Independent Item Research Articles

Deep Knowledge Tracing Incorporating a Hypernetwork With Independent Student and Item Networks

Deep Knowledge Tracing Incorporating a Hypernetwork With Independent Student and Item Networks

БЪЛГАРСКИТЕ ДЕЗИДЕРАТИВНИ ГЛАГОЛИ И ТЕХНИТЕ УКРАИНСКИ СЪОТВЕТСТВИЯ В ПАРАЛЕЛЕН КОРПУС / BULGARIAN DESIDERATIVE VERBS AND THEIR UKRAINIAN COUNTERPARTS IN A PARALLEL CORPUS

All uses of Bulgarian desiderative verbs of the type «glagoli» ‹ми› се ‘feel like ‹verb›ing’ (e. g., спи ми се ‘be sleepy’, работи ми се ‘feel like working, be in a mood for work’) and their prefixed phase derivatives were excerpted from a parallel corpus of Bulgarian and Ukrainian fictional texts. In the corresponding Ukrainian sentences, the specific semantics of the construction is most often expressed either by an independent lexical item – the verb хотітися ‘want, feel like’ or хотіти ‘want’ – or by a combination of a reflexive verb and an optional dative experiencer, as in (мені) працюється ‘I want to work, feel like working; I work eagerly; my work is going well’. The latter counterpart is of particular interest due to its structural similarity to the Bulgarian desiderative verbs. The comparison shows that the constructions in the two closely related languages are considerably different in meaning (which is the reason why this correspondence is only the third most frequent) and that although they have a lot in common (as attested by their lexical diversity), translators tend to overestimate the degree of similarity between them. Keywords: Bulgarian language, desideratives, dispositional constructions, reflexive–dative constructions, Ukrainian language

The New Satisfaction with Life and Treatment Scale (SLTS-7) in Patients with Parkinson's Disease.

The satisfaction with life and, in particular, with treatment in Parkinson's disease (PD) is understudied. To explore a new 7-item rating tool assessing satisfaction with life and treatment (SLTS-7) in PD. In this cross-sectional, multi-center study, including patients screened for advanced therapies, psychometric characteristics of the SLTS-7 were analyzed. An exploratory factor analysis identified the underlying factorial structure of the SLTS-7. 117 patients were included, and the data quality of the SLTS-7 was excellent (computable data 100%), and acceptability measures satisfied standard criteria. Besides the global assessment (item 1), the exploratory factor analysis produced item 2 (physical satisfaction) as an independent item and two factors among the remaining items: items 3-5 (psycho-social satisfaction), and items 6 and 7 (treatment satisfaction). Cronbach's alpha was 0.89, indicative of high internal consistency. The SLTS-7 total score correlated moderately with motor symptoms and weakly with non-motor symptoms total scores. SLTS-7 showed the highest correlations with the European Quality of Life with 5 items (EQ-5D) visual analog scale (0.43-0.58, p < 0.01), indicating a moderate convergent validity. The SLTS-7 significantly increased with higher non-motor symptoms burden levels (p = 0.002). Life satisfaction in PD covers three specific aspects, namely physical, psycho-social, and treatment satisfaction. The new SLTS-7 is a valid, reliable, and easy-to-use tool to assess satisfaction with life and treatment in patients with PD screened for advanced therapies. Longitudinal studies analyzing the effect of advanced PD treatment on life and treatment satisfaction are warranted.

Self-Balancing Dictionary Learning for Relaxed Collaborative Representation of Hyperspectral Image Classification

Supervised dictionary learning and representation learning framework has demonstrated its superiority for hyperspectral image classification. Relaxed collaborative representation (RCR) has also been acknowledged as an effective method in balancing the similarity and difference between features. In this paper, a new dictionary learning method is introduced to balance discrimination and reconstruction of training samples. In the dictionary learning stage, two new indicators are designed to measure the discriminability of items and can be improved by optimizing coding coefficients. The imposed <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">l</i> <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sub> -norm between independent item and the mean of class-specific samples constrains the similarity, and the calculated weights measure the difference. In label determination stage, considering that the residuals of RCR are adversely affected by the significant difference of features, a new classification approach is introduced. Class labels are assigned without calculating the reconstruction errors but calculating the levels of comprehensive contribution from all training samples instead. Since the effectiveness will be degraded when dealing with more complex circumstances, a region-based version is further introduced. It can further improve the discrimination of dictionary items due to the reduced categories in each sub-image and reduce the computation cost. The experimental results on several hyperspectral datasets demonstrate that our methods can effectively improve the classification performance.

