Corrective Feedback in Dialogue-based Computer Assisted Language Learning

Computer assisted language learning (CALL) systems are used by people to learn a language. CALL systems have provided a number of advantages for language learning such as their ability to provide consistent and flexible corrective feedback during the learning process. This feedback is expressed as information about what is ungrammatical or unacceptable in a target language. This paper presents a literature study on the field of corrective feedback and CALL and describes the future plan for my PhD research

Corrective Feedback in Language Learning

In the language learning classroom, teachers always provide either positive evidence or negative evidence to learners in response to the learners’ erroneous sentence (Kim, 2004). The negative evidence is also known as corrective feedback. This paper describes various types of corrective feedback provided to the learners when learning a second language (L2). We also discuss how corrective feedback facilitates language learning in five stages: notice, locate, perceive, uptake and repair. We argue that the nature of corrective feedback (explicit or implicit) has some effect how the feedback works in language learning

Methods for adaptivity in intelligent web-based learning systems

There are two main methods for implementing adaptivity in intelligent web-based learning systems: adaptive presentation (or content-level adaptation) and adaptive navigation support (or link-level adaptation). In the systems that use an adaptive presentation method, the content of an adaptive hypermedia page is generated or assembled from pieces according to the user’s background and knowledge state. In such the page, narrowed and detailed deep information (in forms of multimedia or text) is provided for advanced users, while broader and less deep additional explanation is provided for novices. Adaptive navigation support is a method of helping users to find their paths of learning in hypermedia systems by adapting the way of presenting links to goals, knowledge, and preferences of individual users. It consists of all methods of altering visible links to support hyperspace navigation. Some technologies were distinguished from the points of view according to the way they adapt presentation of links: direct guidance, link sorting, link hiding, link annotation, link generation, and map adaptation. Based on recent research and applications, this simple taxonomy is developed further

Named Entity Recognition using Fuzzy C-Means Clustering Method for Malay Textual Data Analysis

The Named Entity Recognition (NER) task is among the important tasks in analysing unstructured textual data as a solution to gain important and valuable information from the text document. This task is very useful in Natural Language Processing (NLP) to analyse various languages with distinctive styles of writing, characteristics and word structures. The social media act as the primary source where most information and unstructured textual data are obtained through these sources. In this paper, unstructured textual data were analysed through NER task focusing on the Malay language. The analysis was implemented to investigate the impact of text features transformation set used for recognising entities from unstructured Malay textual data using fuzzy c-means method. It focuses on using Bernama Malay news as a dataset through several steps for the experiment namely pre-processing, text features transformation, experimental and evaluation steps. As a conclusion, the overall percentage accuracy gave markedly good results based on clustering matching with 98.57%. This accuracy was derived from the precision and recall evaluation of both classes. The precision result for NON_ENTITY class is 98.39% with 100.00% recall, whereas for an ENTITY class, the precision and recall are 100.00% and 88.97%, respectively

Big Data Emerging Technology: Insights into Innovative Environment for Online Learning Resources

Digital devices like tablets, smart phones, and laptop have become increasingly raised and utilised in higher education. As a result, current trends on ICT (information and communication technology) used in education begin widely with focusing on teaching and learning. The new concept of big data in recent ICT domain extends the promising research direction on online learning and big data integration through promising content that can be tailored for each student based on the context and Internet behaviour of users in online learning. This paper aims to explore innovative design for innovative online learning in Higher education using Big Data approach. Critical review from referred journals and books was conducted using thematic analysis. This paper proposes model reference which can be implemented with the technology in teaching and learning to improve student learning environment and outcomes and to enhance students’ development, performance and achievement in learning process in higher education

Innovative E-Therapy service in higher education: Mobile application design

Cyber counselling or e-therapy has widely been adopted as the new approach to give an insightful guidance into the clients. In higher education (HE) level, this initiative seems to have rarely been involved due to some technical requirements and preparations. This paper aims to present the approach of e-therapy using mobile application design. The finding illustrates that promoting this model application can theoretically assist the transmission process of counselling in the academic circumstance where both students and advisors may have a continuous engagement with more convenient quality in solving the issues surrounding the academic purposes. The attainment of this paper is expected to contribute in enabling the process of academic counselling in the context of higher education (HE). Strengthening practical and relational value maintaining connection to facilitate the sensitive issues disclosure is expected to help students solve their academic issues, such as reflecting the learning achievement

A survey study on the assessment of food handler’s compliance to personal hygiene practices regulation in selected Malaysia food outlets

