Intelligent e-Learning Systems: An Educational Paradigm Shift

Learning is the long process of transforming information as well as experience into knowledge, skills, attitude and behaviors. To make up the wide gap between the demand of increasing higher education and comparatively limited resources, more and more educational institutes are looking into instructional technology. Use of online resources not only reduces the cost of education but also meet the needs of society. Intelligent e-learning has become one of the important channels to reach out to students exceeding geographic boundaries. Besides this, the characteristics of e-learning have complicated the process of education, and have brought challenges to both instructors and students. This paper will focus on the discussion of different discipline of intelligent e-learning like scaffolding based e-learning, personalized e-learning, confidence based e-learning, intelligent tutoring system, etc. to illuminate the educational paradigm shift in intelligent e-learning system

Network Reconfiguration for Electrical Loss Minimization

Increasing requirements of urbanization, industrialization and modernization demands further expansion and development of the national power grid and nonetheless, with a better efficiency and an enhanced voltage stability. The aim of this project is to conceptualize and realize an electric transmission and distribution network with improved efficiency and voltage stability that will contribute to the substantial reduction in the involved operational costs. Network Reconfiguration Methodology has been used. The study of this work was conducted on IEEE 14 bus network with Matlab tool using Newton-Raphson Method. The study also deals with how this technique can practically be implemented using Artificial Neural Network and sensors

The Design and Development of Microstrip Patch Antenna using simulation studies by ADS

The matching network of a Microstrip Patch Antenna at 10.65 GHz was designed and developed using the software Advanced Design System (ADS). ADS is a powerful software for designing microwave electronic circuits. The Microstrip Patch antenna thus developed was tested at 10m Far Field Antenna Anechoic Chamber and Momentum Simulation studies of the same was carried out using a Network Analyzer that can analyze signals in GHz range

Village Forums or Development Councils: People’s participation in decision-making in rural West Bengal, India

The policy shift towards decentralisation promises important social change in rural India, providing as it does a three-tier system of local self-governments, the Panchayats: at the village level, the district level, and an intermediate level between the two, called the Block Panchayat. There is evidence of far-reaching social change in rural West Bengal, a state in eastern India, after the Left Front government came into power, particularly because of revitalisation of the three-tier Panchayat system. The initial years of Left Front rule saw the village poor enthusiastically attending Panchayat meetings and taking part in decision-making at the village council, the Gram Sabha, the general body of villagers of voting age covering 10-12 villages, and the Gram Sansad, the forum of local democracy at the ward level. However, today, relatively few people in the villages are taking part in government-sponsored initiatives. Panchayat meetings are scarcely attended and almost always exclude certain classes and members of the community. In order to combat the problem, the Government of West Bengal has recently tried to further devolve the power and responsibilities of local government and has established Gram Unnayan Samiti (GUSs) or Village Development Councils, consisting of political members from both elected and the opposition parties and certain nominated members. The GUSs are supposed to bring in more participation at the grassroots level. In this paper, we study the formal policies regarding decentralisation and people’s participation in West Bengal, and analyse the dynamics of political processes regarding decision-making at operational level after the introduction of GUS. We have analysed audio recordings of meetings of the Gram Sabhas and the dynamics of the newly formed GUSs to uncover the actual rate of people’s participation, actual meeting procedures and reasons behind people’s reluctance to participate. We argue that solutions lie in having a strong third-tier in order to address issues of lack of transparency and accountability in decision-making, and make recommendations as to how that might be achieved

MAdScope: Characterizing Mobile In-App Targeted Ads

ABSTRACT Advertising is the primary source of revenue for many mobile apps. One important goal of the ad delivery process is targeting users, based on criteria like users' geolocation, context, demographics, long-term behavior, etc. In this paper we report an in-depth study that broadly characterizes what targeting information mobile apps send to ad networks and how effectively, if at all, ad networks utilize the information for targeting users. Our study is based on a novel tool, called MAdScope, that can (1) quickly harvest ads from a large collection of apps, (2) systematically probe an ad network to characterize its targeting mechanism, and (3) emulate user profiles of specific preferences and interests to study behavioral targeting. Our analysis of 500K ad requests from 150K Android apps and 101 ad networks indicates that apps do not yet exploit the full potential of targeting: even though ad controls provide APIs to send a lot of information to ad networks, much key targeting information is optional and is often not provided by app developers. We also use MAdScope to systematically probe top 10 in-app ad networks to harvest over 1 million ads and find that while targeting is used by many of the top networks, there remain many instances where targeting information or behavioral profile does not have a statistically significant impact on how ads are chosen. We also contrast our findings with a recent study of targeted in-browser ads

