Educational Technology and Related Education Conferences for June to December 2015

The 33rd edition of the conference list covers selected events that primarily focus on the use of technology in educational settings and on teaching, learning, and educational administration. Only listings until December 2015 are complete as dates, locations, or Internet addresses (URLs) were not available for a number of events held from January 2016 onward. In order to protect the privacy of individuals, only URLs are used in the listing as this enables readers of the list to obtain event information without submitting their e-mail addresses to anyone. A significant challenge during the assembly of this list is incomplete or conflicting information on websites and the lack of a link between conference websites from one year to the next

Sustainability performance assessment of municipal solid waste management utilising aggregated indicators approach

There is a need for effective and sustainable municipal solid waste (MSW) management system to be implemented in Malaysia, especially in the urban areas. Indicators have often been chosen as a tool to evaluate the performances of the current MSW management system in Malaysia. From the literature reviewed, no index was found to be similar with the one being proposed by this study. This study was conducted to produce a set of indicators that evaluate the MSW management system throughout the entire life cycle. The development of these indicators involved intensive literature reviews, discussion meetings with stakeholders, and workshop organisation with solid waste management experts. Weightage were assigned to the established indicators by using analytical hierarchy process, which were then incorporated into a performance index, known as municipal solid waste management performance index (MSWMPI). Data collection were done at five cities, which were Muar, Rembau, Putrajaya, Langkawi and Pekan. As a result, a total of nine indicators under four criteria, C1 (MSW Generation and Segregation), C2 (MSW Collection and Transportation), C3 (MSW Treatment) and C4 (MSW Disposal), were finalised. The weightage for the four criteria were found to be 32.17% for C1, 19.82% for C2, 25.41% for C3, and 22.60% for C4. Among the five cities, Pekan had the highest MSWMPI, with a value of 74.85 and was rated as performing good. On the other hand, the MSW management system in Muar had the lowest MSWMPI, with a value of 51.23. Langkawi had an MSWMPI of 59.89, which was followed behind closely by Rembau (58.12) and finally, Putrajaya had the MSWMPI value of 52.43. City profiling among the respective cities had also been done to identify the hotspots in the MSW management system. It was found that most cities performing well in C1 and C2, would not perform greatly in C3 and C4, and vice versa

Context-Aware Recommendation Systems in Mobile Environments

Nowadays, the huge amount of information available may easily overwhelm users when they need to take a decision that involves choosing among several options. As a solution to this problem, Recommendation Systems (RS) have emerged to offer relevant items to users. The main goal of these systems is to recommend certain items based on user preferences. Unfortunately, traditional recommendation systems do not consider the user’s context as an important dimension to ensure high-quality recommendations. Motivated by the need to incorporate contextual information during the recommendation process, Context-Aware Recommendation Systems (CARS) have emerged. However, these recent recommendation systems are not designed with mobile users in mind, where the context and the movements of the users and items may be important factors to consider when deciding which items should be recommended. Therefore, context-aware recommendation models should be able to effectively and efficiently exploit the dynamic context of the mobile user in order to offer her/him suitable recommendations and keep them up-to-date.The research area of this thesis belongs to the fields of context-aware recommendation systems and mobile computing. We focus on the following scientific problem: how could we facilitate the development of context-aware recommendation systems in mobile environments to provide users with relevant recommendations? This work is motivated by the lack of generic and flexible context-aware recommendation frameworks that consider aspects related to mobile users and mobile computing. In order to solve the identified problem, we pursue the following general goal: the design and implementation of a context-aware recommendation framework for mobile computing environments that facilitates the development of context-aware recommendation applications for mobile users. In the thesis, we contribute to bridge the gap not only between recommendation systems and context-aware computing, but also between CARS and mobile computing.<br /

Policy enhancement framework for energy generation from palm oil mill effluent using life cycle multi criteria analysis

