A Correlational Study of Candidates' Practical and Theory Examination Scores in Information Technology

Information Technology is a compulsory course unit offered by all candidates to attain National Diploma in Accountancy and Business Management programmes. The examination consists of practical and theory aspects. These two aspects are vital and expected to complement each other. For a candidate to do well in any of the courses, he/she must perform well in both the practical and theory examination. This paper investigated the correlation between candidates’ theory and practical Examination scores in the two courses. Data were analyzed using the Pearson Product Moment Correlation Coefficient; the results showed a statistically significant positive correlation between the candidates’ theory and practical examination scores. Correlation was measured between the theory and practical scores for Information Technology for NDA candidates, r = 0.478 and r = 0.758 at P_value .01 was obtained in 2016 and 2017 respectively.  The correlation between theory and practical scores in Information Technology for NDBM candidates, r = 0.267 and r = 0.634 at P_value .01 was obtained in 2016 and 2017 respectively, as a result of which the null hypotheses were rejected.  The results showed a very weak negative correlation, r = -0.04 at P_value .01 between the practical scores for NDA candidates while a weak positive correlation, r = 0.11 was obtained for the NDBM candidates in 2016 and 2017. The study further established a very weak negative correlation, r = -0.06 at P_value .01 between theory papers in Information Technology for NDBM candidates while a very weak positive correlation, r = 0.02 at P_value .01 was established between theory papers for NDA candidates. The results of the study indicated a very strong positive correlation, r = 0.896 for the overall performance of candidates in Information Technology in 2016 and 2017 as a result of which the null hypotheses were rejected. Keywords: Examination scores, practical paper, Information Technology. DOI: 10.7176/JEP/14-13-01 Publication date:May 31st 202

Logic programming for deliberative robotic task planning

Over the last decade, the use of robots in production and daily life has increased. With increasingly complex tasks and interaction in different environments including humans, robots are required a higher level of autonomy for efficient deliberation. Task planning is a key element of deliberation. It combines elementary operations into a structured plan to satisfy a prescribed goal, given specifications on the robot and the environment. In this manuscript, we present a survey on recent advances in the application of logic programming to the problem of task planning. Logic programming offers several advantages compared to other approaches, including greater expressivity and interpretability which may aid in the development of safe and reliable robots. We analyze different planners and their suitability for specific robotic applications, based on expressivity in domain representation, computational efficiency and software implementation. In this way, we support the robotic designer in choosing the best tool for his application

Number of languages spoken and performance on the clinical neuropsychological test battery

OBJECTIVES: The general objective of this study was to investigate the relationship between number of languages spoken and performance on the clinical neuropsychological tests. The specific objective was to establish whether greater proficiency in English is related to better performance on the clinical neuropsychological tests. STUDY DESIGN: This was a cross sectional quantitative study design. Participants were 302, comprising 146 males and 156 females. They were recruited from both rural and urban areas of Zambia with ages ranging from 18 to 65 years. Their formal education ranged from 5 to 13 years or more. The rural sites were Kafue, Chongwe and Chibombo district clinics. The urban participants were recruited from Kalingalinga, University of Zambia, Chilenje, Mtendere and Chelstone clinics. The participants were HIV negative and neurologically intact who could at least speak English language. MEASURES: Questionnaires assessing experiences of cognitive difficulties in subject’s everyday life; any change in employment; and any decrease in the independence with which they performed instrumental activities of daily living as well as the Academic Skills were administered. The language questionnaire and the neuropsychological test battery were subsequently administered. RESULTS: Participants were grouped according to the number of languages they spoke yielding groups of 2-3, 4-5, and 6 or more languages. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) and correlations were employed to determine whether there was any difference in performance on the tests among the groups. The data was corrected for age and formal education. Results indicated that there was no statistically significant effect of number of languages spoken on performance on the neuropsychological test domains. This study did not conform to most of the studies that show that individuals speaking more languages are usually outperformed by individuals with fewer languages. One of the fluency domain subtests (the animal category fluency test) however, revealed that number of languages participants spoke was statistically significant at the p <.01. Individuals who spoke more languages outperformed those who spoke fewer languages and this, contracted the hypothesis of the present study and the findings by Rosselli et al (2000), Artiola et al (1997) among others who found that individuals with fewer languages outperformed those who spoke many languages on the animal category fluency test. There was also a positive significant relationship between proficiency in English and performance on the fluency domain, r = .17, p < .01. CONCLUSION: For a long time, individuals who spoke more languages had been viewed as having a cognitive disadvantage over those who spoke one or fewer languages. However, the present study and a few classical studies such as Mohanty et al (1982) have shown that individuals who spoke more languages outperformed those who spoke fewer languages on the fluency domain tests, thereby going against studies that state that individuals with multiple languages face interference from other languages during testing. Cross language interference may not be present in the present study because English language in Zambia is a medium of formal instruction in which individuals learn terms that cannot be easily and or directly translated in the local languages hence, interference may be less or it may not be present at all. The implications of the results are analysed, discussed and a conclusion and recommendations are given

