External Tools Research Articles

Os Rankings Acadêmicos: implicações na governança universitária das universidades católicas brasileiras

ABSTRACT This article aims to analyze the implications of academic rankings, as external assessment tools, in the governance structure of Brazilian Catholic universities. For the development of this study, exploratory research was carried out through documentary and bibliographic analyses, taking as reference scientific production found in indexed bases, federal legislation, apostolic constitutions, canon law, statutes, regulations and Institutional Development Plans (IDPs) of these institutions. In light of the numerous existing rankings, their use is evident in the strategic planning process of most Catholic universities, through their respective performances in establishing goals and objectives.

PolicyCLOUD: A prototype of a cloud serverless ecosystem for policy analytics

AbstractWe present PolicyCLOUD: a prototype for an extensible serverless cloud-based system that supports evidence-based elaboration and analysis of policies. PolicyCLOUD allows flexible exploitation and management of policy-relevant dataflows, by enabling the practitioner to register datasets and specify a sequence of transformations and/or information extraction through registered ingest functions. Once a possibly transformed dataset has been ingested, additional insights can be retrieved by further applying registered analytic functions to it. PolicyCLOUD was built as an extensible framework toward the creation of an analytic ecosystem. As of now, we have developed several essential ingest and analytic functions that are built-in within the framework. They include data cleaning, enhanced interoperability, and sentiment analysis generic functions; in addition, a trend analysis function is being created as a new built-in function. PolicyCLOUD has also the ability to tap on the analytic capabilities of external tools; we demonstrate this with a social dynamics tool implemented in conjunction with PolicyCLOUD, and describe how this stand-alone tool can be integrated with the PolicyCLOUD platform to enrich it with policy modeling, design and simulation capabilities. Furthermore, PolicyCLOUD is supported by a tailor-made legal and ethical framework derived from privacy/data protection best practices and existing standards at the EU level, which regulates the usage and dissemination of datasets and analytic functions throughout its policy-relevant dataflows. The article describes and evaluates the application of PolicyCLOUD to four families of pilots that cover a wide range of policy scenarios.

Formation of external cognitive tools among future teachers of chemistry

It is important to understand the features of the instrumental side of the cognitive organization of each student, in the process of teaching and upbringing, as a reflection of the properties of the integral structure of the human cognition system. The article is devoted to the problem of identifying and using the prevailing styles of thinking of students, future teachers, in the process of their vocational training at the university. Goal of research ‑ determine the prevailing style of students' thinking activity with a possible typology. The relevance of the problem under study is associated with the need to solve the issue of the optimal use of the individual thinking characteristics of bachelor students, future chemistry teachers, for the development of their methodical thinking as the integration of scientific thinking of a separate taught science, scientific - research pedagogical thinking and applied pedagogical thinking. The authors point out that the master's degree program should also use the idea of implementing and researching students ' mental operations in a certain sequence: presentation of knowledge → structuring knowledge → transformation of knowledge in conjunction with the main tools of thinking, as the highest stage of human cognition - concept, judgment and inference. As a research methodology, the article proposes the use of diagnostics by A. Alekseeva and L. Gromova "Individual styles of thinking" to determine the styles of thinking, the purpose of which is to study the individual characteristics of thinking. It has been established that the implementation of the methodology used contributes to the study of the basic styles of thinking of students: synthetic, idealistic, pragmatic, analytical, and realistic. The information obtained will allow each teacher at the second stage of higher education - the magistracy, to rebuild the teaching method of his discipline with a focus on the personality characteristics of the cognitive tools of each student individually and the entire group together.

