E-learning Solutions for a Changing Global Market. An Analysis of Two Comparative Case Studies

This paper investigates the models and acceptability of e-learning to the emerging student markets for higher education institutions (HEIs) from the more developed countries (MDCs) and seeks to evaluate the differing models of delivery from a practical and a socio-economic perspective. The research also investigates the impact of the shifts in population growth and the subsequent impact upon the levels of demand from students in less developed countries (LDCs) for HE. In addition, through case study review methods the logistical and quality factors affecting e-learning are critically evaluated, looking at the aspects of academic rigor, plagiarism and the methods of managing the originality and authenticity of student work. Similarly, the research considers the viability of situations where the education provider may never physically meet the students through the exclusive use of Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs), and the possible credibility issues that this may present to institutional and awarding body reputations

Some remarks on the hyperelliptic moduli of genus 3

In 1967, Shioda \cite{Shi1} determined the ring of invariants of binary octavics and their syzygies using the symbolic method. We discover that the syzygies determined in \cite{Shi1} are incorrect. In this paper, we compute the correct equations among the invariants of the binary octavics and give necessary and sufficient conditions for two genus 3 hyperelliptic curves to be isomorphic over an algebraically closed field $k$, $\ch k \neq 2, 3, 5, 7$. For the first time, an explicit equation of the hyperelliptic moduli for genus 3 is computed in terms of absolute invariants.Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1209.044

Transductive Label Augmentation for Improved Deep Network Learning

A major impediment to the application of deep learning to real-world problems is the scarcity of labeled data. Small training sets are in fact of no use to deep networks as, due to the large number of trainable parameters, they will very likely be subject to overfitting phenomena. On the other hand, the increment of the training set size through further manual or semi-automatic labellings can be costly, if not possible at times. Thus, the standard techniques to address this issue are transfer learning and data augmentation, which consists of applying some sort of "transformation" to existing labeled instances to let the training set grow in size. Although this approach works well in applications such as image classification, where it is relatively simple to design suitable transformation operators, it is not obvious how to apply it in more structured scenarios. Motivated by the observation that in virtually all application domains it is easy to obtain unlabeled data, in this paper we take a different perspective and propose a \emph{label augmentation} approach. We start from a small, curated labeled dataset and let the labels propagate through a larger set of unlabeled data using graph transduction techniques. This allows us to naturally use (second-order) similarity information which resides in the data, a source of information which is typically neglected by standard augmentation techniques. In particular, we show that by using known game theoretic transductive processes we can create larger and accurate enough labeled datasets which use results in better trained neural networks. Preliminary experiments are reported which demonstrate a consistent improvement over standard image classification datasets.Comment: Accepted on IEEE International Conference on Pattern Recognitio

On the Crepant Resolution Conjecture in the Local Case

In this paper we analyze four examples of birational transformations between local Calabi-Yau 3-folds: two crepant resolutions, a crepant partial resolution, and a flop. We study the effect of these transformations on genus-zero Gromov-Witten invariants, proving the Coates-Corti-Iritani-Tseng/Ruan form of the Crepant Resolution Conjecture in each case. Our results suggest that this form of the Crepant Resolution Conjecture may also hold for more general crepant birational transformations. They also suggest that Ruan's original Crepant Resolution Conjecture should be modified, by including appropriate "quantum corrections", and that there is no straightforward generalization of either Ruan's original Conjecture or the Cohomological Crepant Resolution Conjecture to the case of crepant partial resolutions. Our methods are based on mirror symmetry for toric orbifolds.Comment: 27 pages. This is a substantially revised and shortened version of my preprint "Wall-Crossings in Toric Gromov-Witten Theory II: Local Examples"; all results contained here are also proved there. To appear in Communications in Mathematical Physic

Short- and long-term outcomes of single bare metal stent versus drug eluting stent in nondiabetic patients with a simple de novo lesion in the middle and large vessel

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Objective</p> <p>This study was aimed to investigate the short- and long-term outcomes of percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) between single bare metal stent (BMS) and single drug eluting stent (DES) in nondiabetic patients with a simple de novo lesion in the middle and large vessel.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Two hundred and thirty-five consecutive patients with a simple de novo lesion in the middle and large vessel were treated with BMS or DES in our hospital from Apr. 2004 to Dec. 2004.</p> <p>The inclusion criteria: a simple de novo lesion in the middle and large vessel, stent diameter ≥ 3.0 mm, stent length ≤ 18 mm, the exclusion criteria: diabetes mellitus, left main trunk disease and left ventricular ejection fraction ≤ 30%. Of them, there were 150 patients in BMS group and 85 patients in DES group, and the rates of lost to follow up were 6.7% and 1.2% respectively.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>BMS group had lower hypercholesteremia rate (22.0% vs 38.8%) and higher proportion of TIMI grade 0 (12% vs 1.2%) than DES group (all P < 0.05), but both groups had similar stent length (16.16 ± 2.81 mm vs 16.06 ± 2.46 mm) and stent diameter (3.85 ± 3.07 mm vs 3.19 ± 0.24 mm) after procedure, in-segment restenosis rate (0% vs 1.2%) and target lesion revascularization (TLR, 2.0% vs 2.4%) at 6-month follow-up (all P > 0.05). No difference was found in TLR (1.3% vs 1.2%, P = 1.00) and recurrent myocardial infarction (Re-MI) (0% vs 1.2%, P = 0.36), cardiac death (0.7% vs 1.2%, P = 1.00) between 1- and 3-year. So were TLR (6.0% vs 5.9%, P = 0.97), Re-MI (0% vs 2.4%, P = 0.06), cardiac death (2.0% vs 3.5%, P = 0.48) and major adverse cardiac events (MACE, 8.7% vs 10.6%, P = 0.63), cardiac death-free cumulative survival (98.7% vs 97.7%, P = 0.56), TLR-free cumulative survival (94.0% vs 94.1%, P = 0.98) and Re-MI-free cumulative survival (100% vs 97.7%, P = 0.06) at 3-year follow-up.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The single BMS has similar efficacy and safety to single DES in nondiabetic patients with a simple de novo lesion in the middle and large vessel at short- and long-term follow-up.</p