408 - Muscle strength is an important predictor for limitations in basic activities of daily living among people with severe disability

Objective:This study aimed to identify predictors of limitations in basic activities of daily living (BADL) among people with severe disabilities.Methods:4075 long-term care beneficiaries with severe disabilities in Guangzhou, China, were included during July 2018 and March 2019. BADL was assessed using the Barthel index (BI). Muscle strength was measured by using the Lovett Rating Scale. Age, gender, comorbidities, and muscle strengths were collected as independent variables. Chi-square Automatic Interaction Detector (CHAID) method was used to examine associations between independent variables and item scores of the BI.Results:Muscle strength and history of stroke were parent node and child node for most of BADL limitations, respectively. Upper limb muscle strength (≤ 3) was a major predictor for dependence in feeding, grooming, toileting, dressing, and transfer, while lower limb muscle strength (≤ 3) was a major predictor for limitation in mobility.Conclusions:Muscle strength was the strongest predictor of BADLs among people with severe disability. Muscle strength grading may be optimal for designing supporting strategies for people with severe disabilities.

Perceptual stimuli with novel bindings interfere with visual working memory

What influences the extent to which perceptual information interferes with the contents of visual working memory? In two experiments using a combination of change detection and continuous reproduction tasks, I show that binding novelty is a key factor in producing interference. In Experiment 2, participants viewed arrays of colored circles, then completed consecutive change detection and recall tests of their memory for stochastically independent items from the same array. When the probe used in the change detection test was novel (i.e., required a “change” response), subsequent recall performance was worse than in trials with matching (i.e., “no change”) probes, irrespective of whether or not the same item was tested in both phases. In Experiment 2, participants viewed arrays of oriented arrows, then completed a change detection (requiring memory) or direction judgement (not requiring memory) test, followed by recalling a stochastically independent item. Again, novel probes in the first phase led to worse recall, irrespective of whether the initial task required memory. This effect held whether the probe was wholly novel (i.e., a new feature presented at any location) or simply involved a novel binding (i.e., an old feature presented at a new location). These findings highlight the role of novelty in visual interference, consistent with the assumptions of computational models of WM, and suggest that new bindings of old information are sufficient to produce such interference.

Limited memory for ensemble statistics in visual change detection

Accounts of working memory based on independent item representations may overlook a possible contribution of ensemble statistics, higher-order regularities of a scene such as the mean or variance of a visual attribute. Here we used change detection tasks to investigate the hypothesis that observers store ensemble statistics in working memory and use them to detect changes in the visual environment. We controlled changes to the ensemble mean or variance between memory and test displays across six experiments. We made specific predictions of observers' sensitivity using an optimal summation model that integrates evidence across separate items but does not detect changes in ensemble statistics. We found strong evidence that observers outperformed this model, but only when task difficulty was high, and only for changes in stimulus variance. Under these conditions, we estimated that the variance of items contributed to change detection sensitivity more strongly than any individual item in this case. In contrast, however, we found strong evidence against the hypothesis that the average feature value is stored in working memory: when the mean of memoranda changed, sensitivity did not differ from the optimal summation model, which was blind to the ensemble mean, in five out of six experiments. Our results reveal that change detection is primarily limited by uncertainty in the memory of individual features, but that memory for the variance of items can facilitate detection under a limited set of conditions that involve relatively high working memory demands.

Effect of Exercise Involving Standing Weight Shifting to the Nonparetic Side on an Inclined Surface in the Early Phase After a Stroke: A Randomized Controlled Trial.

This study aimed to clarify whether an exercise involving weight shifting to the nonparetic side while standing on an inclined surface improves standing balance in the early phase after stroke. This assessor-blinded, randomized controlled trial included people undergoing inpatient rehabilitation at a university hospital. Participants (N = 52) with hemiparesis caused by a stroke were randomly assigned to an experimental group (n = 26) or control group (n = 26). Participants performed a weight-shifting exercise to the nonparetic side using a goal-directed reaching strategy while standing on an inclined surface that was elevated 5 degrees to the nonparetic side in the experimental group or a flat surface in the control group. The reaching exercise was conducted 30 times per day for 5days. Primary outcome was the Berg Balance Scale. Secondary outcomes were the posturographic examination (static standing and lateral weight shifting to the nonparetic and paretic sides), Trunk Control Test, Trunk Impairment Scale, Functional Ambulation Category, and Functional Independent Measure motor item scores. Through intention-to-treat analysis, no significant intervention effects were observed between groups on the Berg Balance Scale. A significant intervention effect was observed, however, with the experimental group on the lateral weight shifting to the nonparetic side in the mean percentage bodyweight values and center-of-pressure moving distance and to the paretic side in center-of-pressure moving distance and Functional Ambulation Category. There were no significant interaction effects concerning other outcomes. These results suggest that standing reaching exercises to the nonparetic side while standing on an inclined surface could improve lateral weight-shifting capacity and gait ability in participants in the early poststroke phase. This intervention should be incorporated into standard treatment programs focusing on the paretic side during early stroke rehabilitation.

