users’ emotive states and using that information for providing feedback and scaffolding is crucial. In the learning context, emotions can be used to increase students’ attention as well as to improve memory and reasoning. In this context, tutors should be prepared to create affective learning situations and encourage collaborative knowledge construction as well as identify those students’ feelings which hinder learning process. In this paper, we propose a novel approach to label affective behavior in educational discourse based on fuzzy logic, which enables a human or virtual tutor to capture students’ emotions, make students aware of their own emotions, assess these emotions and provide appropriate affective feedback. To that end, we propose a fuzzy classifier that provides a priori qualitative assessment and fuzzy qualifiers bound to the amounts such as few, regular and many assigned by an affective dictionary to every word. The advantage of the statistical approach is to reduce the classical pollution problem of training and analyzing the scenario using the same dataset. Our approach has been tested in a real online learning environment and proved to have a very positive influence on students’ learning performance.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Информационная поддержка анализа навыков и умений контингента студентов высшего учебного заведения

In the below article, the application of the fuzzy logical conclusion method is considered as decision-maker in the process of analyzing the students skills and abilities based on the requirements of potential employers, in order to reduce the time of the first interview for potential candidates on a vacant position. When analyzing the results of the assessment of the competence of university students, a certain degree of fuzziness arises. In modern practice, fuzzy logic is used in many different assessment methods, including questioning, interviewing, testing, descriptive method, classification method, pairwise comparison, rating method, business games competence models, and the like. Each of the methods has its advantages and disadvantages, but they are effective only as part of a unified personnel management system. As a method for implementing a systematic approach to the assessment of the contingent of students, it is proposed to use fuzzy logic, a mathematical apparatus that allows you to build a model of an object based on fuzzy judgments. The use of fuzzy logic, the mathematical apparatus of which allows you to build a model of the object, based on fuzzy reasoning and rules. The most important condition for creating such a model is to translate the fuzzy, qualitative assessments used by man into the language of mathematics, which will be understood by the computer. The most used are fuzzy inferences using the Mamdani and Sugeno methods. In a fuzzy inference of the Mamdani type, the value of the output variable is given by fuzzy terms, in the conclusion of the Sugeno type, as a linear combination of the input variables. Research in the field of application of fuzzy logic in socio-economic systems suggests that it can be used to assess the competencies of university students.В данной работе рассмотрено использование метода нечеткого логического вывода для поддержки принятия решения в задачах анализа навыков и умений контингента студентов исходя из требований потенциальных работодателей, с целью уменьшения времени на первичную обработку информации касательно потенциальных кандидатов на вакантную должность. При анализе результатов оценки компетентности студентов вузов возникает определенная степень нечеткости. В современной практике нечеткая логика применяется во многих различных методах оценки, в том числе анкетирование, интервью, тестирование, описательный метод, метод классификации, парное сравнение, рейтинговый метод, деловые игры модели компетентности и тому подобное. Каждый из методов имеет свои преимущества и недостатки, но эффективны они только в составе единой системы управления персоналом. Как метод для реализации системного подхода к оценке контингента студентов предложено использовать нечеткую логику, математический аппарат, который позволяет построить модель объекта, основанную на нечетких суждениях. Использование нечеткой логики, математический аппарат которой позволяет построить модель объекта, основываясь на нечетких рассуждениях и правилах. Важнейшее условие создания такой модели заключается в том, чтобы перевести нечеткие, качественные оценки, применяемые человеком, на язык математики, которая будет понятна вычислительной машине. Наиболее используемыми являются нечеткие выводы с помощью способов Мамдани и Сугено. В нечетком выводе типа Мамдани значение выходной переменной задаются нечеткими термами, в заключении типа Сугено – как линейная комбинация входных переменных. Исследования в области применения нечеткой логики в социоэкономических системах позволяют говорить о возможности ее использования для оценки компетенций студентов вузов

Multi crteria decision making and its applications : a literature review

This paper presents current techniques used in Multi Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) and their applications. Two basic approaches for MCDM, namely Artificial Intelligence MCDM (AIMCDM) and Classical MCDM (CMCDM) are discussed and investigated. Recent articles from international journals related to MCDM are collected and analyzed to find which approach is more common than the other in MCDM. Also, which area these techniques are applied to. Those articles are appearing in journals for the year 2008 only. This paper provides evidence that currently, both AIMCDM and CMCDM are equally common in MCDM

A brief network analysis of Artificial Intelligence publication

In this paper, we present an illustration to the history of Artificial Intelligence(AI) with a statistical analysis of publish since 1940. We collected and mined through the IEEE publish data base to analysis the geological and chronological variance of the activeness of research in AI. The connections between different institutes are showed. The result shows that the leading community of AI research are mainly in the USA, China, the Europe and Japan. The key institutes, authors and the research hotspots are revealed. It is found that the research institutes in the fields like Data Mining, Computer Vision, Pattern Recognition and some other fields of Machine Learning are quite consistent, implying a strong interaction between the community of each field. It is also showed that the research of Electronic Engineering and Industrial or Commercial applications are very active in California. Japan is also publishing a lot of papers in robotics. Due to the limitation of data source, the result might be overly influenced by the number of published articles, which is to our best improved by applying network keynode analysis on the research community instead of merely count the number of publish.Comment: 18 pages, 7 figure