Big Data – Opportunities and Challenges for Education

Report published in the Proceedings of the National Conference on "Education and Research in the Information Society", Plovdiv, May, 2015The paper reveals the potential of Big Data applied in education. The specifics of Big Data in educational contexts and different sources for their extraction are described. The power of innovative tools for data collection, management, and analysis by which to identify best practices or problems in the educational process is shown. Considering these findings, a conceptual proposal for an example of educational system using Big Data is presented. The possible effects of the implementation of Big Data in education are discussed.Association for the Development of the Information Society, Institute of Mathematics and Informatics Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Plovdiv University "Paisii Hilendarski

Technology in Help of Personalised Education

Report published in the Proceedings of the National Conference on "Education and Research in the Information Society", Plovdiv, June, 2017The aim of the research is to evaluate the potential of new technologies applied in education. We assess the usage of information and communication technology (ICT) for personalisation of learning resources by examining opinion of teachers in a survey. The results show that to be used in different learning contexts and to meet the needs and preferences of the learners most parameters of educational resources should be changeable. In addition, we examine the views of teachers on how technology-assisted teaching methods affect the students.Association for the Development of the Information Society, Institute of Mathematics and Informatics Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Plovdiv University "Paisii Hilendarski

Mathematical Modeling of the Relation between Basic Chemical Elements and Soil Properties

This paper presents mathematical modeling of the relation between basic chemical elements and soil properties. An overview of the basic chemical elements and properties of the soil is presented. An approach is proposed to conduct an experimental study of the impact of basic chemical elements and soil properties. Statistical methods are used for data processing. Mathematical models for relation between basic chemical elements and soil quality indicators are developed. Mathematical models for indirect determining the content of basic chemical elements by measuring the main soil indicators are analyzed

Quality-of-Service-Oriented Media Access Control for Advanced Mobile Multimedia Satellite Systems

Satellite networks offer a number of desirable characteristics including wide area coverage, unique broadcast capabilities, the ability to communicate with hand-held devices, and low cost-per-minute access time, among others. Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites are expected to support multimedia traffic and to provide their users with the appropriate Quality of Service (QoS). However, the limited bandwidth of the satellite channel, satellite rotation around the Earth and mobility of endusers makes QoS provisioning a challenging task The main coontribution of this work is to investigate the efficiency of various known MAC protocols in a predefined satellite network environment by using a unified analysis and methodology. Our principle objective is to define a variable bandwidth MAC protoco

Mobile and Ambient Environments of the Future - Research Challenges for Wireless Ad-hoc and Sensor Networks

There are two important trends that seem to be the driving forces in the evolution of communication networks. On the one hand, mobility support becomes a "must" for emerging services and technologies. On the other hand, services tend to have a ubiquitous nature, they are based on intelligent devices being embedded in the ambient environment surroundig us. These new trends result in new research challenges as well. In this paper we first present the specificities of wireless ad-hoc and sensor networks, technologies that were developed to support these new requirements. Then, we highlight the most important and most challenging issues that arise from these specificities

Teaching Through Technology – the Experience of Bulgarian Teachers

Report published in the Proceedings of the National Conference on "Education and Research in the Information Society", Plovdiv, May, 2016Information and communication technologies (ICT) have a huge impact on the quality of teaching, particularly in terms of the traditional classroom. This influence can be assessed by examining the teachers’ opinions on the use of modern tools in teaching and learning in school. For this purpose, we conducted a study through an online anonymous survey of 190 Bulgarian teachers; most of them regularly attend conferences and symposia dedicated to innovative forms of learning. The study is focused on the professional experience, the degree of technology integration in different pedagogical approaches and subjects, and the type and origin of the e-learning resources. The results are processed; a mathematical modelling and analysis of results is made.Association for the Development of the Information Society, Institute of Mathematics and Informatics Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Plovdiv University "Paisii Hilendarski

Educational Games in Schools – Survey and Analysis

Report published in the Proceedings of the National Conference on "Education and Research in the Information Society", Plovdiv, June, 2018In today's world full of digital devices, information and communication technologies (ICT) are already well placed in education. As an effective tool for supporting teaching, they engage learners’ attention, motivate them, facilitate knowledge acquisition, and provide access to a vast amount of learning resources. Computer educational games are the most intriguing among them. However, whether teachers are willing to practice this approach, we have tried to find out by surveying them. Based on results, an analysis of usage of educational games in different school grades and their application in various subjects have been made. Advantages of using learning games and their impact on learners have also been explored.Association for the Development of the Information Society, Institute of Mathematics and Informatics Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Plovdiv University "Paisii Hilendarski

On call admission control and handover management in multimedia LEO satellite systems

Low earth orbit (LEO) satellite systems gained considerable interest in the past decade and were expected to be instrumental in future telecommunications systems. Nevertheless, the first two LEO satellite networks that are currently in operation have not come to fruition on account of the limited spectrum of services that they provide. In this context, future LEO satellite networks will be geared towards the provision of multimedia services. In this paper a novel call admission control and inter-satellite handover management scheme tailored for multimedia LEO satellite systems is proposed and evaluated. In addition, the proposed scheme is examined in satellite diversity based systems and two different satellite selection criteria, which can be applied to both new and handover requests, are assessed

Media access using dynamic bandwidth system to improve satellite network uplink performance

The paper describes a media access system for satellite network uplinks. The media access protocol is designed to support a range of low-level protocols using a dual-framing system, that is, there is a synchronous traffic subframe in which registered station requests are assigned fixed blocks or slots and an asynchronous traffic subframe for unregistered station random access on a contention basis. Slots for the registered stations are assigned through request to the satellite; the remaining frame time is assigned to unregistered stations. Capacity waste through contention resulting in collisions is minimized. The system uses dynamic bandwidth (bit rate) allocation for each channel, that is, the base frequency and bandwidth are changed for each channel at frame boundaries. The total bandwidth for the sum of all uplink channels is fixed. Channels that have low load based upon their request in a prior uplink frame are assigned lower bandwidth, while those with higher loading are provided larger bandwidth. By sharing bandwidth over channels at frame boundaries, overall network efficiency and fairness are significantly enhanced. Bandwidth allocation is decided in the satellite. It allocates sufficient bandwidth for all synchronous traffic and then commits the remaining bandwidth to asynchronous traffic. Here, the allocation for asynchronous traffic provides each channel with sufficient slots so that equal probability of success for stations sharing the channel can be expected. The combination of traffic assignment and bandwidth allocation provides significant improvement in overall network efficiency and fairness for all traffic types. The hardware, implementation of media access for variable bandwidth sharing between channels use the concepts of Digital Software Radio