AMEE: A Robust Framework for Explanation Evaluation in Time Series Classification

This paper aims to provide a framework to quantitatively evaluate and rank explanation methods for the time series classification task, which deals with a prevalent data type in critical domains such as healthcare and finance. The recent surge of research interest in explanation methods for time series classification has provided a great variety of explanation techniques. Nevertheless, when these explanation techniques disagree on a specific problem, it remains unclear which of them to use. Comparing the explanations to find the right answer is non-trivial. Two key challenges remain: how to quantitatively and robustly evaluate the informativeness (i.e., relevance for the classification task) of a given explanation method, and how to compare explanation methods side-by-side. We propose AMEE, a Model-Agnostic Explanation Evaluation framework for quantifying and comparing multiple saliency-based explanations for time series classification. Perturbation is added to the input time series guided by the saliency maps (i.e., importance weights for each point in the time series). The impact of perturbation on classification accuracy is measured and used for explanation evaluation. The results show that perturbing discriminative parts of the time series leads to significant changes in classification accuracy. To be robust to different types of perturbations and different types of classifiers, we aggregate the accuracy loss across perturbations and classifiers. This allows us to objectively quantify and rank different explanation methods. We provide a quantitative and qualitative analysis for synthetic datasets, a variety of UCR benchmark datasets, as well as a real-world dataset with known expert ground truth.Comment: Pre-prin

POPULATION GENETIC DIVERSITY OF CAMELLIA DILINHENSIS ON THE DI LINH PLATEAU OF VIETNAM REVEALED BY ISSR AND SCOT MARKERS

Genetic diversity of naturally distributed Camellia dilinhensis populations on the Di Linh plateau of Vietnam was assessed by the inter-simple sequence repeat (ISSR) and start codon targeted (SCoT) techniques separately and then by combining data from both techniques for satisfactory results. The genetic diversity parameters and genetic distances among individuals found with the ISSR technique (HeI = 0.1420, II = 0.2092, PPBI = 35.22%, GSCsI = 0.765–0.988, and AGSCI = 0.915) are lower than those found with the SCoT technique (HeS = 0.2100, IS = 0.381, PPBS = 52.27%, GSCsS = 0.644–0.985, and AGSCS = 0.866). Based on the combined data from both techniques, the level of genetic diversity of the investigated population is PPB = 43.77%, He = 0.1720, I = 0.2582, and the genetic similarities among individuals are GSCs = 0.764–0.973 with an average of AGSC = 0.894. The SCoT technique differentiated between individuals better and reflected a higher level of genetic diversity in the population than the ISSR technique, but the ISSR technique revealed more loci in Camellia dilinhensis plants than did the SCoT technique

INVESTIGATING THE ROLE OF AMERICAN AND BRITISH CULTURAL COMPETENCE IN IMPROVING EFL STUDENTS' INTERPRETATION SKILLS

Culture and language are inseparable from each other. Consequently, the integration of cultural content into language education becomes highly valuable, promoting the embracement of diverse cultures and intercultural understanding. This research aimed to explore the viewpoints of English major students on the importance of acquiring competence in American and British cultural competence for interpretation skills. A survey with two sections was employed to gather data from 32 participants, and descriptive statistics were used for data analysis. Overall, the study's findings indicated that EFL students had positive attitudes towards American and British cultures and the integration of these factors in interpretation courses. However, challenges arise when interpreting between Vietnamese and English due to unfamiliar cultural terms and concepts, as well as the lack of equivalent idioms in Vietnamese-English and English-Vietnamese interpreting. In the light of findings, the study provides essential recommendations for students and educators, emphasizing the need to enhance students' academic performance and intercultural competence as well as foster positive perceptions of the target cultures.  Article visualizations

Back to Basics: A Sanity Check on Modern Time Series Classification Algorithms

The state-of-the-art in time series classification has come a long way, from the 1NN-DTW algorithm to the ROCKET family of classifiers. However, in the current fast-paced development of new classifiers, taking a step back and performing simple baseline checks is essential. These checks are often overlooked, as researchers are focused on establishing new state-of-the-art results, developing scalable algorithms, and making models explainable. Nevertheless, there are many datasets that look like time series at first glance, but classic algorithms such as tabular methods with no time ordering may perform better on such problems. For example, for spectroscopy datasets, tabular methods tend to significantly outperform recent time series methods. In this study, we compare the performance of tabular models using classic machine learning approaches (e.g., Ridge, LDA, RandomForest) with the ROCKET family of classifiers (e.g., Rocket, MiniRocket, MultiRocket). Tabular models are simple and very efficient, while the ROCKET family of classifiers are more complex and have state-of-the-art accuracy and efficiency among recent time series classifiers. We find that tabular models outperform the ROCKET family of classifiers on approximately 19% of univariate and 28% of multivariate datasets in the UCR/UEA benchmark and achieve accuracy within 10 percentage points on about 50% of datasets. Our results suggest that it is important to consider simple tabular models as baselines when developing time series classifiers. These models are very fast, can be as effective as more complex methods and may be easier to understand and deploy

EVALUATION OF ACUTE AND SUB-ACUTE ORAL TOXICITY OF CLINACANTHUS NUTANS LEAVES EXTRACT IN MICE

Objective: This study aimed to evaluate acute and sub-acute oral toxicity of ethanol extract of Clinacanthus nutans leaves in Swiss mice. Methods: Acute oral toxicity study was performed as per OECD-423 guidelines. Sub-acute oral toxicity study was performed as per OECD-407 guidelines. The extract was dissolved in 10% dimethyl sulfoxide and administered orally, while the control group received only the vehicle. Results: The acute oral toxicity test on mice showed that this extract was well tolerated up to LD50 5000 mg/kg body weight/day oral dosage level and non-toxic to mice under the present experimental conditions. The sub-acute toxicity study was carried out on mice with the oral dosage of the extract from 100 mg/kg–500 mg/kg body weight/day and 5000 mg/kg body weight/day for 28 d. The results showed that this extract did not induce death or adverse effects in activity, feed consumption or body weight gain. There were not significant changes in heamotological and biochemical parameters between control and experiment groups. Conclusion: Thus, Clinacanthus nutans leaf has a very low toxicity value

An investigation of the academic consulting competence of high school teachers in Vietnam

High school students must grapple with a host of issues and encounter difficulties when studying at schools, such as peer pressure, test anxiety, cyberbullying, unhealthy relationships, psychological distress, depression and possibly domestic issues. These obstacles create the need for academic consulting in order for high school students to develop essential skills and then solve problems. This study aims to examine the high school teachers' perceptions and the quality of academic consulting competence in the Vietnamese educational context. This study surveyed 1089 high school students and 289 teachers in Ha Noi and Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam with the 43-item questionnaire. The main results showed that academic consulting competence had been noticed and trained professionally for high school teachers. Additionally, both students and high school teachers recognized the essential role of high school teachers' academic consulting competence in educational settings