Sentiment classification with case-base approach

L'augmentation de la croissance des réseaux, des blogs et des utilisateurs des sites d'examen sociaux font d'Internet une énorme source de données, en particulier sur la façon dont les gens pensent, sentent et agissent envers différentes questions. Ces jours-ci, les opinions des gens jouent un rôle important dans la politique, l'industrie, l'éducation, etc. Alors, les gouvernements, les grandes et petites industries, les instituts universitaires, les entreprises et les individus cherchent à étudier des techniques automatiques fin d’extraire les informations dont ils ont besoin dans les larges volumes de données. L’analyse des sentiments est une véritable réponse à ce besoin. Elle est une application de traitement du langage naturel et linguistique informatique qui se compose de techniques de pointe telles que l'apprentissage machine et les modèles de langue pour capturer les évaluations positives, négatives ou neutre, avec ou sans leur force, dans des texte brut. Dans ce mémoire, nous étudions une approche basée sur les cas pour l'analyse des sentiments au niveau des documents. Notre approche basée sur les cas génère un classificateur binaire qui utilise un ensemble de documents classifies, et cinq lexiques de sentiments différents pour extraire la polarité sur les scores correspondants aux commentaires. Puisque l'analyse des sentiments est en soi une tâche dépendante du domaine qui rend le travail difficile et coûteux, nous appliquons une approche «cross domain» en basant notre classificateur sur les six différents domaines au lieu de le limiter à un seul domaine. Pour améliorer la précision de la classification, nous ajoutons la détection de la négation comme une partie de notre algorithme. En outre, pour améliorer la performance de notre approche, quelques modifications innovantes sont appliquées. Il est intéressant de mentionner que notre approche ouvre la voie à nouveaux développements en ajoutant plus de lexiques de sentiment et ensembles de données à l'avenir.Increasing growth of the social networks, blogs, and user review sites make Internet a huge source of data especially about how people think, feel, and act toward different issues. These days, people opinions play an important role in the politic, industry, education, etc. Thus governments, large and small industries, academic institutes, companies, and individuals are looking for investigating automatic techniques to extract their desire information from large amount of data. Sentiment analysis is one true answer to this need. Sentiment analysis is an application of natural language processing and computational linguistic that consists of advanced techniques such as machine learning and language model approaches to capture the evaluative factors such as positive, negative, or neutral, with or without their strength, from plain texts. In this thesis we study a case-based approach on cross-domain for sentiment analysis on the document level. Our case-based algorithm generates a binary classifier that uses a set of the processed cases, and five different sentiment lexicons to extract the polarity along the corresponding scores from the reviews. Since sentiment analysis inherently is a domain dependent task that makes it problematic and expensive work, we use a cross-domain approach by training our classifier on the six different domains instead of limiting it to one domain. To improve the accuracy of the classifier, we add negation detection as a part of our algorithm. Moreover, to improve the performance of our approach, some innovative modifications are applied. It is worth to mention that our approach allows for further developments by adding more sentiment lexicons and data sets in the future

Intégration scolaire des enfants en difficulté d'apprentissage

Québec Université Laval, Bibliothèque 201

The challenge of assessing the performance of multilateral development agencies: lessons for WHO programmes in Myanmar and Nepal

Development organisations have moved from reporting on 'what they do' to addressing 'what difference they make' in an environment that forces them to compete for resources. Thus, measuring their effectiveness has evolved from accountability reporting to results enquiries and to evaluation of the impact of interventions at the end user's level. To adapt to these changes, most development organizations and donors have adhered to results based management and use logical framework approaches for their operations. These approaches and systems have recognised usefulness in project planning, although their utility in project monitoring and organizational performance assessment is more contested. The analysis of recent experiences calls for alternative approaches to assessing performance to improve the effectiveness of development and technical organisations at the country level. This research explores the use of logframes to assess the programmatic performance in a multilateral organization at country level, in the context of an increased focus on results based management. It uses a qualitative methodology to a) assess the comparative advantages and challenges of various assessment tools and systems that WHO uses to measure its performance in EPR in Myanmar and in Nepal; b) address the WHO contribution in terms of results and impact in the area studied; and c) propose options for addressing WHO accountability performance and cooperation effectiveness in EPR at country level. The two case studies uncover the importance of contextual factors, and stakeholders' perceptions and intemctions. They further highlight the role that organisational setting and team profile play in using systems and tools to measure progmmmatic performance. Logframes proved useful for planning and financial accountability, although they confronted major difficulties when assessing the core contribution of the teams to the programme achievements and stakeholders' expectations. The research contributes to the understanding of how routine performance assessment systems work in practice. The comparison of the findings in the two countries raises institutional issues and offers the possibility for organizational learning. Finally, the research proposes alternative options that WHO may adopt to measure its programmatic performance in countries

Developing an outcome measure in temporomandibular disorders / Mohammad Adel Moufti.