Relational Database for Horizontal-to-Vertical Spectral Ratios

Abstract Frequency-dependent horizontal-to-vertical spectral ratios (HVSRs) of Fourier amplitudes from three-component recordings can provide useful information for site response modeling. However, such information is not incorporated into most ground-motion models, including those from Next-Generation Attenuation projects, which instead use the time-averaged shear-wave velocity (VS) in the upper 30 m of the site and sediment depth terms. To facilitate utilization of HVSR, we developed a publicly accessible relational database. This database is adapted from a similar repository for VS data and provides microtremor-based HVSR data (mHVSR) and supporting metadata, but not parameters derived from the data. Users can interact with the data directly within a web portal that contains a graphical user interface (GUI) or through external tools that perform cloud-based computations. Within the database GUI, the median horizontal-component mHVSR can be plotted against frequency, with the mean and mean ± one standard deviation (representing variability across time windows) provided. Using external interactive tools (provided as a Jupyter Notebook and an R script), users can replot mHVSR (as in the database) or create polar plots. These tools can also derive parameters of potential interest for modeling purposes, including a binary variable indicating whether an mHVSR plot contains peaks, as well as the fitted properties of those peaks (frequencies, amplitudes, and widths). Metadata are also accessible, which includes site location, details about the instruments used to make the measurements, and data processing information related to windowing, antitrigger routines, and filtering.

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Boundaries of the Machine Body: Violence, Immunity and Media Assemblages in The Last of Us This article examines the portrayal of bodily boundaries in the videogame series The Last of Us. Drawing on theories of media ecology and posthumanism (most notably Deer’s notion of radical animism, Haraway’s theories of the cyborg, and Fuller’s account of media assemblages), three aspects of this portrayal are described: first, the game’s narrativization of bodily violence through an amalgamation of the player’s sensory systems with media technologies; second, the game’s depiction of monstrous corporeality; and third, its representation of immune systems through the mirrored relationship between external tools and endogenous bodily functions. Connecting these three aspects, it is argued that The Last of Us portrays bodily boundaries as precarious, and that it presents violence, technology and infectious disease as callingcards for moving beyond anthropocentric views of corporeality; of conceptualizing the human body as machine-like and inevitably more-than-human.

Impact of the pandemic on digital management: a bybliometric analysis

Digital management is developing every year. The number of studies related to digital management is also increasing. Digital management contributes to the development of new markets and sectors of the economy, stimulates innovation and ensures productivity growth. It also brings significant changes to the organization, its processes and all areas. Using tools and trends in digital management, many foreign organizations are making great strides. In the context of continuous information development, managers need to process large volumes of external information and use digital governance tools to stay on top of innovation. The use of digital management tools opens up new opportunities for all organizations and allows to create business processes taking into account an actively changing environment.  Currently, we can observe how digital transformation is taking place in all areas. The purpose of this research work is to conduct a bibliographic analysis of the digital management literature. The research consists of two stages: descriptive – bibliographic analysis and content analysis. The research work analyzes and compares studies conducted in 2017-2019 and 2020-2021 related to digital management. A review of digital management research based on Scopus is carried out. In general, 1682 studies in the field of digital management were analyzed for 2020-2021. Their indicators were described by the program VosViewer. In addition, the worldwide pandemic has also had a significant impact on the development of digital management. In this regard, 49 conducted research works were identified. In the future, digital management research still needs to be deeply studied.   Key words: digital management, digital transformation, digital technologies, COVID-19.

FE-Simulation Based Design of Wear-Optimized Cutting Edge Roundings

The performance of cutting tools can be significantly enhanced by matching the cutting edge rounding to the process and material properties. However, the conventional cutting edge rounding design is characterized by a significant number of experimental machining studies, which involve considerable cost, time, and resources. In this study, a novel approach to cutting edge rounding design using FEM-based chip formation simulations is presented. Based on a parameterized simulation model, tool temperatures, stresses and relative velocities can be calculated as a function of tool microgeometry. It can be shown that the external tool loads can be simulated with high agreement. With the help of these loads and the use of wear models, the resulting tool wear and the optimum cutting edge rounding can be determined. The final experimental investigations show a qualitatively high agreement to the simulation, which will enable a reduced effort design of the cutting edge in the future.

Determination of Sequence of Strokes-Conventional & Non-Conventional Techniques - A Review Study

The most important tool for a document examiner is his or her own vision, but in this section and the laboratory tour section we will consider the external tools which enable the examiner to see, evaluates and record more than is apparent to the unaided eye. The number of papers outlines the basic necessity of photographic illustrations for demonstrating the data offer clinching evidence, strong enough to with stand legal scrutiny on which opinions of the document examiner are based, hence play a very vital role in the examination of forensic documents. For the purpose of examination in the laboratory as well as the use of photographs becomes indispensible in cases involving traced or simulated forgery, built-up documents, forgery over genuine signatures and forgery by substitution, interpolations, differences in the tint of ink etc. The authors have solved a case in resolving the sequence of strokes with same ball point ink in an actual case received in the laboratory.

