Visual literacy and visual communication for global education: innovations in teaching e-learning in art, design and communication

This paper presents the (student) proceedings of a successful inter-university co-operation between a research university and a university of applied sciences, in the field of Visual Literacy and Visual Communication. The origin lays in the international symposium “Digital Communities for Global Education” (Enschede NL, 2006) and the start was a web-based course in Informational Graphic Design. The ongoing development is an experimental master course in which students of both institutes work together. The participating professors are also involved in European Co-operative networks as well as Trans Atlantic- and Euro-Asian ones. Participating students are coming from all over the world so give the course a multi cultural character.\ud Research questions for the project are 1) what is the universal content of a message and 2) how can this message be encoded? 3) what factors do influence the interaction processes in networked education

Motor Imagery after Stroke

After brain injury, people often suffer from temporary or permanent motor problems. This makes it more difficult to perform everyday activities, such as making a sandwich. Imagining movements (called motor imagery) or learning by observing movements could potentially contribute to motor recovery. The hypothesis is that people partly use the same brain networks during execution, observation and imagery of movements. However, little is known about whether people are still able to imagine movements after a stroke, and how and whether motor imagery recovers over time. For example, it is unclear what percentage of patients after a stroke show reduced performance on motor imagery tasks and how different imagery tasks correlate with each other. Also, little is known about the longitudinal course of motor imagery performance after a stroke. This dissertation focuses on whether and how mental imagery, and motor imagery in particular, is affected after a stroke. In this thesis, the effects of stroke on a number of imagery tests and tasks were investigated in a rehabilitation setting. The results show that a large proportion of patients can still (implicitly) imagine movements, that there are individual differences between patients on these tests, and that motor imagery ability can recover over time. These results argue for the use of multiple types of imagery instruments for the screening, selection and monitoring of stroke patients

HERODOTUS: an educational site as an integral part of a study book

In the Netherlands there is an on-going process of restructuring education. Secondary education is nowbeing restructured into a basic level (the first two/three years) and an upper level (the last two/threeyears). The leading idea behind the upper level is the so-called 'study home' concept. The intention isthat the learners become 'successful independent constructors' of their own study processes instead of'successful dependent victims' of presented instruction. The first secondary schools start in 1996-1997with their 'study home' and educational publishers are working on new appropriate study books in orderto make the 'study-home' concept a success. To reach for success, publishers consider the use ofeducational software as an integral part of these new study books. Such educational software is expectedto make use of the rapid evolving technologies like hypermedia and the Internet

Generating the Ground Truth: Synthetic Data for Label Noise Research

Most real-world classification tasks suffer from label noise to some extent. Such noise in the data adversely affects the generalization error of learned models and complicates the evaluation of noise-handling methods, as their performance cannot be accurately measured without clean labels. In label noise research, typically either noisy or incomplex simulated data are accepted as a baseline, into which additional noise with known properties is injected. In this paper, we propose SYNLABEL, a framework that aims to improve upon the aforementioned methodologies. It allows for creating a noiseless dataset informed by real data, by either pre-specifying or learning a function and defining it as the ground truth function from which labels are generated. Furthermore, by resampling a number of values for selected features in the function domain, evaluating the function and aggregating the resulting labels, each data point can be assigned a soft label or label distribution. Such distributions allow for direct injection and quantification of label noise. The generated datasets serve as a clean baseline of adjustable complexity into which different types of noise may be introduced. We illustrate how the framework can be applied, how it enables quantification of label noise and how it improves over existing methodologies

An Interactive Study Environment Reference Model Based on Intelligent Software Agents:Technological Aspects

The technological aspects of an Interactive Study Environment are presented. A generic object-oriented model implementing the recent information and telecommunication technologies is discussed. The intelligent software agents paradigm is used to enhance the Web technology for teaching. The analysed approaches are targeted at development of a distributed networking learning environment which supports open standards, courses mobility and crossware as well as socio-technical specifics of learning community

The effects of social media on political party perception and voting behavior

This study sought to determine to what extent social media influences political party perception (PPP) and political voting behavior. Based on literature a conceptual model was developed which measures political interest, political trust, religion and the use of social media and their effects on PPP and voting behavior. Using an online questionnaire the conceptual model was tested towards and during the Dutch national elections of 2010. Although data analysis indicates several significant effects on PPP, voting behavior is solely determined by political interest. Certain effects of social media seem evident, though further research is necessary in funding and legitimizing its future role in political marketing

The Internet of Things:The Next Big Thing for New Product Development?

More and more physical products are equipped with sensors or RFID that connect them to the Internet; the network of these 'smart products' is known as the Internet of Things. Connected products generate large amounts of data (smart product data) that can pro-vide insights in the product’s environment and use context. Although IoT data is ex-pected to be of great value for businesses, it is not known how this data affects the key success factors of product innovation in a business context. By means of a literature study, an expert study and an interview with PostNL this study examines how smart product data as input in the New Product Development process affects key success factors of the process, namely (1) maximized fit with customer re-quirements, (2) minimized development cycle time and (3) controlled development costs. Both literature and experts agree that smart product data will help maximize the fit with customer requirements by providing extensive customer insight. In addition, the cycle time of the New Product Development process will most likely decrease, according to the literature and experts. However, opinions were more divided about the effect of the input of smart product data on cost control