Proper Test Research Articles

The Development of Interactive Learning Media for Islamic Religious Education in Elementary Schools in Indonesia

In today’s digital era, conventional teaching methods often fail to captivate students, making interactive media a promising solution. Interactive media combines visual, audio, and participatory elements, providing a more engaging and effective learning experience. The development process includes analyzing student needs and curriculum, selecting appropriate technology, creating interactive content, conducting trials, and evaluating effectiveness. This study uses a qualitative approach. Primary data sources in qualitative research are the words of the interview results obtained from primary data including respondents from teachers and students in SDMT Ponorogo. Data collection is carried out by means of snowball sampling. The data collection technique in this study is through observation, in-depth interviews and documentation. The data obtained during the study, both primary and secondary data are then processed and analyzed using Miles and Huberman model. The validity test of data in qualitative research includes tests, credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability. The article highlights the benefits of interactive media, including increased student motivation, improved understanding of abstract religious concepts, and the development of critical thinking skills. This approach not only modernizes religious education but also ensures that students remain interested and actively involved in learning. Through proper testing and implementation, interactive media can significantly enhance the quality of Islamic Religious Education at SDMT Ponorogo. The developed media, which consists of animated videos, interactive quizzes, and educational games, is able to make the learning process more engaging and increase student engagement.

Profile Laboratory of Thalassemia in the General Hospital Dr. Zainoel Abidin Banda Aceh

Thalassemia refers to the globin gene abnormality that affects the a and b globin genes. A comprehensive peripheral blood laboratory examination, Mentzer index, blood morphology, and Hb analysis were all performed on every patient with thalassemia who attended treatment as part of this analytical observational study. This research aims to know the profile of laboratory examinations of thalassemia patients in the Dr. Zainoel Abidin General Hospital (RSUZA) Banda Aceh. The study's target population was 547 individuals, with 278 males and 269 females making up the male and female split, respectively (50.7% and 49.3%). With a total of 197 subjects (36.4%), this study revealed that the subjects were most frequently found in the age range of 0–5 years. Only 8 subjects, or 1.5%, of the population in the over-65 age group, were detected. The typical value of the erythrocyte index further fell and was discovered in 469 participants with a value of 85.3%. A total of 504 patients, or 91.6%, had more elevated RDW features. Results for the Mentzer index with 432 subjects were determined to be 13 were 78.5%. In the 450-subject hypochromic microcytic group, subjects were most frequently observed (81.8%). Blood morphology features from 505 participants, or 91.8% of the total, showed no additional blood morphology characteristics in normoblasts, and from 361 subjects, or 65.6% of the total, showed no target cells. When a person has anemia or a family history of thalassemia, it is strongly advised that they get a full blood count (CBC). The proper laboratory testing is still necessary for the health issue of thalassemia.

Correlation Between Level of Physical Activity Using GPAQ and Exercise Capacity Using 6 Min Walk Test in Non-Insulin Dependent Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus

Background: This study was designed to find the Correlation Between the Level of Physical Activity and Exercise Capacity in Non-Insulin Dependent Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus. Purpose: To find the Correlation between the Level of Physical Activity and Exercise Capacity in Non-Insulin Dependent Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus. Materials and Methods: Materials required for this study were Countdown timer (or stopwatch), Two small cones, Chair, Worksheet on a clipboard, Sphygmomanometer. It was a correlational study design. The sampling method used was Convenient type of sampling. Sixty subjects with non-insulin dependent type 2 were included in this study. The written informed consent was taken. Informed consent document was signed, retained by the principal investigator and a copy was given to the participant. Global Physical Activity Questionnaire and 6 Minutes walk test was used to study the Physical Activity and Exercise Capacity respectively. All the data obtained was statistically analysed using proper tests. Results: The results showed positive significant (p value < 0.0001) correlation between the level of physical activity and exercise capacity, Physical activity level correlates statistically with distance walked in percentage. Conclusion: Our study concluded that Physical activity level correlate statistically with distance walked in type 2 diabetic patients.

A Highly Accurate Adverse Drug Reactions (ADR) Detection from Medical Forum Comments Using Long Short-Term Memory Networks

Purpose: Adverse Drug Reactions (ADR) classification is useful in modern medical diagnostics and related applications. ADR is an example of how medical information is frequently accessible on social media platforms for healthcare, where people can share their experiences with treatments on desktop computers and mobile devices. Many researchers are interested in gathering valuable medical data from social media for the ADR system training and classification process. Materials and Methods: This research explores the effects of three aspects on recognizing ADR mentions in social media for the medical field and proposes a deep neural network of Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) neural networks to do so. The comments are collected from various social media platforms to implement the ADR system with proper training and testing processes. The texts from the dataset are initially preprocessed by using a data filtering and clustering process to remove the input data's redundant information to increase the training process's quality. Characteristic features, such as semantic features and text statistics, are extracted from the input text using the American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) array. Further, the features are converted and fed to LSTM networks for training and validation. Results and Conclusion: This work is evaluated using two datasets, CODEC, and ADR Corpus datasets are used to evaluate the performance of the proposed ADR technique via multiple angles. Via extensive experiments, this work achieved 99.79 accuracy, 98.37 sensitivity, 97.63 specificity, 99.72 precision, 98.39 recall, 97.62 F1-score for the CODEC dataset, 98.16 for accuracy, 99.19 for sensitivity, 98.49 for specificity, 99.49 for precision, 96.72 for recall, and 93.16 for F1-score for ADR corpus, respectively.