PhD ThesisAssessment of treatment outcome in clinical trials of temporomandibular disorders (TMD) lacks validated patient-based measures of the condition and its improvement. Such measures are questionnaire-based. The questions need to be chosen and framed appropriately. In line with the guidelines of the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence in the U. K., this project aimed to start the development of a patient-derived quality of life instrument to measure TMD treatment outcome. Three studies were conducted for this purpose. Study One aimed to establisht he optimal time to assesstr eatmento utcomef or TMD (the Review Period), and the best Reference Period to determine the time-frame of questions. Data consisted of daily diaries of pain intensity from 72 patients who had participated in a clinical trial of conservative TMD treatment. The study involved two stages. The first aimed to identify patientsr espondingto treatment,s o-called" Improvers" andt o excludet he "Non- Improvers" whosed atam ight dilute the results.T his was accomplishedin two ways: firstly by visually assessingin dividual plots of pain versust ime; secondlyb y mathematicallyc alculating the reduction of pain scores during treatment. Criteria for improvement were set and tested for both methods.D efinite improvers were selectedi f they met criteria of both assessmentsIn. the second stage, only improvers' data were examined to analyse the general trend of improvement and establish the review and reference periods. Study One determined 15 weeks as the best review period and four weeks as the best referencep eriod when assessinga commonly used TMD treatment. Study Two was intended to triangulate with Study One and had the same aim. Study Two explored, using a qualitative approach, patients' perception of improvement of TMD symptoms and rates of their recovery. Ten TMD patients showing improvement to conservativet reatmentw ere interviewed. Data were collected using a pre-designedt opic guide and analysed using the Framework approach. The interviewees consistently reported that pain was the symptom with the most impact on their quality of life, and the one to which improvement was linked the most. Other TMD symptoms were also important, but were less linked to patients' suffering and to perceived improvement. Different symptoms followed various rates of recovery. It was not possible to determine a definite time when all symptoms are considered improved. This study confirmed that the approach used in Study One, i. e. assessing TMD recovery based on measurement of pain intensity, was reasonable. It also confirmed that sufficient time (in a frame of some months) is needed before outcome for TMD conservative treatment can be assessed meaningfully. In addition, this study identified important new themes related to patient's journey throughout illness and their perception of received care. Study Three was the core study in this project. It aimed to establish a quality of life measure of TMD treatment outcome using the Oral Health Impact Profile (OHIP) as a starting point, using the reference period identified in studies one and two. A short form of OHIP was derived by identifying OHIP items with the largest impact on TMD patients' quality of life. A case-control design was used and 110 patients (PG) undergoing a variety of conservative treatments and matching controls (CG) were included. Candidate questions (items) for the intendeds hort form (OHIP/TMD-I) were selectedb asedo n three criteria: 1- showings tatistical differencesb etweenP G and CG; 2- showing largests cored ifference (PG:C G) as measuredb y four analysesM: ean, Median, Prevalencea ndI tem-Impact;3 - representinga ll domainso f OHIP's theoretical framework. This was followed by testing aspects of validity and reliability of the short form and comparing them to those of the full OHIP. Twenty items were identified. Their psychometric properties were comparable or better than those of the mother instrument. Future work is neededt o analyset he responsivenestso changew ith treatmento f the short form, to investigatew hetheri temso utwith OHIP aren eededto furnisht he intendedT M) outcome instrument, and to test the psychometric properties of the final instrument in a new sample.Damascus Universit