Dynamic visual support is superior to its static counterpart in learning a series of Judo refereeing gestures

ABSTRACT Recent studies have shown the superiority of dynamic over static visualisations in learning different motor skills in the physical education (PE) domain, due to the activation of the mirror-neuron system. However, these past investigations were based solely on instructional materials with short durations (few seconds). It is yet unknown whether this superiority remains valid in learning from materials with long durations (e.g., more than 2-minutes). We attempted to fill this knowledge gap with the present experiment by exploring the effects of dynamic and static visual supports in learning a series of Judo refereeing gestures and attitudes in PE students. Sixty-seven novice practitioners (Mage = 20.5 years, SD = 0.6 years, 27 males and 40 females) voluntarily participated in the current project. They were randomly exposed to the dynamic or static visual supports (study phase), and asked to rate their mental effort invested, perform a recall-performance test, and indicate their attitudes (in terms of attention, motivation, enjoyment, interestingness, and self-efficacy), immediately following the study phase. The results showed that a dynamic visual support guaranteed better learning outcomes in the students (as evidenced by the more favourable relationship between mental effort investment and recall performances). However, data analysis demonstrated that participants exposed to both visual supports reported similar attitudes. These findings have implications for the effective design of external visual tools in the PE domain and provide confirmation on the superiority of dynamic over static visualisations for learning motor skills (Judo refereeing gestures), even if through instructional materials with long durations.

Automating App Review Response Generation Based on Contextual Knowledge

User experience of mobile apps is an essential ingredient that can influence the user base and app revenue. To ensure good user experience and assist app development, several prior studies resort to analysis of app reviews, a type of repository that directly reflects user opinions about the apps. Accurately responding to the app reviews is one of the ways to relieve user concerns and thus improve user experience. However, the response quality of the existing method relies on the pre-extracted features from other tools, including manually labelled keywords and predicted review sentiment, which may hinder the generalizability and flexibility of the method. In this article, we propose a novel neural network approach, named CoRe, with the contextual knowledge naturally incorporated and without involving external tools. Specifically, CoRe integrates two types of contextual knowledge in the training corpus, including official app descriptions from app store and responses of the retrieved semantically similar reviews, for enhancing the relevance and accuracy of the generated review responses. Experiments on practical review data show that CoRe can outperform the state-of-the-art method by 12.36% in terms of BLEU-4, an accuracy metric that is widely used to evaluate text generation systems.

Towards Holistic System Models Including Domain-Specific Simulation Models Based on SysML

In the face of the rapid growth in the scale and complexity of multidisciplinary systems, being able to develop reliable systems under ever-faster changing and more individual market requirements is becoming more and more challenging. The Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) approach has already been researched heavily, and started to be introduced for the management of complexity, maintaining consistency, and reducing development costs and the time-to-market. However, a major drawback of the current MBSE methodologies is the lack of capability to integrate with domain-specific simulation models to investigate design concepts in the early phases of the development process. In order to address this issue, we propose a holistic system modeling approach that allows system engineers to link descriptive system models with domain-specific simulation models. In this paper, the Systems Modeling Language (SysML) is used as the standard architecture modeling language. A system modeling approach in SysML based on the system’s functional architecture for system design and validation is defined. The approach was developed to integrate domain-specific models into the system model using a SysML modeler with the capability of running and reusing simulation tasks via the coupling of external tools, which helps to bridge the existing gap between models on the system level and detail level. The feasibility of the proposed approach will be evaluated based on the case study of a wind turbine (WT) system. The study shows that our approach has the potential to enable the consistent, parameter-based interlinkage of domain-specific models based on always-up-to-date data, and to assist engineers in making design decisions to meet the system requirements accurately and rapidly in different engineering fields.

