Evaluation of Music Performance: Computerized Assessment Versus Human Judges.

Ph.D. Thesis. University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa 2018

Internationalization in Higher Education – International Student’s Chinese Learning as Serious Leisure in Taiwan

Due to the economic and commercial rise of China, the economic value, political value, and instrumental advantages produced by Chinese have become more significant. The fever for learning Chinese continues to intensify all over the world, and Chinese instruction has become increasingly popular. Taiwan is a country with Chinese as its official language; and an important issue rose in international educational policy is how to attract international students to study Chinese in Taiwan. At the same time, Taiwan has promoted the internationalization of universities in the recent years; it hopes to elevate the visibility of its universities on the international stage, and intends to broaden diplomacy and promote economic development. This study found that international students who came to Taiwan to learn Chinese tended to be Asians. The different original residence locations of international students would significantly affect learning Chinese as serious leisure. International students who rented apartments with others off-campus or who chose home-stays had greater life planning, effort in Chinese learning, continuous benefits from Chinese learning, and a sense of community identification with their learning peers, as compared to international students who lived in school dormitories or lived alone off-campus. International students who had mor e disposable income each month were more likely to gain lasting benefits from Chinese learning and strong community identification with their learning peers. Key words: International education; International students; Chinese learning; Language learning as serious leisure Resumé: En raison de l'essor économique et commercial de la Chine, la valeur économique, la valeur politique et les avantages instrumentaux produits par les Chinois sont devenus plus importants. L'enthouiasme pour apprendre le chinois continue de s'intensifier dans le monde entier, et l'enseignement du chinois est devenu de plus en plus populaire. La langue officielle de Taiwan est le chinois, et l'une des questions importantes dans la politique éducative internationale est de savoir comment attirer des étudiants étrangers à étudier le chinois à Taiwan. En même temps, Taiwan a favorisé l'internationalisation des universités dans les années récentes. Il espère rehausser la visibilité de ses universités sur la scène internationale et il a l'intention d'élargir la diplomatie et promouvoir le développement économique. Cette étude a révélé que les étudiants étrangers qui sont venus à Taiwan pour apprendre le chinois sont plutôt des Asiatiques. Les localisations différentes de résidence originale des étudiants étrangers auraient une influence significative sur leur apprentissage du chinois en tant que loisir sérieux. Les étudiants étrangers qui ont loué des appartements avec d'autres étudiants en dehors du campus ou ceux qui ont choisi une famille d'acceuil avaient une planification de vie plus longue et un effort d'apprendre le Chinois plus grand. Ils bénéficiaient des avantages continus de l'apprentissage du chinois et avaient un sentiment d'identification de communauté avec leurs partenaires de l'apprentissage, par rapport aux étudiants étrangers qui vivaient dans les dortoirs scolaires ou vivaient seuls en dehors du campus. Les étudiants étrangers qui avaient un revenu disponible plus élevé chaque mois étaient plus susceptibles d'obtenir des avantages durables de l'apprentissage du chinois et avaient une identification forte de communauté avec leurs partenaire de l'apprentissage. Mots-clés: éducation internationale; étudiants internationaux; apprentissage du chinois; apprentissage de langue en tant que loisir sérieu

Attention Allocation for Human Multi-Robot Control: Cognitive Analysis based on Behavior Data and Hidden States

Human multi-robot interaction exploits both the human operator’s high-level decision-making skills and the robotic agents’ vigorous computing and motion abilities. While controlling multi-robot teams, an operator’s attention must constantly shift between individual robots to maintain sufficient situation awareness. To conserve an operator’s attentional resources, a robot with self reflect capability on its abnormal status can help an operator focus her attention on emergent tasks rather than unneeded routine checks. With the proposing self-reflect aids, the human-robot interaction becomes a queuing framework, where the robots act as the clients to request for interaction and an operator acts as the server to respond these job requests. This paper examined two types of queuing schemes, the self-paced Open-queue identifying all robots’ normal/abnormal conditions, whereas the forced-paced shortest-job-first (SJF) queue showing a single robot’s request at one time by following the SJF approach. As a robot may miscarry its experienced failures in various situations, the effects of imperfect automation were also investigated in this paper. The results suggest that the SJF attentional scheduling approach can provide stable performance in both primary (locate potential targets) and secondary (resolve robots’ failures) tasks, regardless of the system’s reliability levels. However, the conventional results (e.g., number of targets marked) only present little information about users’ underlying cognitive strategies and may fail to reflect the user’s true intent. As understanding users’ intentions is critical to providing appropriate cognitive aids to enhance task performance, a Hidden Markov Model (HMM) is used to examine operators’ underlying cognitive intent and identify the unobservable cognitive states. The HMM results demonstrate fundamental differences among the queuing mechanisms and reliability conditions. The findings suggest that HMM can be helpful in investigating the use of human cognitive resources under multitasking environments

