Efficient transport and economic development: A transport survey analysis

Efficient transport and economic growth in a city or country are inter-related. The overall focus of the survey conducted was to find the travel habits of the residents in the city of Kuching (Malaysia), so as to weigh the prospects of economic development in future. The three objectives were to evaluate the efficiency of the local bus transportation system, to confirm on the usage of car as the preferred mode of transport, and to identify areas of improvement to the system as well as analyzing the need for an alternative mode(s) of transportation. The quantitative and qualitative analysis is done on data to find the relationships between various variables measured. Car has been confirmed to be the popular mode of transport across the age groups, across the income groups and across the professions, whereas the bus transport was really not significant. The study identified the important characteristics and priorities in the travel behavior of Kuching residents. The results of the study will be significant in the planning of new economic developments that encourages the use of public transportation in Kuching city

Phishing Web Page Detection using Optimised Machine Learning

Phishing is a type of social engineering attack that can affect any company or anyone. This paper explores the effect that different features and optimisation techniques have on the accuracy of intelligent phishing detection using machine learning algorithms. This paper explores both hyperparameter optimisation as well as feature selection optimisation. For hyperparameter tuning, both TPE (Tree-structured Parzen Estimator) and GA (Genetic Algorithm) were tested, with the best option being model dependent. For feature selection, GA, MFO (Moth Flame Optimisation) and PSO (Particle Swarm Optimisation) were used with PSO working best with a Random Forest model. This work used URL (Uniform Resource Locator), DOM (Document Object Model) structure, page rank and page information related features. This research found that the best combination was Random Forest using PSO for feature selection and TPE for hyperparameter optimisation, giving an accuracy of 99.33%

A Semi-Supervised Learning Approach for Tackling Twitter Spam Drift

Twitter has changed the way people get information by allowing them to express their opinion and comments on the daily tweets. Unfortunately, due to the high popularity of Twitter, it has become very attractive to spammers. Unlike other types of spam, Twitter spam has become a serious issue in the last few years. The large number of users and the high amount of information being shared on Twitter play an important role in accelerating the spread of spam. In order to protect the users, Twitter and the research community have been developing different spam detection systems by applying different machine-learning techniques. However, a recent study showed that the current machine learning-based detection systems are not able to detect spam accurately because spam tweet characteristics vary over time. This issue is called “Twitter Spam Drift”. In this paper, a semi-supervised learning approach (SSLA) has been proposed to tackle this. The new approach uses the unlabeled data to learn the structure of the domain. Different experiments were performed on English and Arabic datasets to test and evaluate the proposed approach and the results show that the proposed SSLA can reduce the effect of Twitter spam drift and outperform the existing techniques

Intelligent Intrusion Detection System Through Combined and Optimized Machine Learning

In this paper, an existing rule-based intrusion detection system (IDS) is made more intelligent through the application of machine learning. Snort was chosen as it is an open source software and though it was performing well, it showed false positives (FPs). To find the best performing machine learning algorithms (MLAs) to use with Snort so as to improve its detection, we tested some algorithms on three available datasets. Support vector machine (SVM) was chosen along with fuzzy logic and decision tree based on their accuracy. Combined versions of algorithms through ensemble SVM along with other variants were tried on the generated traffic of normal and malicious packets at 10Gbps. Optimized versions of the SVM along with firefly and ant colony optimization (ACO) were also tried, and the accuracy improved remarkably. Thus, the application of combined and optimized MLAs to Snort at 10Gbps worked quite well

Impact on Student Learning From Traditional Continuous Assessment and an E-Assessment Proposal

Is learning for assessment an inevitable outcome of assessment for learning? We plan to investigate on this – by showing the effects of traditional continuous assessment modes we have implemented, and inviting student opinions on an e-assessment proposal which was virtually tested in a university setup. Student’s perceptions are checked in the case of traditional continuous assessment techniques vs. non continuous assessments and the effect tallied with the coursework marks obtained for two groups of students. Also classroom assessment vs. e-assessment options were posed to students who were exposed to the proposed e-assessment option and comments invited. In each case, the reasoning behind the choice of assessment and associated learning strategies are probed into. The e-assessment is proposed to implement continuous assessment especially for large classes and also as a medium to invoke a positive learning approach through the feedback mechanism available on the e-assessment tool. A simple algorithm is also proposed for essay e-assessment scoring

Detecting Spam Email With Machine Learning Optimized With Bio-Inspired Metaheuristic Algorithms