BEYOND HBIM: SERIOUS GAMES AND PROCEDURAL MODELLING FOR HERITAGE DISSEMINATION

Abstract. In the study of built heritage, the potential offered by the BIM methodology finds effective application in the knowledge and dissemination process. Today, the HBIM methodology often develops from 3D scanning point clouds with the so-called Scan-to-BIM processes. The complexity that often characterizes the architectural elements of the historical heritage and the lack of information on construction details and geometries, constitute a critical factor that sometimes affects the effectiveness of the application of the BIM methodology. Procedural methods define an approach that can help us when it is necessary to use external modelling tools for the local modelling of complex elements. Algorithmic modelling potentially could significantly reduce the investment normally required in digital content modelling operations, also in terms of time consuming. Furthermore, in procedural modelling, the definition of the detail can be calibrated a priori according to the objectives of the workflow. The research addresses the difficult management of point clouds in workflows aimed at the realization of the so-called serious games, tools that have proved invaluable in educational and teaching processes, as well as in the dissemination and promotion of heritage. Involving a remarkable variety of digital instruments for representation, serious games define a research topic in which the different needs related to the representation of the complexity of the objects can be investigated. Aimed at defining an effective development process for serious games, the paper proposes an HBIM workflow for reconstruction of 3D environments of historic buildings starting from laser scanning surveying approach.

ПРОБЛЕМА ГРАНИЦ КОГНИТИВНЫХ ПРОЦЕССОВ В ФИЛОСОФИИ СОЗНАНИЯ*

The article deals with a controversial problem of the philosophy of mind, known as the problem of cognitive boundaries. This problem is illustrated by the polemic between two actively debating philosophical positions – internalism, according to which mental states are localized in the brain, and externalism, which assumes that cognitive acts are not limited to our body. The author analyzes Andy Clark and David Chalmers’s theory of extended cognitive processes and the extended mind, which is fundamentally new for the modern philosophy of mind and has taken on relevance today. It is shown that this concept is based on the idea of subject’s activity, which has its roots in James Gibson’s “ecological psychology”, Francisco Varela’s idea of “embodied cognition” and Alva Noë’s theory of sensorimotor enactivism. The author comes to the conclusion that the theory of extended cognitive processes has a number of deficiencies, one of which is the dependence on external resources and tools. David Chalmers’s thesis that we should not try to neutralize the negative effects of such dependency, but rather try to adapt our practices to the changing ways of thinking is seen as the way out of this problem.

