Issues and challenges of technology-enhanced learning during the Covid-19 era: A case study

The conventional teaching and learning (T&L) approach involving face-to-face (F2F) classes and activities had to be adapted to the new norm of on-line teaching and learning, when the world faced the Covid-19 pandemic in March 2020. At the University of Technology Malaysia (Universiti Technologi Malaysia) (UTM), Johor Bahru, Malaysia, on-line T&L began soon after the onset of the pandemic and has continued to the present day. In this article, the authors focus on the challenges experienced by UTM electrical engineering students and instructors, including network connectivity, the learning experience and teaching transferable skills in engineering. The motivation to conduct this research was due to the drastic changes from F2F to on-line T&L. It was found that the mean Internet connectivity rate was more than acceptable for smooth on-line T&L throughout the country. However, the large standard deviation values show that there were differences in the students’ Internet experience and accessibility. The results also showed that students had difficulty mastering the engineering skills when they were learned through an on-line teaching method

Wireless medical interface using zigbee and bluetooth technology

Since years, the using of telemedicine has increased although there are some technical issues related to standard and quality. In order to improve the telemedicine quality of service, a robust wireless connection between medical devices and telecommunication network is required. Unfortunately, many medical devices were developed without possibility to connect with telecommunication infrastructure. Due to this condition, a wireless medical interface has been developed. The interface has been implemented based on the advantages of ZigBee and Bluetooth technology. A new protocol has also been developed to enable robust communication between medical devices and telecommunication infrastructure. The interface has been tested to transfer the medical data from vital sign medical devices to a data processing system through wireless network. Measurement result shows that the interface is able to be used in transferring medical data from multi medical devices within range of 10 m with some interference sources

Brain activity during motor task with concurrent visual stimulation

Previously, the effects of external visual stimulation on cortico-muscular synchronization was studied and it was found that enhanced 8-12 Hz (alpha)/decreased 31-50 Hz (gamma) oscillations in the brain affect strength of the 13-30 Hz oscillation of cortico-muscular synchronization. In this paper, we study whether the 8-12 Hz enhancement/31-50 Hz decrement in the various brain regions are coupled together or not using cortico-cortical coherence analysis. The brain signals (EEG) and the muscle signal (EMG) were recorded from ten normal subjects during two tasks, i.e. Control and Visual (Ignore or Count) tasks. The Control task required the subject to maintain first dorsal interosseous muscle contraction without visual stimulation. In the Visual task, a random series of visual stimuli were displayed on a screen while the subjects maintained the muscle contraction. The subjects were asked to ignore the stimuli in the Ignore condition and to count certain stimuli in the Count condition. Increased coupling was found at the 8-12 Hz oscillation between various scalp locations during both Visual conditions with more EEG coupling exist in the Count condition when compared with the Control task. Despite the attenuation of 31-50 Hz oscillation in the brain, strong EEG coupling at the frequency band was found between C3 and O2 sites and between right and left temporal area for the Ignore condition when compared to the Control task. None was found for the Count condition. At low frequency band (1-3 Hz (delta) and 4-7 Hz (theta)), increased EEG coupling was found between sites in posterior area, and between posterior and frontal area for both Visual conditions when compared to Control task. However, a decrease in inter-hemispheric interaction was found for Ignore condition at the low frequency oscillation. The present results show that regions with enhanced/decreased power have strong coupling between them and demonstrated as codes of brain functional activity

Human heart oscillatory behavior during atrial fibrillation based on second order system

In this paper, the viability of a second order system to characterize the oscillatory behavior of human heart of atrial fibrillation patient was monitored and analysed. Sampling were patients who experienced atrial fibrillation. This study used the MIT-BIH Atrial Fibrillation dataset (MIT-afdb) from the Physiobank ECG database. ECG recordings of normal sinus rhythm (N) and atrial fibrillation (AF) which occurred sequentially, were analyzed for both ECG's Lead I and Lead II. From here, the oscillatory behavior of human heart was characterized in accordance to the extracted parameters for each rhythm, i.e. natural frequency, damping coefficient and forcing input from the second order system. Results show that there were significant differences in mean value of natural frequency (ω), ratios of natural frequency to damping coefficient (ω/ω), derivative of the natural frequency with respect to time (dω/dt) and derivative of the forcing input with respect to time (dω/dt), between N and AF from Lead I (P <0.01). Each parameter provides more than 95% accuracy using artificial neural networks