A short review of constructing noise map using crowdsensing technology

The advent of crowdsensing technology has provided a promising possibility for monitoring noise pollution in large-scale areas. Constructing noise map by using mobile smart phones in a cost-effective manner is being widely used in the city and industrial plants. In this short paper, the state-of-the-art crowdsensing-based noise map applications are first summarized. Furthermore, open research challenges associated with building up noise map are highlighted

Software defect prediction: do different classifiers find the same defects?

Open Access: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License CC BY 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.During the last 10 years, hundreds of different defect prediction models have been published. The performance of the classifiers used in these models is reported to be similar with models rarely performing above the predictive performance ceiling of about 80% recall. We investigate the individual defects that four classifiers predict and analyse the level of prediction uncertainty produced by these classifiers. We perform a sensitivity analysis to compare the performance of Random Forest, Naïve Bayes, RPart and SVM classifiers when predicting defects in NASA, open source and commercial datasets. The defect predictions that each classifier makes is captured in a confusion matrix and the prediction uncertainty of each classifier is compared. Despite similar predictive performance values for these four classifiers, each detects different sets of defects. Some classifiers are more consistent in predicting defects than others. Our results confirm that a unique subset of defects can be detected by specific classifiers. However, while some classifiers are consistent in the predictions they make, other classifiers vary in their predictions. Given our results, we conclude that classifier ensembles with decision-making strategies not based on majority voting are likely to perform best in defect prediction.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio

Tracing changes in the citing practices of a master’s student: a longitudinal case study

This longitudinal case study aimed to trace changes in the citing practices of a master’s student during a one-year course of study at a UK university. Multiple sources of data (samples of the participant’s writing, markers’ reports and lecturers’ feedback, repeated interviews with the participant, university documentation) were used in multiple data collection waves during three distinct periods within the academic year: a 5-week pre-sessional academic English course, the taught part of the master’s program, and the supervised dissertation. The study documented changes in the participant’s citing patterns and her understanding of citing. The overall picture is of a non-linear, uneven development, marked by simultaneous acquisition of more complex citing practices and fluctuation in the already adopted ones. The findings reveal the complex nature of citing, whose mastery requires effective coordination of multiple domains: discursive (e.g., use of reporting verbs), conceptual (e.g., awareness of the rhetorical purposes of citations) and technical (e.g., accurate use of citation styles). This implies that teaching citation should target both students’ discursive practices and their awareness of citing

English for academic purposes

English for academic purposes (EAP) ‘is usually defined as teaching English with the aim of assisting learners’ study or research in that language’ but is also a ‘theoretically grounded and research informed enterprise’ (Hyland 2006: 1). This chapter provides an overview of EAP as a dynamic interdisciplinary field of applied linguistics research. The emergence of EAP in the 1960s and its foundations are first outlined, which is followed by a discussion of the major themes explored within EAP research, ranging from the well-established topics, such as approaches to needs analysis and genre analysis, to more recent ones, such as lexical bundles, English for research publication purposes (ERPP), and social justice in EAP. The chapter then moves on to outline the diversity of research methods commonly employed in current EAP research, including corpus-based approaches, genre analysis, interview-based studies, talk-around-text and discourse-based interviews, and ethnographically oriented studies. Pedagogical applications of EAP research are also discussed in areas such as materials development, EAP teacher training, and language assessment, and practical recommendations are made for institutions, EAP programme directors, teacher trainers, and practitioner

Signaling Switching from Hedgehog-GLI to MAPK Signaling Potentially Serves as a Compensatory Mechanism in Melanoma Cell Lines Resistant to GANT-61

Background: Melanoma represents the deadliest skin cancer due to its cell plasticity which results in high metastatic potential and chemoresistance. Melanomas frequently develop resistance to targeted therapy; therefore, new combination therapy strategies are required. Non-canonical signaling interactions between HH-GLI and RAS/RAF/ERK signaling were identified as one of the drivers of melanoma pathogenesis. Therefore, we decided to investigate the importance of these non-canonical interactions in chemoresistance, and examine the potential for HH-GLI and RAS/RAF/ERK combined therapy. Methods: We established two melanoma cell lines resistant to the GLI inhibitor, GANT-61, and characterized their response to other HH-GLI and RAS/RAF/ERK inhibitors. Results: We successfully established two melanoma cell lines resistant to GANT-61. Both cell lines showed HH-GLI signaling downregulation and increased invasive cell properties like migration potential, colony forming capacity, and EMT. However, they differed in MAPK signaling activity, cell cycle regulation, and primary cilia formation, suggesting different potential mechanisms responsible for resistance occurrence. Conclusions: Our study provides the first ever insights into cell lines resistant to GANT-61 and shows potential mechanisms connected to HH-GLI and MAPK signaling which may represent new hot spots for noncanonical signaling interactions