One of the most challenging problems in palm oil industry in Malaysia is the management of palm oil mill effluent (POME). Majority of the palm oil mills treat POME using anaerobic ponding system, which is not environmentally friendly as large amount of generated greenhouse gases is not captured but released to the atmosphere. Therefore, it is crucial to ensure a sustainable practise of closed anaerobic digestion system in the palm oil industry. This study was mainly aimed to provide evidence-based policy enhancement for POME treatment to energy generation. For this, life cycle assessment (LCA) was carried out to assess environmental impacts and life cycle cost-benefit analysis to assess the economic aspects focusing on two commercially available POME treatment technologies which are covered lagoon bio-digester (CLB, representing 36 palm oil mills with covered lagoon system) and continuous stirred tank reactor (CSTR, representing majority of the 54 palm oil mills employing closed tank system). Based on the output of life cycle analysis and interviews with palm oil mill management, thirteen possible solutions for policy enhancement were suggested. Possible solutions were ranked by experts and weighting were assigned to the possible solutions by using analytical hierarchy process, which were then used for policy enhancement. In terms of LCA, the global warming potential and acidification potential for CSTR were -4.48 kg CO2 eq/kWh and -2.21 kg SO2 eq/kWh, respectively, while for CLB the values were -4.09 kg CO2 eq/kWh and -0.15 kg SO2 eq/kWh. Both technologies produced a negative result, which equates to a net environmental benefit. However, both systems had a negative impact in terms of eutrophication potential. The CSTR nevertheless achieved a better eutrophication potential result of 0.048 kg PO43-eq/kWh than the CLB with 0.054 kg PO43-eq/kWh. With respect to life cycle cost (LCC), CSTR has a higher LCC of RM 2.60 million/year compared to CLB with LCC value of RM 2.29 million/year. In terms of cost-benefit, CSTR has a higher net present value (NPV) of RM 2.21 million/year, higher return on investment (ROI) of 11.80% and shorter payback period (PP) of 8.5 years compared to the CLB system with NPV of RM 0.91 million/year, ROI of 7.79% and PP of 12.8 years. ‘Provide detailed environmental guidelines’ followed by ‘standardise technical guidelines for biogas installation’ and ‘cover open pond wall using lining’ were the top three possible solutions to be considered in order to improve the existing policy for the POME treatment for energy generation. Future researchers may wish to consider social aspects related to job creation, safety and health of workers besides environmental and economic aspects. As a whole, this study allows policy makers to understand the current situation faced by palm oil mill managers and the rankings of possible solutions, offering important inputs for consideration in policy development for the treatment of POME for energy generation

Método para la evaluación de usabilidad de sitios web transaccionales basado en el proceso de inspección heurística

