Ontology-based Fuzzy Markup Language Agent for Student and Robot Co-Learning

An intelligent robot agent based on domain ontology, machine learning mechanism, and Fuzzy Markup Language (FML) for students and robot co-learning is presented in this paper. The machine-human co-learning model is established to help various students learn the mathematical concepts based on their learning ability and performance. Meanwhile, the robot acts as a teacher's assistant to co-learn with children in the class. The FML-based knowledge base and rule base are embedded in the robot so that the teachers can get feedback from the robot on whether students make progress or not. Next, we inferred students' learning performance based on learning content's difficulty and students' ability, concentration level, as well as teamwork sprit in the class. Experimental results show that learning with the robot is helpful for disadvantaged and below-basic children. Moreover, the accuracy of the intelligent FML-based agent for student learning is increased after machine learning mechanism.Comment: This paper is submitted to IEEE WCCI 2018 Conference for revie

Prognosis of Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma in the Elderly is Worse than in Younger Individuals–Experience of a Medical Institute

SummaryPurposeWe aimed to evaluate outcomes of the elderly (>65 years) by comparing with younger (<40 years) patients after treatments for nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC).Materials and methodsWe retrospectively obtained clinical data from charts for 23 older and 21 younger patients in whom NPC was diagnosed and who underwent curative managements during 2007 and 2011. Occurrence of local recurrence, distant metastasis, and death from any cause were recorded as endpoints. Cox proportional hazards regression was applied to determine age effects on survival risks after adjusting for the potential confounders.ResultsOlder patients more commonly received a diagnosis of chronic diseases than the younger patients (56.5% versus 23.8%, p = 0.036), whereas they were less likely to have received intensive treatments for NPC. After adjusting for medical history and neoadjuvant chemotherapy, older age was the only significant predictor in the study cohort for overall survival and progression-free survival. The adjusted hazard ratio (HR) for death from all causes in older patients was 6.3 (95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.3–30.2), and the adjusted HR for disease progression in older patients was 10.9 (95% CI = 2.3–50.6).ConclusionAging was the only independent prognostic risk factor in this study cohort. Medical history and treatment variations could not fully explain the difference in prognosis. Our results strengthen the need to ameliorate toxicities and improve supportive care for older patients with a diagnosis of NPC