Where Exactly Does the Sexist Bias in the Official Measurement of Monetary Poverty in Europe Come From?

This article aims to round out the well-established criticism in feminist research whereby measuring income poverty at household level tends to underestimate poverty among women. It demonstrates that while this indicator is underpinned by a conceptual bias that could be qualified as sexist, this is not only because of measurement at the household level, but rather the manner in which this is measured and because it is the only independent item of individual income factored into the measurement of poverty risk. A number of suggestions for improvements are made although, without more detailed research in liaison with Eurostat or national statistical institutes, it will be difficult to make progress in this area. JEL classification: D31, D13, B54

Evaluation of Determinants of Food Waste in Family Households in the Greater Porto Area Based on Self-Reported Consumption Practices

Despite food waste occurring along the entire food supply chain, a significant proportion occurs in domestic settings. Large quantities of domestic food waste have been attributable to consumer behaviors during buying, cooking, consumption, and disposal. The main objective of this research was to understand the major determinants of household food waste from families in the north of Portugal. A convenience sample was used, which was drawn from households in the Greater Porto Area. Data were collected through a self-reported questionnaire that included three groups of structured questions related to perceived behavior and attitudes towards food consumption, leftover usage, and food waste. Exploratory data analysis was used to identify underlying dimensions. No relationships were found between socio-demographic data and food waste, buying behavior, or destination/use of leftovers. The majority of the participants reported a high level of planning of their grocery shopping. Fruits and vegetables presented the highest frequency of consumption, followed by sources of carbohydrates and sources of proteins. The storage of cooked food from different food groups presented a single factor, grouping the majority of the individual food leftovers, going from fruits and vegetables to sources of carbohydrates and proteins. The reported levels of wastage of the different food products were grouped into three dimensions: waste of vegetables, waste of protein sources, and waste of sources of carbohydrates. Waste of precooked foods emerged as an independent item, and it was the individual item with the highest frequency. The families studied reported a positive attitude concerning buying, consumption, and wastage, revealing a particular awareness of food waste and its social and environmental impact.

The Characteristics of the Fourth Industrial Revolution: Buzzword, Hype or a Radical Change?

The usage of the terms the ’Fourth Industrial Revolution’ and its predominantly used synonym ‘Industry 4.0’ has curved upwards at a higher rate than the number of underlying interconnected production units. The concept of Industry 4.0 originates from a project on the high-tech strategy of the German government in 2011. This project promoted the computerization of manufacturing and it was a logical suggestion for the long-term competitiveness of the German economy. The fundamentals of an export-oriented economy need system-level development not to be disadvantaged in the global competition. Building all this on the most modern technologies can be defined as a traditional step. The umbrella term ’Industry 4.0’ has outgrown this step and in 2016 it became an independent agenda item of the World Economic Forum. In this study, with the help of a literature review, we examine which factors of this so-called fourth industrial revolution are similar and which factors are different compared to the previous industrial revolutions. Can the characteristics of industrial revolutions be identified? Is the impact complex and does it influence not only the technology but also the society, the politics, etc.? Whether the use of the term is substantiated or is it only an advanced, fashionable buzzer hanging all today’s forward-looking innovations on the same peg?

A magyar bizalmi vagyonkezelés egyes külföldi országok szabályozásainak tükrében

At the end of the 20th century, several Eastern European countries showed strong interest in the Anglo–Saxon institution of the trust. The main reason for this is attributable to the advantages of the trust offered for the economy. Legislators in some Eastern European countries tried to cope with problems relating to the adoption of a trust-like legal institution. As the result of their efforts, the civil code of Russia (1995/96), Lithuania (1996/2000), Georgia (2002), Romania (2011), the Czech Republic (2012) and Hungary contains regulations that resemble the trust. These laws vary significantly because the Georgian model remains on a contractual level along with the Russian law. In Lithuania it is possible to establish a so-called right of trust, which is an independent item in rem right. The Romanian regulation is very similar to the French fiducie, while the Czech trust law was worked out on the basis of the Quebec model. The Hungarian regulation was drawn up on the basis of the model of the trust in English law and that of the Treuhand in German law.