La usabilidad es considerada uno de los factores más importantes en el desarrollo de productos de software. Este atributo de calidad está referido al grado en que, usuarios específicos de un determinado aplicativo, pueden fácilmente hacer uso del software para lograr su propósito. Dada la importancia de este aspecto en el éxito de las aplicaciones informáticas, múltiples métodos de evaluación han surgido como instrumentos de medición que permiten determinar si la propuesta de diseño de la interfaz de un sistema de software es entendible, fácil de usar, atractiva y agradable al usuario. El método de evaluación heurística es uno de los métodos más utilizados en el área de Interacción Humano-Computador (HCI) para este propósito debido al bajo costo de su ejecución en comparación otras técnicas existentes. Sin embargo, a pesar de su amplio uso extensivo durante los últimos años, no existe un procedimiento formal para llevar a cabo este proceso de evaluación. Jakob Nielsen, el autor de esta técnica de inspección, ofrece únicamente lineamientos generales que, según la investigación realizada, tienden a ser interpretados de diferentes maneras por los especialistas. Por tal motivo, se ha desarrollado el presente proyecto de investigación que tiene como objetivo establecer un proceso sistemático, estructurado, organizado y formal para llevar a cabo evaluaciones heurísticas a productos de software. En base a un análisis exhaustivo realizado a aquellos estudios que reportan en la literatura el uso del método de evaluación heurística como parte del proceso de desarrollo de software, se ha formulado un nuevo método de evaluación basado en cinco fases: (1) planificación, (2) entrenamiento, (3) evaluación, (4) discusión y (5) reporte. Cada una de las fases propuestas que componen el protocolo de inspección contiene un conjunto de actividades bien definidas a ser realizadas por el equipo de evaluación como parte del proceso de inspección. Asimismo, se han establecido ciertos roles que deberán desempeñar los integrantes del equipo de inspectores para asegurar la calidad de los resultados y un apropiado desarrollo de la evaluación heurística. La nueva propuesta ha sido validada en dos escenarios académicos distintos (en Colombia, en una universidad pública, y en Perú, en dos universidades tanto en una pública como en una privada) demostrando en todos casos que es posible identificar más problemas de usabilidad altamente severos y críticos cuando un proceso estructurado de inspección es adoptado por los evaluadores. Otro aspecto favorable que muestran los resultados es que los evaluadores tienden a cometer menos errores de asociación (entre heurística que es incumplida y problemas de usabilidad identificados) y que la propuesta es percibida como fácil de usar y útil. Al validarse la nueva propuesta desarrollada por el autor de este estudio se consolida un nuevo conocimiento que aporta al bagaje cultural de la ciencia.Tesi

Context-Aware Mobile Crowd Sensing using Mobile Hybrid Application Frameworks

Mobile Endgeräte sind heutzutage allgegenwärtig und werden in vielen Bereichen des alltäglichen Lebens eingesetzt. Als mobile Begleiter ermöglichen Smartphones den Einsatz mobiler Applikationen zu jeder Tageszeit und in einer Vielzahl von Situationen. Die Nutzung einer mobilen Applikation erfolgt heutzutage meist durch eine explizite Interaktion des Nutzers. Im Gegensatz dazu können sich kontextsensitive Anwendungen adaptiv verhalten und ermöglichen eine implizite Interaktion. Auch im Bereich des Mobile- Crowdsourcings gewinnen kontextbewusste Applikationen an Bedeutung. Datensätze können mit Kontextinformationen angereichert werden und die Datenerfassung kann kontextsensitiv erfolgen. Die Entwicklung solcher Applikationen kann auf unterschiedliche Art und Weise durchgeführt werden. Im Vergleich zur nativen Applikationsentwicklung kann die Entwicklung mobiler Webanwendungen oder hybrider Applikationen plattformunabhängig erfolgen. Cross-Platform-Ansätze vereinen die Vorteile von nativer und hybrider Applikationsentwicklung. Dabei ermöglichen Frameworks wie NativeScript den direkten Zugriff auf native Schnittstellen. Für diese Ansätze stehen jedoch keine allgemeinen Werkzeuge zur Verfügung, um Anwendungen kontextsensitiv zu implementieren. Um die Cross-Platform-Entwicklung kontextsensitiver Applikationen zu vereinfachen, wurde ein Framework für NativeScript-Applikationen entwickelt. Das Framework stellt Komponenten zur Verfügung, welche die plattformunabhängige Entwicklung kontextsensitiver Applikationen unterstützen. Auf Basis einer logikbasierten Kontextrepräsentation und eines regelbasierten Schlussfolgerungsmechanismus können Applikationsentwickler Kontextereignisse definieren. Diese werden automatisch evaluiert und dabei ausgelöst, falls die entsprechenden Kontextbedingungen erfüllt sind. Die Datenerfassung und Bereitstellung von Kontextinformationen erfolgt dabei modularisiert. Es wurden vier beispielhafte Module entwickelt, um den Ort, die Herzfrequenz des Nutzers, ausgeübte Aktivitäten und die Umgebungslautstärke als Kontextinformationen bereitzustellen. Zudem wurde ein NativeScript-Modul entwickelt, das verschiedene Arten der Hintergrundausführung plattformunabhängig abstrahiert