Local Governments in Rural West Bengal, India and their Coordination with Line Departments

In India, the 73rd constitutional amendment of 1992 decentralises agriculture, irrigation, health, education along with 23 other items to the Panchayats, the village level self-government body. It is envisaged that the three-tier Panchayat system at the District, Block and the Village level would coordinate with different ‘line departments’ of the government for planning various schemes and their implementation. In West Bengal, a state in eastern India, where the Panchayats were revitalised before the constitutional amendment, the initial years were marked by strong coordination between the Panchayats and other departments, especially land and agriculture, making West Bengal a ‘model’ case for the Panchayats. However, where service delivery through the Panchayats has been criticised in recent years, the disjuncture between Panchayats and the line departments is a cause for alarm. In this paper, we search for the causes behind the low level of coordination between government departments and the Panchayat at each tier. We analyse the complex process of organisational coordination that characterises decentralisation, and show how decision making in local governments is nested within various levels of hierarchy. The study focuses on the formal structures of coordination and control with regard to decision-making between the Panchayats and the line departments. We show how these processes work out in practice. These involve lack of role definition, problems of accountability, and politics over access to resources and relations of power within, as well as outside, the Panchayat

Integrated Biologics Manufacturing in Stirred-Suspension Bioreactor: A Stem Cell Perspective

Stem cell therapy is garnering attention as several clinical trials have taken place in the recent years by using human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs). Hundreds of biotechnological companies are investing to find a permanent cure for difficult-to-treat diseases like age-related macular degeneration, Parkinson’s disease, diabetes, etc. by using hPSCs. Therefore, clinical-grade cell manufacturing has become an important issue to make cell therapy products safe and effective. Current manufacturing practices are adopted from conventional antibody or protein production in the pharmaceutical industry where cells are used as a vector for producing the desired products. In cell therapy applications, cells are the products that are sensitive to physicochemical parameters and storage conditions anywhere between isolation to patient administration. Moreover, cell-based product manufacturing consists of multi-step processing, including isolation from patients, genetic modification, derivation, expansion, differentiation, purification, characterization, cryopreservation, etc. This can require long processing times and pose high risk of product contamination as well as high production cost. Herein, we discuss the current methods of biologics manufacturing and its limitations. We also review current practices for integrating and automating cell manufacturing facilities. Finally, we propose how to integrate multi-step cell processing in a single bioreactor to make the cell manufacturing practices more direct

High density culture of human induced pluripotent stem cells through the refinement of medium by dialysis in suspension

Human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) hold great promise in the field of regenerative medicine for cell-based therapies, tissue engineering, and drug discovery because of their pluripotency and self-renewal capacity. To implement their potential, bio-process developments for robust expansion of hiPSCs are important since large numbers of hiPSCs are required for cell therapy application. Although suspension culture is superior to obtain large numbers of cells, the cost of culturing hiPSC increases with increasing medium consumption, as the culture medium contains many costly macromolecules including basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF), transforming growth factor beta 1 (TGF-β1), and insulin. Moreover, hiPSCs secrete essential autocrine factors that are removed along with toxic metabolites when the growth medium is exchanged daily. In this study, after determining the minimum inhibitory level of lactic acid for hiPSCs, a medium refining system was constructed by which toxic metabolites were removed from used culture medium and autocrine factors as well as other growth factors were recycled. Specifically, about 87% of bFGF and 80% of TGF-β1 were retained in the refined medium after dialysis. The refined medium efficiently potentiated the proliferation of hiPS cells in adherent culture. When the refining system was used to refresh medium in suspension culture, a final cell density of (1.1 ± 0.1) × 106 cells mL-1 was obtained, with 99.5 ± 0.2% OCT 3/4 and 78.3 ± 1.1% TRA-1-60 expression, on day 4 of culture. These levels of expression were similar to those observed in conventional suspension culture. Moreover, to obtain high density culture, size- and time-dependent boundary conditions were also considered for the preferable growth of hiPSC in suspension culture. Thus, the concept for high density culture was proposed by considering the boundary conditions for preferable growth of hiPSC, as well as, medium refinement by dialysis to remove toxic metabolites, recycle autocrine factors, and reduce the use of macromolecules for the reduction of culture cost in suspension