Handling privacy and concurrency in an online educational evaluation system

Nowadays, all academic institutions exhibit and distribute their material over Internet. Moreover, e-learning and e-evaluation products is one of the most rapidly expanding areas of education and training, with nearly 30% of U.S. college and university students now taking at least one online course. However, Internet increases the vulnerability of digital educational content exploitation since it is a potential hostile environment for secure data management. The challenge is that providing current online educational tools that are accessible by a large number of users, these educational environments handle data of varying sensitivity thus it is increasingly important to reason about and enforce information privacy guarantees in the presence of concurrency. The present paper provides a privacy preserving approach in a concurrent online educational evaluation system. It introduces a privacy preserving approach for utilizing online concurrent evaluation of acquired student competencies that handles the increasingly complex issues of designing, developing and e-competence evaluation systems suitable for educational and e-learning environments. The proposed architecture for an online competence evaluation system offers access control and protect users' private data while, it provides concurrent procedures for evaluating competencies. © 2019 International Press of Boston, Inc. All rights reserved.European Commission, ECThis work has been partially supported by the “Implementation of Software Engineering Com-petence Remote Evaluation for Master Program Graduates (iSECRET)” project No 2015-1-LVo1-KA203-013439 funded by ERASMUS+ of the European Commission

Improved Decision-Making through a DEMATEL and Fuzzy Cognitive Maps-Based Framework

The decision-making process is highly demanding. There has been an increasing tendency to incorporate human thinking, individual experience about a problem, and pure mathematical approaches. Here, a novel integrated approach is investigated and proposed to develop an advanced hybrid decision-support system based on the decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) and fuzzy cognitive maps (FCMs). Indeed, knowledge acquisition and elicitation may present distortions and difficulties finding a consensus and an interpretation. Thus, the proposed combined approach aims to examine in depth the potential to improve FCMs' outcomes by integrating FCM with the DEMATEL approach. The combined methodology achieves at avoiding some of the drawbacks, such as the lack of a standardized FCM theoretical model. Thus, it provides advanced comparative analysis and results in better interpretation of the decision-making process. It is highlighted that the traditional FCM approach does not allow distinguishing the whole number of defined scenarios, in contrast to the hybrid one presented here, which increases the ability of users to make correct decisions. Combining the two approaches provides new capabilities to FCMs in grouping experts' knowledge, while the DEMATEL approach contributes to refining the strength of concepts' connections

Optimization Models of Tool Path Problem for CNC Sheet Metal Cutting Machines

The problem of tool path optimization for CNC sheet metal cutting equipment is considered. Sheet metal cutting equipment includes laser/plasma/gas/water-jet machines and some others. Users of CAD/CAM systems develop numerical control programs for the cutting equipment after nesting of parts onto the sheet. The control programs contain information about tool path. The tool path is a routing of cutter head used for cutting of sheet material. Classification and the correspondent mathematical models of tool path problem are considered. The tasks of cost/time minimization for various types of cutting techniques are formalized. Mathematical formalization of technological constraints for these tasks is also described. Unlike the known analogs this formalization allows to consider constraints of thermal cutting. In some cases the optimization tasks can be interpreted as discrete optimization problem (generalized travel salesman problem with additional constraints, GTSP). In paper also the developed exact algorithm and some heuristic algorithms of tool path optimization based on described models is reported. Results of computing experiments for some instances are given © 2016The work was supported by Act 211 Government of the Russian Federation, contract № 02.A03.21.0006

Challenges and Opportunities in Industry 4.0 for Mechatronics, Artificial Intelligence and Cybernetics

Industry 4.0 has risen as an integrated digital manufacturing environment, and it has created a novel research perspective that has thrust research to interdisciplinarity and exploitation of ICT advances. This work presents and discusses the main aspects of Industry 4.0 and how intelligence can be embedded in manufacturing to create the smart factory. It briefly describes the main components of Industry 4.0, and it focuses on the security challenges that the fully interconnected ecosystem of Industry 4.0 has to meet and the threats for each component. Preserving security has a crucial role in Industry 4.0, and it is vital for its existence, so the main research directions on how to ensure the confidentiality and integrity of the information shared among the Industry 4.0 components are presented. Another view is in light of the security issues that come as a result of enabling new technologies. © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.Acknowledgements. We thank Dawn Ernstzen, Division of Physiotherapy, Stellenbosch University, for her contextualisation work for chronic pain management in SA used in the example in this article, and Michelle Galloway for her support in finalising the submission on behalf of the author team. Funding. The authors were funded, partially or in full, by the SAGE project, a 3-year (2014 - 2017) Flagship Grant from the South African Medical Research Council. The Flagship Grant programme was not involved in the conceptualisation or conduct of this study