Open Forest Data: Digitalizing and building an online repository

Poland is characterised by a relatively high variety of living organisms attributed to terrestrial and water environments. Currently, close to 57.000 species of living organisms are described that occur in Poland (Symonides 2008), including lowland and mountain species, those attributed to oceanic and continental areas, as well as species from forested and open habitats. Poland comprehensively represents biodiversity of living organisms on a continental scale and thus, is considered to have an important role for biodiversity maintenance. The Mammal Research Institute of Polish Academy of Sciences (MRI PAS), located in Białowieża Forest, a UNESCO Heritage Site, has been collecting biodiversity data for 90 years. However, a great amount of data gathered over the years, especially old data, is gradually being forgotten and hard to access. Old catalogues and databases have never been digitalized or publicly shared, and not many Polish scientists are aware of the existence of such resources, not to mention the rest of the scientific world. Recognizing the need for an online, interoperable platform, following FAIR data principles (findable, accessible, interoperable, reusable), where biodiversity and scientific data can be shared, MRI PAS took a lead in creation of an Open Forest Data (OFD) repository. OpenForestData.pl (Fig. 1) is a newly created (2020) digital repository, designed to provide access to natural sciences data and provide scientists with an infrastructure for storing, sharing and archiving their research outcomes. Creating such a platform is a part of an ongoing development of life sciences in Poland, aiming for an open, modern science, where data are published as free-access. OFD also allows for the consolidation of natural science data, enabling the use and processing of shared data, including API (Application Programming Interface) tools. OFD is indexed by the Directory of Open Repositories (OpenDOAR) and Registry of Research Data Repositories (re3data). The OFD platform is based entirely on reliable, globally recognized open source software: DATAVERSE, an interactive database app which supports sharing, storing, exploration, citation and analysis of scientific data; GEONODE, a content management geospatial system used for storing, publicly sharing and visualising vector and raster layers, GRAFANA, a system meant for storing and analysis of metrics and large scale measurement data, as well as visualisation of historical graphs at any time range and analysis for trends; and external tools for database storage (Orthanc) and data visualisation (Orthanc plugin Osimis Web Viewer and Online 3D Viewer (https://3dviewer.net/), which were integrated with the system mechanism of Dataverse. Furthermore, according to the need for specimen description, Darwin Core (Wieczorek et al. 2012) metadata schema was decided to be the most suitable for specimen and collections description and mapped into a Dataverse additional metadata block. The use of Darwin Core is based on the same file format, the Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A) which allows for sharing data using common terminology and provides the possibility for easy evaluation and comparison of biodiversity datasets. It allows the contributors to OFD to optionally choose Darwin Core for object descriptions making it possible to share biodiversity datasets in a standardized way for users to download, analyse and compare. Currently, OFD stores more than 10.000 datasets and objects from the collections of Mammal Research Institute of Polish Academy of Sciences and Forest Science Institute of Białystok University of Technology. The objects from natural collections were digitalized, described, catalogued and made public in free-access. OFD manages seven types of collection materials: 3D and 2D scans of specimen in Herbarium, Fungarium, Insect and Mammal Collections, images from microscopes (including stereoscopic and scanning electron microscopes), morphometric measurements, computed tomography and microtomography scans in Mammal Collection, mammal telemetry data, satellite imagery, geospatial climatic and environmental data, georeferenced historical maps. 3D and 2D scans of specimen in Herbarium, Fungarium, Insect and Mammal Collections, images from microscopes (including stereoscopic and scanning electron microscopes), morphometric measurements, computed tomography and microtomography scans in Mammal Collection, mammal telemetry data, satellite imagery, geospatial climatic and environmental data, georeferenced historical maps. In the OFD repository, researchers have the possibility to share data in standardized way, which nowadays is often a requirement during the publishing process of a scientific article. Beside scientists, OFD is designed to be open and free for students and specialists in nature protection, but also for officials, foresters and nature enthusiasts. Creation of the OFD repository supports the development of citizen science in Poland, increases visibility and access to published data, improves scientific collaboration, exchange and reuse of data within and across borders.

LINCE PLUS software for systematic observational studies in sports and health

This paper aims to offer a free software program, LINCE PLUS, suitable for systematic observational studies in sports and health, conducted in natural contexts such as training, education or psychology. Using one or several videos simultaneously, different parameters such as behaviors, decision-making or strategies can be analyzed. The software includes several functionalities for studies that researchers need to utilize throughout the observational study process. Collaborative work can be accomplished by using simultaneous videos and multiple observers. The results of all research conducted by LINCE PLUS are offered inside the application in real time, enabling common calculations or including specific analysis with R language without the need for any other external tool. Moreover, LINCE PLUS shows the results of each study with interactive charts or, if needed, it exports the data to specific data analysis software programs (e.g., SAS, Excel, Theme, GSEQ 5, Hoisan). We include examples of sports and health studies that have been conducted with LINCE PLUS to show the suitability of this software program.

Determinants of Effective External Audits for Independent Constitutional Commissions: A Case of Teacher’s Service Commission, Kenya

Effective external auditing enables institutions to meet their financial obligations by instituting effective controls and risk management mechanism to obtain good governance. The current study established the determinants of effective external audits for independent commissions in Kenya: a case of Teachers Service Commission (TSC). The study was premised on three objectives; to determine the influence of audit technical competency, audits independence, and audit duration on effective external audits at TSC. The study adopted a descriptive research design. The study targeted all staff in the finance related departments at the Headquarter, Upper Hill-Nairobi totaling to 299. Questionnaire was distributed through purposive sampling method. The study used descriptive statistics and multiple regression analysis. Multicollinearity and heteroscedasticity were used to test the model’s reliability. The study established that technical competence, audit independence, audit duration, and ethical practices had positive relationship with effective external audits. The study concluded that external auditors adhered to quality standards, exercised good forensic skills, and provided reliable and verifiable reports. The study concluded that TSC ensured that auditors have free and unrestricted access to all financial operations and to the relevant staff at TSC. It concluded that auditors with longer duration possessed adequate experience with TSC systems. The study concluded that external auditors continuously complied with reporting procedures, made professional disclosures of auditing reports, upheld fair, and truthful representation of financial issues. The study recommends that the line Ministry should procure modern ICT external audit tools (software) that can promote efficient and faster audit service delivery including offering adequate compliance with expenditure management, fraud prevention, and detection measures. The study recommends that the commission should create conducive environment so that auditors can adequately plan their activities using auditing guidelines to ensure impartial reporting exercise free from conflict of interests. Keywords: Effective External Audits, Technical Competency, Audits Independence, Audit Duration, and Ethical Practices.

