Ten simple rules for supporting a temporary online pivot in higher education

As continued COVID-19 disruption looks likely across the world, perhaps until 2021, contingency plans are evolving in case of further disruption in the 2020–2021 academic year. This includes delivering face-to-face programs fully online for at least part of the upcoming academic year for new and continuing cohorts. This temporary pivot will necessitate distance teaching and learning across almost every conceivable pedagogy, from fundamental degrees to professionally accredited ones. Each institution, program, and course will have its own myriad of individualized needs; however, there is a common question that unites us all: how do we provide teaching and assessment to students in a manner that is accessible, fair, equitable, and provides the best learning whilst acknowledging the temporary nature of the pivot? No “one size fits all” solution exists, and many of the choices that need to be made will be far from simple; however, this paper provides a starting point and basic principles to facilitate discussions taking place around the globe by balancing what we know from the pedagogy of online learning with the practicalities imposed by this crisis and any future crises

Proceedings of the second "international Traveling Workshop on Interactions between Sparse models and Technology" (iTWIST'14)

The implicit objective of the biennial "international - Traveling Workshop on Interactions between Sparse models and Technology" (iTWIST) is to foster collaboration between international scientific teams by disseminating ideas through both specific oral/poster presentations and free discussions. For its second edition, the iTWIST workshop took place in the medieval and picturesque town of Namur in Belgium, from Wednesday August 27th till Friday August 29th, 2014. The workshop was conveniently located in "The Arsenal" building within walking distance of both hotels and town center. iTWIST'14 has gathered about 70 international participants and has featured 9 invited talks, 10 oral presentations, and 14 posters on the following themes, all related to the theory, application and generalization of the "sparsity paradigm": Sparsity-driven data sensing and processing; Union of low dimensional subspaces; Beyond linear and convex inverse problem; Matrix/manifold/graph sensing/processing; Blind inverse problems and dictionary learning; Sparsity and computational neuroscience; Information theory, geometry and randomness; Complexity/accuracy tradeoffs in numerical methods; Sparsity? What's next?; Sparse machine learning and inference.Comment: 69 pages, 24 extended abstracts, iTWIST'14 website: http://sites.google.com/site/itwist1

Face recognition and visual search strategies in autism spectrum disorders: Amending and extending a recent review by Weigelt et al.

The purpose of this review was to build upon a recent review by Weigelt et al. which examined visual search strategies and face identification between individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and typically developing peers. Seven databases, CINAHL Plus, EMBASE, ERIC, Medline, Proquest, PsychInfo and PubMed were used to locate published scientific studies matching our inclusion criteria. A total of 28 articles not included in Weigelt et al. met criteria for inclusion into this systematic review. Of these 28 studies, 16 were available and met criteria at the time of the previous review, but were mistakenly excluded; and twelve were recently published. Weigelt et al. found quantitative, but not qualitative, differences in face identification in individuals with ASD. In contrast, the current systematic review found both qualitative and quantitative differences in face identification between individuals with and without ASD. There is a large inconsistency in findings across the eye tracking and neurobiological studies reviewed. Recommendations for future research in face recognition in ASD were discussed

To be understood: Transitioning to adult life for people with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Introduction: The purpose of this study was to explore the viewpoints of parents of young people with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in relation to their child's transition to adulthood. Methods: Data were collected during four structured focus groups with 19 parents of young people with ASD with average to high intellectual capacities. Condensed meaning units were identified and checked during focus groups, and were subsequently linked to the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF). Results: Three major themes emerged: to be understood, to understand the world and to succeed. The ICF domains of activity and participation and environmental factors emerged as having the greatest potential to influence transition outcomes. Conclusions: Policies and services should focus on strengths to maximise participation in higher education, employment and independent living amongst young people with ASD. Interventions targeting environmental factors could be effective in improving participation in adult life. Person-centred and individualised approaches could further complement this approach supporting the transition to adulthood for people with ASD, ultimately improving outcomes in adulthood

The Kids' Empathic Development Scale (KEDS): A multi-dimensional measure of empathy in primary school-aged children

Empathy is an essential building block for successful interpersonal relationships. Atypical empathic development is implicated in a range of developmental psychopathologies. However, assessment of empathy in children is constrained by a lack of suitable measurement instruments. This article outlines the development of the Kids’ Empathic Development Scale (KEDS) designed to assess some of the core affective, cognitive and behavioural components of empathy concurrently. The KEDS assesses responses to picture scenarios depicting a range of individual and interpersonal situations differing in social complexity. Results from 220 children indicate the KEDS measures three related but distinct aspects of empathy that are also related to existing measures of empathy and cognitive development. Scores on the KEDS show age and some gender-related differences in the expected direction

Performance of multihop CSMA unicast under intermittent interference

We study the effect of Wi-Fi or other forms of interference on unicast multihop 802.15.4 traffc in a sensor network, based on a layered state-driven Markov chain. The probability of a successful transmission attempt is treated as a conditional probability that depends on the state, that is, on the previous experience that the packet had with the presence of harmful interference. This allows us to evaluate end-to-end success probabilities

10 simple rules for supporting a temporary online pivot in higher education

As continued COVID-19 disruption looks likely across the world, perhaps until 2021, contingency plans are evolving in case of further disruption in the 2020-2021 academic year. This includes delivering face-to-face programmes fully-online for at least part of the upcoming academic year for new and continuing cohorts This temporary pivot will necessitate distance teaching and learning across almost every conceivable pedagogy, from fundamental degrees to professionally accredited ones. Each institution, programme, and course will have its own myriad of individualised needs , however, there is a common question that unites us all: how do we provide teaching and assessment to students in a manner that is accessible, fair, equitable, and provides the best learning whilst acknowledging the temporary nature of the Pivot? No ‘one size fits all’ solution exists and many of the choices that need to be made will be far from simple, however, this paper provides a starting point and basic principles to facilitate discussions taking place around the globe by balancing what we know from the pedagogy of online learning with the practicalities imposed by this crisis

Experimental Demonstration of the Trade-off between Chromatic Dispersion and Phase Noise Compensation in Optical FBMC/OQAM Communication Systems

Filterbank multicarrier based on offset-quadrature amplitude modulation (FBMC/OQAM) is a promising candidate for optical fiber communication systems, thanks to its better time/frequency confinement compared to other multicarrier modulations. Among linear impairments, the compensation of fiber-induced chromatic dispersion (CD) and laser-induced phase noise (PN) in FBMC/OQAM systems induces a compromise in terms of the number of used subcarriers. Considering a fixed dedicated signal bandwidth, the number of subcarriers is expected to be large enough to allow a better frequency-domain CD compensation. On the other hand, it should be sufficiently small in order for the compensation of common phase error inherent to the PN to work properly. In this paper, we experimentally demonstrate the trade-off between CD and PN compensation that we previously highlighted by simulations. More specifically, considering a 20 GHz FBMC/4–OQAM modulation and an aggregated laser linewidth of about 200 kHz, we show that the maximum transmission distance reaches 3100 km with nearly 512 active subcarriers and 3-tap equalizers, when a maximum 1 dB optical signal-to-noise ratio (OSNR) penalty at a bit-error-rate (BER) of 3.8×10$^{-3}$ can be tolerated. Moreover, we propose and validate a frame structure and an integrated synchronization/channel equalization architecture to implement a standalone demodulation system