Next Stop Recommender

The earlier precedent research had designed an algorithm which is capable of finding a user’s wandering behaviour pattern and further comparing the extracted pattern with other users’. With the similarity measurement, the precedent research can recommend a user next stop(s) that he or she might be interested according to his or her past wandering behaviours. This research further developed an Android mobile app which integrates different positioning technologies such as QR Code and GPS and the proposed algorithm to provide users a personalized service which can be used in a variety of application domains such like tourism, field trips, and mobile learning. Some participants of the presentation argued that the system should record users’ wandering behaviours in local time instead of the time on their mobile devices. The argument is thoughtful and useful. The next stop of this research will be categorizing users’ wandering patterns based on time and event as well as point of interests. This research is also looking for partners to use the mobile app and to give the research team the feedback in terms of its usability and user perceptions; looking for partners to use the next stop recommender algorithm or app in their existing and prospective research and/or system/app.User wandering behaviours may involve many location visits in different order. The research team has proposed an algorithm which can provide users recommendation for their next visit according to the behaviour pattern similarity amongst users and the connections amongst locations. In order to test the effectiveness of proposed algorithm the research team develops a mobile app – Next Stop Recommender – for Android platform. This paper focuses on the app itself and discusses the potential use of the app and the directions for the algorithm enhancement

Time-Decay-Based Reputation Method for Buyers Making Decisions in Online Shopping

Trust and reputation is considered a significant part of the Internet marketing. Internet transactions or interactions involve anonymity of participants, which are more risky on account of uncertainty about the quality of service or identity of service providers. Reputation system is a mechanism to determine who is trustworthy and induce Internet marketing’s participants to maintain a good reputation while performing Internet activities. We consider that the evaluation of service provider’s reputation or participant’s honesty and responsibility constrained in some way by three factors, they are service quality, transaction time, and dollar value involved in the transaction(s), we called them as triple constraint. Very little research had done to pinpoint the relationship between trust and reputation with this triple constraint, especially when trust decay and time decay factors involved in the reputation evaluation process. We propose and investigate a novel dynamic trust and reputation framework based on the three factors mentioned above to reflect the more realistic reputation of the service providers in the Internet market

A Systematic Literature Review of Empirical Studies on Learning Analytics in Educational Games

Learning analytics (LA) in educational games is considered an emerging practice due to its potential of enhancing the learning process. Growing research on formative assessment has shed light on the ways in which students' meaningful and in-situ learning experiences can be supported through educational games. To understand learners' playful experiences during gameplay, researchers have applied LA, which focuses on understanding students' in-game behaviour trajectories and personal learning needs during play. However, there is a lack of studies exploring how further research on LA in educational games can be conducted. Only a few analyses have discussed how LA has been designed, integrated, and implemented in educational games. Accordingly, this systematic literature review examined how LA in educational games has evolved. The study findings suggest that: (1) there is an increasing need to consider factors such as student modelling, iterative game design and personalisation when designing and implementing LA through educational games; and (2) the use of LA creates several challenges from technical, data management and ethical perspectives. In addition to outlining these findings, this article offers important notes for practitioners, and discusses the implications of the study’s results

A Smart Collaborative Educational Game with Learning Analytics to Support English Vocabulary Teaching

Learning Analytics (LA) approaches have proved to be able to enhance learning process and learning performance. However, little is known about applying these approaches for second language acquisition using educational games. Therefore, this study applied LA approaches to design a smart collaborative educational game, to enhance primary school children learning English vocabularies. Specifically, the game provided dashboards to the teachers about their students in a real-time manner. A pilot experiment was conducted in a public primary school where the students’ data from experimental and control groups, namely learning and motivation test scores, interview and observation, were collected and analyzed. The obtained results showed that the experimental group (who used the smart game with LA) had significantly higher motivation and performance for learning English vocabularies than the control group (who used the smart game without LA). The findings of this study can help researchers and practitioners incorporate LA in their educational games to help students enhance language acquisition

Building Ontology-Driven Tutoring Models for Intelligent Tutoring Systems Using Data Mining

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Yörünge Fiziği Öğrenimini Uygulamalı bir Kinect Oyunu ile Geliştirme