EBook Technology Facilitating University Education During COVID-19: Japanese Experience

UNESCO reported that 90% of students are affected in some way by COVID-19 pandemic. Like many countries, Japan too imposed emergency remote teaching and learning at both school and university level. In this study, we focus on a national university in Japan, and investigate how teaching and learning were facilitated during this pandemic period using an ebook platform, BookRoll, which was linked as an external tool to the university’s learning management system. Such an endeavor also reinforced the Japanese national thrust regarding explorations of e-book-based technologies and using Artificial Intelligence in education. Teachers could upload reading materials for instance their course notes and associate an audio of their lecture. While students who registered in their course accessed the learning materials, the system collected their interaction logs in a learning record store. Across the spring semesters from April - July 2020, BookRoll system collected nearly 1.5 million reading interaction logs from more than 6300 students across 243 courses in 6 domains. The analysis highlighted that during emergency remote teaching and learning BookRoll maintained a weekly average traffic above 1,900 learners creating more than 78,000 reading logs and teachers perceived it as useful for orchestrating their course.

A self-contained and self-explanatory DNA storage system

Current research on DNA storage usually focuses on the improvement of storage density by developing effective encoding and decoding schemes while lacking the consideration on the uncertainty in ultra-long-term data storage and retention. Consequently, the current DNA storage systems are often not self-contained, implying that they have to resort to external tools for the restoration of the stored DNA data. This may result in high risks in data loss since the required tools might not be available due to the high uncertainty in far future. To address this issue, we propose in this paper a self-contained DNA storage system that can bring self-explanatory to its stored data without relying on any external tool. To this end, we design a specific DNA file format whereby a separate storage scheme is developed to reduce the data redundancy while an effective indexing is designed for random read operations to the stored data file. We verified through experimental data that the proposed self-contained and self-explanatory method can not only get rid of the reliance on external tools for data restoration but also minimise the data redundancy brought about when the amount of data to be stored reaches a certain scale.

Raising Course Efficacy to Improve Management Student Learning: Three Field Experiments

“Means efficacy” complements self-efficacy. It refers to one’s belief in the usefulness of external resources or tools that may be useful for performance. Research has confirmed the hypothesis that enhancing means efficacy boosts performance. Course efficacy is students’ belief in the usefulness of a course. Two pilot studies and three field experiments tested the means efficacy-performance hypothesis casting university courses as the means. The manipulation check validated the experimental treatment in only one pilot and there was no evidence that the treatment contributed to performance. Explanations of these results and ideas for future research are suggested.

SE4ExSum: An Integrated Semantic-aware Neural Approach with Graph Convolutional Network for Extractive Text Summarization

Recently, advanced techniques in deep learning such as recurrent neural network (GRU, LSTM and Bi-LSTM) and auto-encoding (attention-based transformer and BERT) have achieved great successes in multiple application domains including text summarization. Recent state-of-the-art encoding-based text summarization models such as BertSum, PreSum and DiscoBert have demonstrated significant improvements on extractive text summarization tasks. However, recent models still encounter common problems related to the language-specific dependency which requires the supports of the external NLP tools. Besides that, recent advanced text representation methods, such as BERT as the sentence-level textual encoder, also fail to fully capture the representation of a full-length document. To address these challenges, in this paper we proposed a novel s emantic-ware e mbedding approach for ex tractive text sum marization , called as: SE4ExSum. Our proposed SE4ExSum is an integration between the use of feature graph-of-words (FGOW) with BERT-based encoder for effectively learning the word/sentence-level representations of a given document. Then, the g raph c onvolutional n etwork (GCN) based encoder is applied to learn the global document's representation which is then used to facilitate the text summarization task. Extensive experiments on benchmark datasets show the effectiveness of our proposed model in comparing with recent state-of-the-art text summarization models.