Development of an intelligent surgical training system for Thoracentesis

Surgical training improves patient care, helps to reduce surgical risks, increases surgeon’s confidence, and thus enhances overall patient safety. Current surgical training systems are more focused on developing technical skills, e.g. dexterity, of the surgeons while lacking the aspects of context-awareness and intra-operative real-time guidance. Context-aware intelligent training systems interpret the current surgical situation and help surgeons to train on surgical tasks. As a prototypical scenario, we chose Thoracentesis procedure in this work. We designed the context-aware software framework using the surgical process model encompassing ontology and production rules, based on the procedure descriptions obtained through textbooks and interviews, and ontology-based and marker-based object recognition, where the system tracked and recognised surgical instruments and materials in surgeon’s hands and recognised surgical instruments on the surgical stand. The ontology was validated using annotated surgical videos, where the system identified “Anaesthesia” and “Aspiration” phase with 100% relative frequency and “Penetration” phase with 65% relative frequency. The system tracked surgical swab and 50 mL syringe with approximately 88.23% and 100% accuracy in surgeon’s hands and recognised surgical instruments with approximately 90% accuracy on the surgical stand. Surgical workflow training with the proposed system showed equivalent results as the traditional mentor-based training regime, thus this work is a step forward a new tool for context awareness and decision-making during surgical training

Toward a Knowledge-Driven Context-Aware System for Surgical Assistance

Complex surgeries complications are increasing, thus making an efficient surgical assistance is a real need. In this work, an ontology-based context-aware system was developed for surgical training/assistance during Thoracentesis by using image processing and semantic technologies. We evaluated the Thoracentesis ontology and implemented a paradigmatic test scenario to check the efficacy of the system by recognizing contextual information, e.g. the presence of surgical instruments on the table. The framework was able to retrieve contextual information about current surgical activity along with information on the need or presence of a surgical instrument

A knowledge-based framework for task automation in surgery

Robotic surgery has significantly improved the quality of surgical procedures. In the past, researches have been focused on automating simple surgical actions, however there exists no scalable framework for automation in surgery. In this paper, we present a knowledge-based modular framework for the automation of articulated surgical tasks, for example, with multiple coordinated actions. The framework is consisted of ontology, providing entities for surgical automation and rules for task planning, and \u201cdynamic movement primitives\u201d as adaptive motion planner as to replicate the dexterity of surgeons. To validate our framework, we chose a paradigmatic scenario of a peg-and-ring task, a standard training exercise for novice surgeons which presents many challenges of real surgery, e.g. grasping and transferring. Experiments show the validity of the framework and its adaptability to faulty events. The modular architecture is expected to generalize to different tasks and platforms

Exploring attributions of causality for child undernutrition:qualitative analysis in Lusaka, Zambia

Child undernutrition is responsible for 45% of all under‐five deaths in low‐ and middle‐income countries (LMICs) and numerous morbidities. Although progress has been made, high levels of child undernutrition persist in Zambia. Existing studies have explored primary caretakers' (PCs) explanatory models of child undernutrition in LMICs, without comparison with those of health care providers (HCPs). This paper examines and compares the perceived causes of child undernutrition among PCs and HCPs in Zambia. We conducted a qualitative study, using semistructured one‐to‐one and group interviews, with 38 PCs and 10 HCPs to explore their perceptions of child undernutrition and its perceived causes in Lusaka district, Zambia. Interview data were analysed with thematic analysis. Our findings indicate that PCs and HCPs in Lusaka district have divergent explanatory models of child undernutrition and perceive parental agency differently. In divergently framing how they conceptualise undernutrition and who is able to prevent it, these models underpin different attributions of causality and different opportunities for intervention. PCs highlighted factors such as child food preferences, child health, and household finances. Contrarily, HCPs stressed factors such as ‘improper feeding’, only highlighting factors such as wider economic conditions when these impacted specifically on health care services. One factor, identified by both groups, was ‘inadequate mothering’. To accelerate the reduction of child undernutrition, interventions must address divergences between PCs and HCPs' explanatory models. Additionally, attention needs to be paid to how wider socio‐economic and cultural contexts not only impact childhood undernutrition but shape attributions of causality