An xAPI application profile to monitor self-regulated learning strategies

Self-regulated learning (SRL) is being promoted and adopted increasingly due to the needs of current education, student centered and focused on competence development. One of the main components of SRL is learners' self-monitoring, which eventually contributes to a better performance. Monitoring is also important for teachers, as it enables them to know to what extent their learners are doing well and progressing properly. At the same time, the use of technology for learning is now common and facilitates monitoring. Nevertheless, the available software still offers poor support from the SRL point of view, especially, for SRL monitoring. This clashes with the growth of learning analytics and educational data mining. The main issue is the wide variety of SRL actions that need to be captured, commonly performed in different tools, and the need to integrate them to support the development of analytics and data mining developments, making imperative the search of interoperable solutions. This paper focuses on the standardization of SRL traces to enable data collection from multiple sources and data analysis with the goal of easing the monitoring process for teachers and learners. First, the paper analyzes current monitoring software and its limitations for SRL. Then, after a brief analysis of available standards on this area, an application profile for the eXperience API specification is proposed to enable the interoperable recording of the SRL traces. The paper describes the process followed to create the profile, from the analysis to the final implementation, including the selection of the interactions that represent relevant SRL actions, the selection of vocabularies to record them and a case study.Xunta de Galicia | Ref. ED431B 2017/67Xunta de Galicia | Ref. ED431D 2017/1

Development of an Aerosol Testing Chamber for Mining Environments and Evaluation of New Silica Dust Mass Concentration Methods Using the NIOSH FTIR Standard Technique

Respirable crystalline silica (RCS) and respirable coal dust are a health hazard for industrial workers, mainly in the mining industry, which has to be monitored and have their concentration controlled under permissible limits. Innumerous techniques for silica and coal monitoring have been applied in mining environments, but most of them with the shortcomings of time taken to collect the sample, process the data, and calculate the concentrations. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health has developed a monitoring technique, based on filter sampling and FTIR transmission spectroscopy, for respirable crystalline silica that can provide mass concentrations by the end of the working shift, applying a software that is capable of calculating the silica mass on the filter and the silica mass concentration.This manuscript aims to discuss the new dust generation and aerosol testing chamber developed at the University of Nevada, Reno, for dust monitoring and the evaluation of new silica dust mass concentration methods using the NIOSH FTIR standard technique. The contributions of this work include: 1) A review of RCS and coal health hazards, time integrated methods for characterization and quantification, and current silica monitoring methods. 2) The development of the aerosol testing chamber for mining environments and the application of the NIOSH FTIR standard technique. 3) Evaluation of new monitoring methods using the NIOSH FTIR standard technique. The new method is based on dust absorption spectra measurements obtained with a photoacoustic spectrometer equipped with a tunable quantum cascade laser

Analysis And Design Of Rib Support (ADRS) A Rib Support Design Methodology For Australian Collieries

This paper summarises the results of a research project whose goal was to provide the Australian coal industry with a rib support design methodology and software tool that could be utilised by suitably qualified colliery staff. The project was primarily funded by Australian Coal Association Research Program (ACARP) and further supported by several Australian longwall operations. The outcome of the project is a design methodology and software tool called, Analysis and Design of Rib Support (ADRS). ADRS is an empirical technique, which recognises that several geotechnical and design factors affect ribline performance and in addition that operational and safety issues essentially dictate the level of performance required. Therefore, the design recommendations associated with ADRS are specific to the Australian coal industry; however the procedure(s) for data collection and analysis could be applied to other countries' 'underground coal industries. Case history data were compiled from 34 longwall and two bord and pillar operations resulting in 204 case histories with each case history data set being defined by approximately 130 individual data fields. In addition monitoring (incorporating stress cells and extensometers) was undertaken at 10 collieries to assess and quantify the effectiveness of different rib support patterns and hardware on rib performance. The monitoring sites allowed for an improved understanding of the mechanisms of rib failure and degradation in terms of its interaction with the installed support and at the various stages of the mining cycle. The design methodology deals with both mains development and gateroad development specific to Australian longwall mines. This paper focuses on longwall gateroads subjected to abutment loading and in particular the travel road which becomes the tailgate of the subsequent panel. The statistical analyses associated with these cases suggested that the level of rib support should be based primarily on the development height and the pillar stress level. The ADRS software guides users through the design process, allowing them to develop rib support plans based on sound science and a broad base of in-mine experience To the best of the authors\ue2\u20ac\u2122 knowledge ADRS is the first systematic rib support design technique to be developed for any country\ue2\u20ac\u2122s underground coal industry. The development and use of empirical models in mining have substantially contributed to improving safety and productivity. ADRS further demonstrates that empirical techniques are particularly relevant and beneficial in dealing with the complexities of geotechnical design associated with underground coal mining