Developing an outcome measure in temporomandibular disorders

Assessment of treatment outcome in clinical trials of temporomandibular disorders (TMD) lacks validated patient-based measures of the condition and its improvement. Such measures are questionnaire-based. The questions need to be chosen and framed appropriately. In line with the guidelines of the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence in the U. K., this project aimed to start the development of a patient-derived quality of life instrument to measure TMD treatment outcome. Three studies were conducted for this purpose. Study One aimed to establisht he optimal time to assesstr eatmento utcomef or TMD (the Review Period), and the best Reference Period to determine the time-frame of questions. Data consisted of daily diaries of pain intensity from 72 patients who had participated in a clinical trial of conservative TMD treatment. The study involved two stages. The first aimed to identify patientsr espondingto treatment,s o-called" Improvers" andt o excludet he "Non- Improvers" whosed atam ight dilute the results.T his was accomplishedin two ways: firstly by visually assessingin dividual plots of pain versust ime; secondlyb y mathematicallyc alculating the reduction of pain scores during treatment. Criteria for improvement were set and tested for both methods.D efinite improvers were selectedi f they met criteria of both assessmentsIn. the second stage, only improvers' data were examined to analyse the general trend of improvement and establish the review and reference periods. Study One determined 15 weeks as the best review period and four weeks as the best referencep eriod when assessinga commonly used TMD treatment. Study Two was intended to triangulate with Study One and had the same aim. Study Two explored, using a qualitative approach, patients' perception of improvement of TMD symptoms and rates of their recovery. Ten TMD patients showing improvement to conservativet reatmentw ere interviewed. Data were collected using a pre-designedt opic guide and analysed using the Framework approach. The interviewees consistently reported that pain was the symptom with the most impact on their quality of life, and the one to which improvement was linked the most. Other TMD symptoms were also important, but were less linked to patients' suffering and to perceived improvement. Different symptoms followed various rates of recovery. It was not possible to determine a definite time when all symptoms are considered improved. This study confirmed that the approach used in Study One, i. e. assessing TMD recovery based on measurement of pain intensity, was reasonable. It also confirmed that sufficient time (in a frame of some months) is needed before outcome for TMD conservative treatment can be assessed meaningfully. In addition, this study identified important new themes related to patient's journey throughout illness and their perception of received care. Study Three was the core study in this project. It aimed to establish a quality of life measure of TMD treatment outcome using the Oral Health Impact Profile (OHIP) as a starting point, using the reference period identified in studies one and two. A short form of OHIP was derived by identifying OHIP items with the largest impact on TMD patients' quality of life. A case-control design was used and 110 patients (PG) undergoing a variety of conservative treatments and matching controls (CG) were included. Candidate questions (items) for the intendeds hort form (OHIP/TMD-I) were selectedb asedo n three criteria: 1- showings tatistical differencesb etweenP G and CG; 2- showing largests cored ifference (PG:C G) as measuredb y four analysesM: ean, Median, Prevalencea ndI tem-Impact;3 - representinga ll domainso f OHIP's theoretical framework. This was followed by testing aspects of validity and reliability of the short form and comparing them to those of the full OHIP. Twenty items were identified. Their psychometric properties were comparable or better than those of the mother instrument. Future work is neededt o analyset he responsivenestso changew ith treatmento f the short form, to investigatew hetheri temso utwith OHIP aren eededto furnisht he intendedT M) outcome instrument, and to test the psychometric properties of the final instrument in a new sample.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceDamascus UniversityGBUnited Kingdo

Seeing affect: knowledge infrastructures in facial expression recognition systems

Efforts to process and simulate human affect have come to occupy a prominent role in Human-Computer Interaction as well as developments in machine learning systems. Affective computing applications promise to decode human affective experience and provide objective insights into usersʼ affective behaviors, ranging from frustration and boredom to states of clinical relevance such as depression and anxiety. While these projects are often grounded in psychological theories that have been contested both within scholarly and public domains, practitioners have remained largely agnostic to this debate, focusing instead on the development of either applicable technical systems or advancements of the fieldʼs state of the art. I take this controversy as an entry point to investigate the tensions related to the classification of affective behaviors and how practitioners validate these classification choices. This work offers an empirical examination of the discursive and material repertoires ‒ the infrastructures of knowledge ‒ that affective computing practitioners mobilize to legitimize and validate their practice. I build on feminist studies of science and technology to interrogate and challenge the claims of objectivity on which affective computing applications rest. By looking at research practices and commercial developments of Facial Expression Recognition (FER) systems, the findings unpack the interplay of knowledge, vision, and power underpinning the development of machine learning applications of affective computing. The thesis begins with an analysis of historical efforts to quantify affective behaviors and how these are reflected in modern affective computing practice. Here, three main themes emerge that will guide and orient the empirical findings: 1) the role that framings of science and scientific practice play in constructing affective behaviors as “objective” scientific facts, 2) the role of human interpretation and mediation required to make sense of affective data, and 3) the prescriptive and performative dimensions of these quantification efforts. This analysis forms the historical backdrop for the empirical core of the thesis: semi-structured interviews with affective computing practitioners across the academic and industry sectors, including the data annotators labelling the modelsʼ training datasets. My findings reveal the discursive and material strategies that participants adopt to validate affective classification, including forms of boundary work to establish credibility as well as the local and contingent work of human interpretation and standardization involved in the process of making sense of affective data. Here, I show how, despite their professed agnosticism, practitioners must make normative choices in order to ʻseeʼ (and teach machines how to see) affect. I apply the notion of knowledge infrastructures to conceptualize the scaffolding of data practices, norms and routines, psychological theories, and historical and epistemological assumptions that shape practitionersʼ vision and inform FER design. Finally, I return to the problem of agnosticism and its socio-ethical relevance to the broader field of machine learning. Here, I argue that agnosticism can make it difficult to locate the technologyʼs historical and epistemological lineages and, therefore, obscure accountability. I conclude by arguing that both policy and practice would benefit from a nuanced examination of the plurality of visions and forms of knowledge involved in the automation of affect