Practicing is very important in the process of learning physics. Experiencing physics laws and observing the phenomenon in the experiments and labs help students learn. However, some contexts like the law of orbits in physics cannot be practiced directly and students can only learn it from animation or drawings. We have designed a Kinect game for students to experience orbital physics and conducted a pilot in a summer camp of Athabasca University's science outreach program to verify the hypotheses include whether the students' attitudes toward computer/video games will affect their perceptions toward the developed Kinect game or not, and whether their performance in the game will be influenced by the lack of prior knowledge of the law of orbits or not. The quantitative analysis results showed that there was a positive correlation between students' gaming performances and what they knew about the relevant physics knowledge. Also, it shows that the students' attitudes toward computer/video games do not affect their perceptions toward the developed Kinect game in terms of its usability.Fizik öğreniminde pratik yapmanın yeri büyüktür. Fizik kanunlarını deneyimlemek ve deneylerle ve laboratuvar ortamında gözlemlemek öğrenmeyi kolaylaştırır. Fakat yörünge kanunu gibi bazı konuların pratik uygulamaları yoktur ve öğrenciler bu konuyu sadece animasyonlar veya çizimler yoluyla öğrenebilirler. Öğrencilerin yörünge fiziğini deneyimleyebilmeleri için bir Kinect oyunu geliştirdik ve Athabasca Üniversitesi’nin yaz kampındaki bilim destek programı çerçevesinde bir pilot çalışma yürüttük. Bu çalışma ile öğrencilerin bilgisayar/video oyunlarına karşı tutumlarının Kinect oyunuyla ilgili algılarını etkileyip etkilemeyeceği ve yörünge kanunuyla ilgili bilgilerinin olmayışının oyun performanslarına etki edip etmeyeceği gibi bazı hipotezleri doğrulamak istedik. Nicel analiz sonuçları öğrencilerin oyun performansı ile konu hakkındaki bilgileri arasında pozitif bir korelasyon olduğunu; ayrıca, öğrencilerin bilgisayar/video oyunlarına karşı tutumlarının Kinect oyununun kullanılabilirliğine ilişkin görüşleri açısından bir etki yaratmadığını göstermiştir

Brain injury-associated biomarkers of TGF-beta1, S100B, GFAP, NF-L, tTG, AbetaPP, and tau were concomitantly enhanced and the UPS was impaired during acute brain injury caused by Toxocara canis in mice

BACKGROUND: Because the outcomes and sequelae after different types of brain injury (BI) are variable and difficult to predict, investigations on whether enhanced expressions of BI-associated biomarkers (BIABs), including transforming growth factor beta1 (TGF-beta1), S100B, glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP), neurofilament light chain( NF-L), tissue transglutaminases (tTGs), beta-amyloid precursor proteins (AbetaPP), and tau are present as well as whether impairment of the ubiquitin-proteasome system (UPS) is present have been widely used to help delineate pathophysiological mechanisms in various BIs. Larvae of Toxocara canis can invade the brain and cause BI in humans and mice, leading to cerebral toxocariasis (CT). Because the parasitic burden is light in CT, it may be too cryptic to be detected in humans, making it difficult to clearly understand the pathogenesis of subtle BI in CT. Since the pathogenesis of murine toxocariasis is very similar to that in humans, it appears appropriate to use a murine model to investigate the pathogenesis of CT. METHODS: BIAB expressions and UPS function in the brains of mice inoculated with a single dose of 250 T. canis embryonated eggs was investigated from 3 days (dpi) to 8 weeks post- infection (wpi) by Western blotting and RT-PCR. RESULTS: Results revealed that at 4 and 8 wpi, T. canis larvae were found to have invaded areas around the choroid plexus but without eliciting leukocyte infiltration in brains of infected mice; nevertheless, astrogliosis, an indicator of BI, with 78.9~142.0-fold increases in GFAP expression was present. Meanwhile, markedly increased levels of other BIAB proteins including TGF-beta1, S100B, NF-L, tTG, AbetaPP, and tau, with increases ranging 2.0~12.0-fold were found, although their corresponding mRNA expressions were not found to be present at 8 wpi. Concomitantly, UPS impairment was evidenced by the overexpression of conjugated ubiquitin and ubiquitin in the brain. CONCLUSION: Further studies are needed to determine whether there is an increased risk of CT progression into neurodegenerative disease because neurodegeneration-associated AbetaPP and phosphorylated tau emerged in the brain. DOI: 10.1186/1471-2334-8-8