Wearable nanocomposite textile-based piezoelectric and triboelectric nanogenerators: progress and perspectives

In recent years, the widespread adoption of next-generation wearable electronics has been facilitated by the integration of advanced nanogenerator technology with conventional textiles. This integration has led to the development of textile-based nanogenerators (t-NGs), which hold tremendous potential for harvesting mechanical energy from the surrounding environment and serving as power sources for self-powered electronics. Textile structures are inherently flexible, making them well-suited for wearable applications. However, their electrical performance as nanogenerators is significantly limited when used without any modifications. To address this limitation and enhance the electrical performance of textile-based nanogenerators, nanocomposite textiles have been extensively utilized for fabricating advanced nanogenerators. This critical review focuses on the recent progress in wearable nanocomposite textiles-based piezoelectric and triboelectric nanogenerators. The review covers the fundamentals of piezoelectricity and triboelectricity, the working principles of nanogenerators, and the selection of materials. Furthermore, it provides a detailed discussion of nanocomposite textiles in various forms, such as fibers or yarns, fabrics, and electrospun nanofibrous webs, which are employed in piezoelectric and triboelectric nanogenerators. The review also highlights the challenges associated with their implementation and outlines the prospects of textile-based nanogenerators. It can be concluded that nanocomposite textile based piezoelectric and triboelectric nanogenerators exhibit better electrical output and mechanical strength compared to conventional textile based nanogenerators. Nanocomposite electrospun web based piezoelectric nanogenerators exhibit higher piezoelectric output compared with nanocomposite fibre/yarn or fabric based piezoelectric nanogenerators. This is because an in-situ poling takes place in electrospinning unlike with fibre or fabric based piezoelectric nanogenerators. Nanocomposite electrospun web based triboelectric nanogenerators also show better triboelectric output compared to the fibre or fabric-based equivalents. This is due to the higher contact area developed with electrospun nanocomposite webs compared to the fibre or fabric cases. Overall, it can be concluded that while nanocomposite construction can boost output and durability of textile based nanogenerators, more research is required to bring output, stability and durability up to the levels achievable with non-textile based devices

Statistical Approach to Fuzzy Cognitive Maps

Fuzzy cognitive maps are studied from statistical standpoint. An analogy between these maps and linear regression and logistic regression models is drawn. Practical examples are also provided.Peer reviewe

Big data-driven fuzzy cognitive map for prioritising IT service procurement in the public sector

YesThe prevalence of big data is starting to spread across the public and private sectors however, an impediment to its widespread adoption orientates around a lack of appropriate big data analytics (BDA) and resulting skills to exploit the full potential of big data availability. In this paper, we propose a novel BDA to contribute towards this void, using a fuzzy cognitive map (FCM) approach that will enhance decision-making thus prioritising IT service procurement in the public sector. This is achieved through the development of decision models that capture the strengths of both data analytics and the established intuitive qualitative approach. By taking advantages of both data analytics and FCM, the proposed approach captures the strength of data-driven decision-making and intuitive model-driven decision modelling. This approach is then validated through a decision-making case regarding IT service procurement in public sector, which is the fundamental step of IT infrastructure supply for publics in a regional government in the Russia federation. The analysis result for the given decision-making problem is then evaluated by decision makers and e-government expertise to confirm the applicability of the proposed BDA. In doing so, demonstrating the value of this approach in contributing towards robust public decision-making regarding IT service procurement.EU FP7 project Policy Compass (Project No. 612133

Proof of impact and pipeline planning: directions and challenges for social audit in the health sector

Social audits are typically observational studies, combining qualitative and quantitative uptake of evidence with consultative interpretation of results. This often falters on issues of causality because their cross-sectional design limits interpretation of time relations and separation out of other indirect associations