Motivation to learn

The motivation of students to learn is one of the most investigated topics in education. Abu Asba (2007) and Assor (2005) have tried to understand the basic factors that enhance motivation and how both teachers and students can benefit from enhancing the motivation to learn. There has been no research that has contributed to the study of motivation in Israeli Arab high schools. The main purpose of the current study was to examine the processes elicited by a counselling intervention designed to enhance motivation, to improve self-image, school climate and student-teacher achievements of high-school students. Thirty students from five 10th grade classes and thirty-five teachers participated in the study. One of the research aims was to formulate a strategy teachers can use when attempting to motivate their students. The study found that it is difficult for teachers to arouse students' intrinsic motivation to learn in a cultural and educational system where motivation to learn is extrinsically controlled. The study also found that motivation to learn increased after students and teachers participated in a counselling intervention program. When students' motivation to learn was elicited, student engagement with the learning processes was enhanced. The findings showed that student and teacher motivation grew and developed when student and teacher self-images improved. Strategies to improve teacher and student self-images included the implementation of teacher training on the subject of learning styles and on the use of relevant instructional styles and the training of educational teams to address teacher and student motivation.N/

An exploration of the barriers and enablers of using electrically assisted bikes (e-bikes) in the development of a stroke intervention for people after stroke

Background: Recently there has been an increased interest in the development of innovative approaches within stroke rehabilitation interventions to ensure long term maintenance of physical activity levels within the stroke population. Electrically assisted bikes (e-bike) have been shown to be an alternative form of physical activity for sedentary individuals and those with physical limitations. Currently the research into the use of e-bike by stroke survivors is limited and has not been explored within the context of stroke intervention design. This study explored the barriers and enablers to using an e-bike by stroke survivors in the development of a stroke rehabilitation intervention. Methods: A mixed methods case study approach using semi-structured interviews and e-bike usage data was used. Six stroke survivors with the ability to walk with or without assistance, were recruited from stroke support groups. Subject to approval from their doctor, participants had the opportunity to loan either an e-bike or e-trike for a duration of up to three months. Data collection was carried out over three phases: Pre-loan, during the e-bike loan and post e-bike loan. Semi-structured interviews were conducted pre and post loan to identify barriers and enablers and were analysed within the framework of a behaviour change model (the COM-B model). Results: Of the six participants, only three went on to loan an e-bike and participate in the post-loan interview. Reasons for withdrawal were because of a lack of storage space, non-approval from their doctor and not feeling comfortable using the e-bike. The analysis using the COM-B model identified that the most common barriers were in relation to the effects of physical impairment, knowledge about the e-bike and fear as a negative emotion. The main enablers were the effect that the e-bike had on fatigue, social support and the belief that using the e-bike was a mode of physical activity that was enjoyable and good for their health. Conclusion: The stroke survivors identified several barriers and enablers to using the e-bike. If e-bikes are going to be used as part of a stroke rehabilitation intervention the barriers need to be addressed and build on the enablers to increase physical activity levels post-stroke

Structure and agency in local path development: A comparative study of the online games industry in Shanghai and Hamburg

The question of how industry develops differently in different regions is an interesting topic in economic geography. Scholars have contributed enormous knowledge concerning various relatedness, the role of multiple actors and their agencies, and regional industrial preconditions, in contributing to local industrial path development. However, our knowledge on the agency-structure relations present in local industrial development is limited, if not totally lacking, not mentioning how such relations influence the industrial development trajectories and ultimately the overall competitiveness of the local industry. Based on such reflections, this thesis aims to fill such an ‘agency-structure’ gap in local industrial development by looking at the developmental trajectories of one creative industry—online games industry, in two regions that belong to different countries (Shanghai in China and Hamburg in Germany). In both cases, all sorts of misalignments between the focal industry and the institutional frameworks (including both formal and informal institutional elements) could be observed during the industrial development processes. It is under such industry-institution misalignments that the agency and activities of multiple actors have been analyzed. By comparing the two trajectories in different institutional contexts, the research contributes to the literature in the following ways. First, this research gives due attention to the structural forces, such as the formal and informal institutional structures, that affect local industrial development. Secondly, it contributes to a nuanced analysis of agency in local industrial development, including innovative entrepreneurship, institutional entrepreneurship and place leadership. Finally, it reveals the dynamic agency-structure relations, which serve as the causal mechanisms leading to different developmental outcomes in the games industry in the two selected cities