Controlled Morphological Structure of Ceria Nanoparticles Prepared by Spray Pyrolysis

AbstractCeria based materials have been widely used as catalyst supporters and electrolytes. Different applications require different morphologies, and the microstructural control during the synthesis is crucial. In the study, ceria particles were prepared from various precursors using a spray pyrolysis (SP). Comparing to the hollow and porous particles, the formation mechanism with solid spherical structure is not clarified readily. The ceria particles were characterized by transmission electron microscopy, thermogravimetry analysis and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. This experimental result suggests that the morphology is controlled by the precursors and could be related to their decomposed behavior during the heating process in SP

General Versus Spinal Anesthesia: Which is a Risk Factor for Octogenarian Hip Fracture Repair Patients?

SummaryBackgroundMost studies have shown no difference between the two types of anesthesia administered to hip fracture patients. This study compared postoperative morbidity and mortality in octogenarian patients who received either general or spinal anesthesia for hip fracture repair.MethodsWe retrospectively analyzed the hospital records of 335 octogenarian patients who received hip fracture repair in our teaching hospital between 2002 and 2006. A total of 167 and 168 patients received general and spinal anesthesia, respectively. Morbidity, mortality, and intraoperative and preoperative variables were compared between groups.ResultsThere were no mortality differences between spinal and general anesthesia groups. However, the overall morbidity was greater in the general anesthesia group than in the spinal anesthesia group (21/167 [12.6%] vs. 9/168 [5.4%]; p = 0.02). Respiratory system-related morbidity was also higher in the general anesthesia group than in the spinal anesthesia group (11/167 [6.6%] vs. 3/168 [1.8%]; p = 0.03). Logistic regression analysis revealed two significant predictors of postoperative morbidity: anesthesia type (general; odds ratio, 2.39) and preexisting respiratory diseases (odds ratio, 3.38).ConclusionGeneral anesthesia increased the risk of postoperative morbidity in octogenarian patients after hip fracture repair, and patients with preexisting respiratory diseases were especially vulnerable. Spinal anesthesia is strongly recommended in such individuals

In vitro ruminal fermentation and cow-to-mouse fecal transplantations verify the inter-relationship of microbiome and metabolome biomarkers: potential to promote health in dairy cows

IntroductionThere are differences in the gut microbiome and metabolome when the host undergoes different physical or pathological conditions. However, the inter-relationship of microbiome and metabolome biomarkers to potentially promote the health of dairy cows needs to be studied. Further, the development of next-generation probiotics for dairy cattle health promotion has not been demonstrated.ObjectiveIn the present study, we identified the microbiome and metabolome biomarkers associated with healthy cows.MethodsWe analyzed the relationships of the ruminal microorganism profile and metabolites between healthy and mastitis lactating dairy cows. The roles of bacterial biomarker were further verified by in vitro fermentation and cow-to-mouse fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT).ResultsTwo species, Ruminococcus flavefaciens and Bifidobacterium longum subsp. longum, and six rumen metabolites were positively correlated with healthy cows by Spearman’s correlation analysis. Through in vitro ruminal fermentation, inoculating R. flavefaciens and B. longum subsp. longum showed the upregulation of the levels of putrescine, xanthurenic acid, and pyridoxal in the mastitis ruminal fluid, which confirmed the inter-relationships between these microbiota and metabolites associated with healthy cows. Further, we verified the role of R. flavefaciens and B. longum subsp. longum in promoting health by FMT. The administration of R. flavefaciens and B. longum subsp. longum reduced the death rate and recovered the bodyweight loss of germ-free mice caused by FMT mastitis feces.DiscussionWe provided evidence that the bacterial biomarkers alter downstream metabolites. This could indirectly indicate that the two bacterial biomarkers have the potential to be used as next-generation probiotics for dairy cattle, although it needs more evidence to support our hypothesis. Two species, R. flavefaciens and B. longum subsp. longum, with three metabolites, putrescine, xanthurenic acid, and pyridoxal, identified in the ruminal fluid, may point to a new health-promoting and disease-preventing approach for dairy cattle