Að halda uppi lögum og reglum: Saga og orðmyndun orðsins lögregla

This article deals with the history and word formation of the Icelandic word for ‘police’, i.e. lögregla. The word constitutes an interesting case of word formation in that said lexeme is a dvandva compound whose creation is related to the expression að halda uppi lögum og reglu ‘to maintain law and order’. Moreover, it is argued that the word has arisen in the wake of the Icelandic purist movement in the first half of the 19th century, and that its creator is Konráð Gíslason, who was at the time a member of the Icelandic Literary Society (Hið íslenzka bókmenntafélag) and editor of the journal Fjölnir. According to the sources, the word, lögregla, cannot have been formed as an independent lexical item. In fact, the word appears first in a compound with maður‘man’, meaning ‘policeman’ or, more precisely, ‘a man who is in charge of maintaining law and order’. It is argued that lögregla has in fact been created in order to gradually substitute the Danish loanword pólití, first in compounds such as pólitímaður and pólitíþjónn ‘policeman’, and then as a single lexeme. The Danish loanword pólití had a twofold meaning: ‘policeman’ and ‘police’. Moreover, it is argued that lögregla, as an unbound lexeme, was initially a shortened form for lögreglumaður, and later assumed the general meaning ‘police force’ by means of synecdoche (pars pro toto).

Where Do Local Experts Go? Evaluating User Geo-Topical Similarity for Top-N Place Recommendation

Recent years have witnessed the ever-growing popularity of location-based social network (LBSN) services. Top-N place recommendation, which aims at retrieving N most appealing places for a target user, has thus gained increasing importance. Yet existing solutions to this problem either provide non-personalized recommendations by selecting nearby popular places, or resort to collaborative filtering (CF) by treating each place as an independent item, overlooking the geographical and semantic correlations among places. In this paper, we propose GoTo, a collaborative recommender that provides top-N personalized place recommendation in LBSNs. Compared with existing methods, GoTo achieves its effectiveness by exploiting the wisdom of the so-called local experts, namely those who are geographically close and have similar preferences with regard to a certain user. At the core of GoTo lies a novel user similarity measure called geo-topical similarity, which combines geographical and semantic correlations among places for discovering local experts. In specific, the geo-topical similarity uses Gaussian mixtures to model users’ real-life geographical patterns, and extracts users’ topical preferences from the attached tags of historically visited places. Extensive experiments on real LBSN datasets show that compared with baseline methods, GoTo can improve the performance of top-N place recommendation by up to 50% in terms of accuracy.

SVMs Classification Based Two-side Cross Domain Collaborative Filtering by inferring intrinsic user and item features

Recently, Cross Domain Collaborate Filtering (CDCF) is a new way to alleviate the sparsity problem in the recommender systems. CDCF solves the sparsity problem by transferring rating knowledge from auxiliary domains. Most of previous work only uses one-side (user-side or item-side) auxiliary domain information to help the recommendation in the target domain. In this paper, we propose a two-side Cross Domain Collaborate Filtering model. We assume that there exist two auxiliary domains, i.e., user-side domain and item-side domain, where the user-side auxiliary domain shares the same aligned users with the target domain, and the item-side shares the same aligned items. Also both the two auxiliary domains contain dense rating data. In this scenario, we first employ the bi-orthogonal tri-factorization model to infer the intrinsic user and item features from the user-side and item-side auxiliary domain respectively. The inferred intrinsic features are independent on domains. Then we convert the recommendation problem into a classification problem. In detail, we use the inferred user and item features to compose the feature vector, and use the corresponding rating as the class label. Thus the user-item interactions can be represented as training samples. Finally, we employ SVMs model to solve the converted classification problem. The major advantage of our model is that it can make use of both user-side and item-side shared information. Furthermore, it can infer the domain independent user and item features. Thus it can transfer knowledge from auxiliary domains more effectively. We conduct extensive experiments to show that the proposed model performs significantly better than many state-of-the-art single domain and cross domain CF methods.

Using Conditional Association to Identify Locally Independent Item Sets

Abstract. The ordinal, unidimensional monotone latent variable model assumes unidimensionality, local independence, and monotonicity, and implies the observable property of conditional association. We investigated three special cases of conditional association and implemented them in a new procedure that aims at identifying locally dependent items, removing these items from the initial item set, and producing an item subset that is locally independent. A simulation study showed that the new procedure correctly identified 89.5% of the model-consistent items and up to 90% of the model-inconsistent items. We recommend using this procedure for selecting locally independent item sets. The procedure may be used in combination with Mokken scale analysis.

Exploration of Core Symptoms for the Diagnosis of Alcohol Dependence in the ICD-10.