Electronic mail has eased communication methods for many organisations as well as individuals. This method is exploited for fraudulent gain by spammers through sending unsolicited emails. This article aims to present a method for detection of spam emails with machine learning algorithms that are optimized with bio-inspired methods. A literature review is carried to explore the efficient methods applied on different datasets to achieve good results. An extensive research was done to implement machine learning models using Naïve Bayes, Support Vector Machine, Random Forest, Decision Tree and Multi-Layer Perceptron on seven different email datasets, along with feature extraction and pre-processing. The bio-inspired algorithms like Particle Swarm Optimization and Genetic Algorithm were implemented to optimize the performance of classifiers. Multinomial Naïve Bayes with Genetic Algorithm performed the best overall. The comparison of our results with other machine learning and bio-inspired models to show the best suitable model is also discussed

Multi-Population Differential Evolution for Retinal Blood Vessel Segmentation

The retinal blood vessel segmentation plays a significant role in the automatic or computer-assisted diagnosis of retinopathy. Manual blood vessel segmentation is very time-consuming and requires a great amount of domain knowledge. In addition, the blood vessels are only a few pixels wide and cover the entire fundus image. This further hinders the recent systems from automating the retinal blood vessel segmentation efficiently. In this paper, we propose a modified differential evolution (DE) algorithm to carry out automatic retinal blood vessel segmentation. The modified DE employs cross-communication among multiple populations to select three types of features i.e. thick blood vessels, thin blood vessels and non-blood vessels. Multiple classifiers such as neural networks (NN), Support vector machines (SVM), NN based and SVM based ensembles are used to further measure the performance of segmentation. The proposed algorithm is evaluated on three publicly available retinal image datasets like DRIVE, STARE and HRF. It outperformed the state-of-the-art with a high average accuracy of 98.5% along with high sensitivity and specificity

A study of critcal thinking skills and online forums in engineering mathematics

The study looked into the development of critical thinking skills during the teaching and learning of engineering mathematics. Forty three students of an engineering mathematics unit participated in two ill structured problem solving sessions over the Blackboard discussion forums. Critical thinking was measured from the online postings using the CAIS model and the progress in the level of critical thinking is checked from first forum to the second. The general critical thinking skills prior to and after the forum sessions were measured through the CCTST (California Critical Thinking Skills Test) test. Results from the CAIS model scores indicated that critical thinking skills as seen in mathematics problem solving, progressed from first forum to the second, and results from the CCTST scores also confirm that general critical thinking skills have improved after participation in the online forums

Facilitating Critical Thinking In Asynchronous Problem Solving Sessions : A Study Of First Year University Engineering Mathematics

Higher education is failing in its goal of teaching Critical Thinking skills to undergraduate students. The influence of Critical Thinking skills on mathematical problem solving has attracted research. In contrast to the traditional text book dominated approach, the mathematics classrooms of the present were encouraged to be places where discussion and collaboration were valued in building a climate of intellectual challenge. This research study set out to investigate the occurrence, progress and effects of Critical Thinking skills during mathematics problem solving sessions activated through online Discussion Forums. The objectives were to: (1) Investigate the level and progress of Critical Thinking of individuals and groups from the postings in the online Discussion Forums using an adapted model, called the CAIS model, called after the phases of Classification, Assessment, Inference and Strategies; (2) Determine the effect of moderation technique (Socratic questioning and reflection scaffolds) in guiding and promoting Critical Thinking; (3) Determine participants' perceptions about Critical Thinking and satisfaction with the online Discussion Forums; (4 ) Investigate the changes in learners' general Critical Thinking skills (CCTST scores) using the California Critical Thinking Skills Test (CCTST) instrument; (5) Investigate changes in attitudes toward mathematics; and, (6) Determine the relationship between the level of Critical Thinking in the online Discussion Forums and (a) initial mathematics ability; (b) general Critical Thinking ability (CCTST scores); (c) mathematical achievement; and (d) attitudes toward mathematics. A first year Engineering Mathematics unit of the Malaysian campus of an Australian University, conducted over 14 weeks was used as a platform to investigate how Critical Thinking could be facilitated using online asynchronous discussions. The sample of the study consisted of 43 and 60 participants respectively of two batches (year 2008 and year 2009) of the unit, and who were divided into small collaborative groups of four to six. These were formed over the Blackboard Learning System of the unit. Problem solving sessions, consisting of ill-structured problems from engineering contexts were activated over the online Discussion Forums of the collaborative groups twice during the semester of 14 weeks

Marketing campaign for attracting US American travelers to Finland

The purpose of this Bachelor’s thesis was to analyze the desirability of Finland as a destination for US American tourists. Another purpose was to research whether development of the market was required to promote the country as a tourist destination amongst this population. Data were gathered from various sources and the conclusions drawn from the findings have been used as a basis for a proposed marketing campaign. Whilst the findings suggest that Finland is a relatively popular tourist destination for US Americans, the number of US Americans travelling to the country is considerably smaller than the number of travelers entering the country from other regions. Furthermore, there was also an apparent lack of knowledge about what Finland can offer to tourists. This indicates that further development of the market is required and could be beneficial to the tourist industry. Also a deeper insight to the US legislation would be necessary