Food safety remains a major issue around the world particularly when the COVID-19 pandemic becomes the main issue nowadays. Food safety is essential to the human population worldwide because food is the primary energy source and nutrition for humans. Therefore, food handlers' personal hygiene is one of the factors that are necessary to maintain food safety. The purpose of this study was to assess the food handler’s compliance with personal hygiene practices in randomly any food outlets across Malaysia including Kuching, Sarawak; Lawas, Sarawak; Johor Bahru, Johor; Kuala Penyu, Sabah, and Gurun, Kedah. A quantitative method, a cross-sectional descriptive study to one thousand and five (N = 1005) food handlers who participated in the questionnaire and observation checklist was developed by modifying questions in accordance with the Food Hygiene Regulations 2009. Overall, the mean percentage of conformity in adhering to food handler attire was the highest observed at Gurun, Kedah and Kuala Penyu, Sabah with 86.96% and 80.79%, respectively, followed by Kuching, Sarawak with 77.5%, Johor Bahru with 76.71%, and Lawas, Sarawak with 74.93%. Personal hygiene practices conformity showed a high mean percentage with all districts scoring >91% higher than non-conformity. The food handlers also show less unhygienic behaviour while on duty and scored a mean percentage of > 92%. Although in that positive behaviour, some of the food handlers did not perform some unhygienic practices (≤ 8 %). In conclusion, there is no significant difference (p-value > 0.05) in the level of conformity between the mean percentages among all districts. Thus, this issue shall raise a concern to the food industries in order to make sure their workers comply with the legal requirement and to avoid any food poisoning outbreak related to food hygiene and food safety in the future

Ergonomics observation: harvesting tasks at oil palm plantation

Objectives: Production agriculture is commonly associated with high prevalence of ergonomic injuries, particularly during intensive manual labor and during harvesting. This paper intends to briefly describe an overview of oil palm plantation management highlighting the ergonomics problem each of the breakdown task analysis. Methods: Although cross-sectional field visits were conducted in the current study, insight into past and present occupational safety and health concerns particularly regarding the ergonomics of oil palm plantations was further exploited. Besides discussion, video recordings were extensively used for ergonomics analysis. Results: The unique commodity of oil palm plantations presents significantly different ergonomics risk factors for fresh fruit bunch (FFB) cutters during different stages of harvesting. Although the ergonomics risk factors remain the same for FFB collectors, the intensity of manual lifting increases significantly with the age of the oil palm trees-weight of FFB. Conclusions: There is urgent need to establish surveillance in order to determine the current prevalence of ergonomic injuries. Thereafter, ergonomics interventions that are holistic and comprehensive should be conducted and evaluated for their efficacy using approaches that are integrated, participatory and cost-effective

Oil Palm Research in Context: Identifying the Need for Biodiversity Assessment

Oil palm cultivation is frequently cited as a major threat to tropical biodiversity as it is centered on some of the world's most biodiverse regions. In this report, Web of Science was used to find papers on oil palm published since 1970, which were assigned to different subject categories to visualize their research focus. Recent years have seen a broadening in the scope of research, with a slight growth in publications on the environment and a dramatic increase in those on biofuel. Despite this, less than 1% of publications are related to biodiversity and species conservation. In the context of global vegetable oil markets, palm oil and soyabean account for over 60% of production but are the subject of less than 10% of research. Much more work must be done to establish the impacts of habitat conversion to oil palm plantation on biodiversity. Results from such studies are crucial for informing conservation strategies and ensuring sustainable management of plantations

Optimization of growth media components for polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) production from organic acids by Ralstonia eutropha

We employed systematic mixture analysis to determine optimal levels of acetate, propionate, and butyrate for cell growth and polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) production by Ralstonia eutropha H16. Butyrate was the preferred acid for robust cell growth and high PHA production. The 3-hydroxyvalerate content in the resulting PHA depended on the proportion of propionate initially present in the growth medium. The proportion of acetate dramatically affected the final pH of the growth medium. A model was constructed using our data that predicts the effects of these acids, individually and in combination, on cell dry weight (CDW), PHA content (%CDW), PHA production, 3HV in the polymer, and final culture pH. Cell growth and PHA production improved approximately 1.5-fold over initial conditions when the proportion of butyrate was increased. Optimization of the phosphate buffer content in medium containing higher amounts of butyrate improved cell growth and PHA production more than 4-fold. The validated organic acid mixture analysis model can be used to optimize R. eutropha culture conditions, in order to meet targets for PHA production and/or polymer HV content. By modifying the growth medium made from treated industrial waste, such as palm oil mill effluent, more PHA can be produced.Malaysia. Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (MOSTI