BackgroundThe classification of alcohol use disorder has changed over the past century. Now, the conceptualization of alcohol dependence is still controversial. Accumulating evidence has shown the reliability and validity for the diagnosis of alcohol dependence in the ICD‐10 and DSM‐IV. However, the meaning and association of the respective diagnostic items, which are descriptive of representative symptoms, have hardly been examined. The core symptom of substance use disorder has been debated in various situations, but has never been elucidated logically.MethodsWe consecutively registered 192 patients with alcohol‐related problems who visited our hospital for the first time during a certain period. The relations and principal components among the checked items of the ICD‐10 diagnostic criteria were examined statistically.ResultsThree diagnostic items in the ICD‐10 were strongly correlated with each other and were thought to form the core symptoms of alcohol dependence: “strong desire,” “difficulties in controlling,” and “neglect of pleasures.” One major physical phenomenon, “withdrawal,” seemed to complement the core symptoms in the diagnosis of alcohol dependence. Another physical phenomenon, “tolerance,” was demonstrated to be a relatively independent item. The principal component analysis also demonstrated that the diagnostic item “difficulties in controlling” had the maximum component loading value, followed by 2 items, “neglect of pleasures” and “strong desire.”ConclusionsThe core symptomatic elements in the diagnosis of alcohol dependence were statistically suggested in this study. Knowledge of the relations and components among the diagnostic items of alcohol dependence might also be applicable to other forms of substance use dependence and behavioral addiction.

Differential Performance on National Exams

The purpose of this study is to evaluate two methodological perspectives of test fairness using a national Secondary School Certificate (SSC) examinations. SSC is a suit of multi-subject national qualification tests at Grade 10 level in South Asian countries, such as Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan. Because it is a high-stakes test, the fairness of SSC tests is a major concern among public and educational policy planners. This study is a first attempt to investigate test fairness of the national SSC examination of Pakistan using two independent differential item functioning (DIF) and differential bundle functioning (DBF) procedures. The SSC was evaluated for possible gender bias using multiple-choice tests in three core subjects, namely, English, Mathematics, and Physics. The study was conducted in two phases using explanatory item response model (EIRM) and Simultaneous Item Bias Test (SIBTEST). In Phase 1, test items were studied for DIF, and items with severe DIF were flagged in each subject. In Phase 2, the item bundles were analyzed for DBF. Three items were detected with large DIF, one for each subject, and one item bundle was detected with a negligible DBF. Taken together, the results demonstrate that there is no major threat to the validity of the interpretation of examinees’ test scores on the SSC examination. The outcome from this study provided evidence for test fairness, which will enhance test development practices at the national examination authorities.

What Makes a Thing What It Is? Aristotle and Hegel on Identity

The notion of identity is investigated through Aristotle and Hegel as supporters of two different ontological conceptions: pluralism of substances and relational holism. Through Aristotle, I examine both the thesis according to which the identity of an object is constituted by its properties and the difficulties which this thesis encounters (e.g., those raised by Max Black). Aristotle easily defines the identity in species, in genus, and in number; some problems arise regarding the identity of individuals: for these, it is not enough to indicate the definition and the proper qualities, but matter is needed. Matter cannot, however, be a criterion for identifying duplicate objects: in this case, it plays at most the role of a “weak individuator.” A weak individuator involves relations with other entities. The use of relations in determining the identity of an entity is extensively treated by Hegel, according to whom, in order to define the identity of an object a multiplicity of particular objects is required and, therefore, relations among entities. I conclude by proposing a notion of the object understood not as an independent, separate, and autonomous item, but as a portion of the world, which is given in a phenomenological context and identifies a dialectical context.

Using Patient Health Questionnaire-9 item parameters of a common metric resulted in similar depression scores compared to independent item response theory model reestimation

ObjectivesTo investigate the validity of a common depression metric in independent samples. Study Design and SettingWe applied a common metrics approach based on item-response theory for measuring depression to four German-speaking samples that completed the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9). We compared the PHQ item parameters reported for this common metric to reestimated item parameters that derived from fitting a generalized partial credit model solely to the PHQ-9 items. We calibrated the new model on the same scale as the common metric using two approaches (estimation with shifted prior and Stocking–Lord linking). By fitting a mixed-effects model and using Bland–Altman plots, we investigated the agreement between latent depression scores resulting from the different estimation models. ResultsWe found different item parameters across samples and estimation methods. Although differences in latent depression scores between different estimation methods were statistically significant, these were clinically irrelevant. ConclusionOur findings provide evidence that it is possible to estimate latent depression scores by using the item parameters from a common metric instead of reestimating and linking a model. The use of common metric parameters is simple, for example, using a Web application (http://www.common-metrics.org) and offers a long-term perspective to improve the comparability of patient-reported outcome measures.