ADGRE1 (EMR1, F4/80) Is a Rapidly-Evolving Gene Expressed in Mammalian Monocyte-Macrophages

The F4/80 antigen, encoded by the Adgre1 locus, has been widely-used as a monocyte-macrophage marker in mice, but its value as a macrophage marker in other species is unclear, and has even been questioned. ADGRE1 is a seven transmembrane G protein-coupled receptor with an extracellular domain containing repeated Epidermal Growth Factor (EGF)-like calcium binding domains. Using a new monoclonal antibody, we demonstrated that ADGRE1 is a myeloid differentiation marker in pigs, absent from progenitors in bone marrow, highly-expressed in mature granulocytes, monocytes, and tissue macrophages and induced by macrophage colony-stimulating factor (CSF1) treatment in vivo. Based upon these observations, we utilized RNA-Seq to assess the expression of ADGRE1 mRNA in bone marrow or monocyte-derived macrophages (MDM) and alveolar macrophages from 8 mammalian species including pig, human, rat, sheep, goat, cow, water buffalo, and horse. ADGRE1 mRNA was expressed by macrophages in each species, with inter-species variation both in expression level and response to lipopolysaccharide (LPS) stimulation. Analysis of the RNA-Seq data also revealed additional exons in several species compared to current Ensembl annotations. The ruminant species and horses appear to encode a complete duplication of the 7 EGF-like domains. In every species, Sashimi plots revealed evidence of exon skipping of the EGF-like domains, which are highly-variable between species and polymorphic in humans. Consistent with these expression patterns, key elements of the promoter and a putative enhancer are also conserved across all species. The rapid evolution of this molecule and related ADGRE family members suggests immune selection and a role in pathogen recognition

The use of plants in the traditional management of diabetes in Nigeria: Pharmacological and toxicological considerations

Ethnopharmacological relevance: The prevalence of diabetes is on a steady increase worldwide and it is now identified as one of the main threats to human health in the 21st century. In Nigeria, the use of herbal medicine alone or alongside prescription drugs for its management is quite common. We hereby carry out a review of medicinal plants traditionally used for diabetes management in Nigeria. Based on the available evidence on the species׳ pharmacology and safety, we highlight ways in which their therapeutic potential can be properly harnessed for possible integration into the country׳s healthcare system. Materials and methods: Ethnobotanical information was obtained from a literature search of electronic databases such as Google Scholar, Pubmed and Scopus up to 2013 for publications on medicinal plants used in diabetes management, in which the place of use and/or sample collection was identified as Nigeria. ‘Diabetes’ and ‘Nigeria’ were used as keywords for the primary searches; and then ‘Plant name – accepted or synonyms’, ‘Constituents’, ‘Drug interaction’ and/or ‘Toxicity’ for the secondary searches. Results: The hypoglycemic effect of over a hundred out of the 115 plants reviewed in this paper is backed by preclinical experimental evidence, either in vivo or in vitro. One-third of the plants have been studied for their mechanism of action, while isolation of the bioactive constituent(s) has been accomplished for twenty three plants. Some plants showed specific organ toxicity, mostly nephrotoxic or hepatotoxic, with direct effects on the levels of some liver function enzymes. Twenty eight plants have been identified as in vitro modulators of P-glycoprotein and/or one or more of the cytochrome P450 enzymes, while eleven plants altered the levels of phase 2 metabolic enzymes, chiefly glutathione, with the potential to alter the pharmacokinetics of co-administered drugs. Conclusion: This review, therefore, provides a useful resource to enable a thorough assessment of the profile of plants used in diabetes management so as to ensure a more rational use. By anticipating potential toxicities or possible herb–drug interactions, significant risks which would otherwise represent a burden on the country׳s healthcare system can be avoided