Graphite core condition monitoring through intelligent analysis of fuel grab load trace data

As a graphite core ages, there is an increased requirement to monitor the distortions within the core to permit safe continued operation of the station. In addition to existing monitoring and inspection, new methods of providing information relating to the core are being investigated

A Process to Implement an Artificial Neural Network and Association Rules Techniques to Improve Asset Performance and Energy Efficiency

In this paper, we address the problem of asset performance monitoring, with the intention of both detecting any potential reliability problem and predicting any loss of energy consumption e ciency. This is an important concern for many industries and utilities with very intensive capitalization in very long-lasting assets. To overcome this problem, in this paper we propose an approach to combine an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) with Data Mining (DM) tools, specifically with Association Rule (AR) Mining. The combination of these two techniques can now be done using software which can handle large volumes of data (big data), but the process still needs to ensure that the required amount of data will be available during the assets’ life cycle and that its quality is acceptable. The combination of these two techniques in the proposed sequence di ers from previous works found in the literature, giving researchers new options to face the problem. Practical implementation of the proposed approach may lead to novel predictive maintenance models (emerging predictive analytics) that may detect with unprecedented precision any asset’s lack of performance and help manage assets’ O&M accordingly. The approach is illustrated using specific examples where asset performance monitoring is rather complex under normal operational conditions.Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad DPI2015-70842-

Data mining reactor fuel grab load trace data to support nuclear core condition monitoring

A critical component of an advanced-gas cooled reactor (AGR) station is the graphite core. As a station ages, the graphite bricks that comprise the core can distort and may eventually crack. As the core cannot be replaced the core integrity ultimately determines the station life. Monitoring these distortions is usually restricted to the routine outages, which occur every few years, as this is the only time that the reactor core can be accessed by external sensing equipment. However, during weekly refueling activities measurements are taken from the core for protection and control purposes. It is shown in this paper that these measurements may be interpreted for condition monitoring purposes, thus potentially providing information relating to core condition on a more frequent basis. This paper describes the data-mining approach adopted to analyze this data and also describes a software system designed and implemented to support this process. The use of this software to develop a model of expected behavior based on historical data, which may highlight events containing unusual features possibly indicative of brick cracking, is also described. Finally, the implementation of this newly acquired understanding in an automated analysis system is described

Assessment of mining activities with respect to the environmental protection

This paper deals with the impact of mining on the environment. Coal mining is still among the most widespread and most intense mining activity, which disturbs the landscape around us bringing regional environmental, economic and aesthetic problems. However, for many countries in the world, including the Czech Republic, deposits of raw materials play an important role, especially for purposes of producing electricity and thermal energy. At the same time, growing emphasis laid on the environmental protection can be observed worldwide. To meet the increasing ecological demands, it is reasonable to consider the most significant aspects of mining activities from the environmental point of view, as well as to consider the possibilities of the abandoned mines utilization as possible waste dumps. Parts of this problem consist in: the monitoring, environmental impacts assessment of exploration and mining activities and waste disposal mining, which may significantly contribute to the environmental protection in the future. Several parameters that can significantly affect the usability of the waste disposal mining, such as geological structure, hydro-geological conditions, material composition and physical and mechanical properties of rocks are discussed in detail in this work. The article also includes a practical example of Environmental Impact Assessment process for the particular activity of OKD stock company, which is the only producer of hard coal (bituminous coal) in the Czech Republic. Its coal is mined in the southern part of the Upper Silesian Coal Basin - in the Ostrava-Karvina coal district. KeywordsWeb of Science221937

Model-driven Enterprise Systems Configuration

Enterprise Systems potentially lead to significant efficiency gains but require a well-conducted configuration process. A promising idea to manage and simplify the configuration process is based on the premise of using reference models for this task. Our paper continues along this idea and delivers a two-fold contribution: first, we present a generic process for the task of model-driven Enterprise Systems configuration including the steps of (a) Specification of configurable reference models, (b) Configuration of configurable reference models, (c) Transformation of configured reference models to regular build time models, (d) Deployment of the generated build time models, (e) Controlling of implementation models to provide input to the configuration, and (f) Consolidation of implementation models to provide input to reference model specification. We discuss inputs and outputs as well as the involvement of different roles and validation mechanisms. Second, we present an instantiation case of this generic process for Enterprise Systems configuration based on Configurable EPCs