Validation of Saliva as the Clinical Specimen Type for a University-Wide COVID-19 Surveillance Program.

At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Georgia Institute of Technology made the decision to keep the university doors open for on-campus attendance. To manage COVID-19 infection rates, internal resources were applied to develop and implement a mass asymptomatic surveillance program. The objective was to identify infections early for proper follow-on verification testing, contact tracing, and quarantine/isolation as needed. Program success depended on frequent and voluntary sample collection from over 40,000 students, faculty, and staff personnel. At that time, the nasopharyngeal (NP) swab, not saliva, was the main accepted sample type for COVID-19 testing. However, due to collection discomfort and the inability to be self-collected, the NP swab was not feasible for voluntary and frequent self-collection. Therefore, saliva was selected as the clinical sample type and validated. A saliva collection kit and a sample processing and analysis workflow were developed. The results of a clinical sample-type comparison study between co-collected and matched NP swabs and saliva samples showed 96.7% positive agreement and 100% negative agreement. During the Fall 2020 and Spring 2021 semesters, 319,988 samples were collected and tested. The program resulted in maintaining a low overall mean positivity rate of 0.78% and 0.54% for the Fall 2020 and Spring 2021 semesters, respectively. For this high-throughput asymptomatic COVID-19 screening application, saliva was an exceptionally good sample type.

Social-sum-Mal: A Dataset for Abstractive Text Summarization in Malayalam

Abstractive text summarization techniques for Malayalam language is still in its infancy. The lack of benchmarked datasets for this task is one of the constraints in developing and testing good models. Malayalam has seven nominal case forms, two nominal number forms, and three gender forms. It is subjected to extreme agglutination and inflection. Due to this, the translation of other text summarization datasets to Malayalam may not capture these case forms effectively. Therefore curation of datasets from scratch is highly demanded for specific text-processing applications in Malayalam. This paper introduces a novel dataset designed specifically for advancing the field of automatic abstractive text summarization in Malayalam language. The dataset is curated to address the unique linguistic characteristics of the Malayalam language. It is named as Social-sum-Mal dataset, capable of addressing three different types of summarization tasks- long, extreme, and query-based summarizations. In addition, Social-sum-Mal can be extended for other applications like text classification, multi-document summarization, and question answering. To enhance the dataset transparency, a datasheet is created for Social-sum-Mal. Data accuracy and annotator biases are evaluated using proper testing strategies including Jaccard, cosine, and overlap similarities. The correctness of the dataset is further evaluated by comparing it with a deep-learning-based text summarization model.

A GMO Experiment on Two-Thirds of the World’s Population: Reaction to Ulrich’s Commentary on Lee and Broudy (2024)

While Professor A. Ulrich (2024) raised justifiable questions about the interpretation of microscopic images from incubated COVID-19 injectables from Pfizer and Moderna, her message treats the world-wide genetic modification experiment with COVID-19 injectables on humans — an experiment on us without our consent — as normal. I will not discuss the physico-chemistry of the 10 trillion lipid nanoparticles she claims are in every dose of the injectables. She acknowledges that “many of the lipid constituents . . . tend to induce inflammation” (p. 1244.3) but says they account for all the self-assembling structures documented in what she describes as the “reliable” and “fully consistent” findings (Ulrich, p. 1244.7) of Lee and Broudy (2024). Though I believe the self-assembling structures also merit in-depth study, the technology underlying them, must be contained in the concoctions injected into the arms of two-thirds of the world’s population without proper preclinical testing and without the informed consent required by the Nuremberg Code. My focus is on that violation of medical ethics turning humans into genetically modified organisms. Here I illustrate in her words that such a genetic experiment on humans is underway. Instead of refuting any of the evidence in Lee and Broudy (2024) —that whatever the injectables may actually contain they are harming the human population of the world — she actually admits in closing that those “risks will be exacerbated with the next generation of self-amplifying or self-replicating RNA vectors for vaccines” (1244.8).

Translation, Cultural Adaptation, and Psychometric Properties of Hindi Rosenberg Self-esteem Scale in University Nursing Students

Background: Rosenberg’s Self-esteem Scale (RSES) has been widely used without proper translation, cultural adaptation, and testing psychometric properties in Indian studies. The study aimed to translate and culturally adapt the 10-item Rosenberg Self-esteem Scale into Hindi and find psychometric properties. Material and Methods: We have translated the scale using World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines. Using a cross-sectional design, the translated scale was administered to 143 undergraduate nursing students randomly selected. Content validity index (CVI) was used to assess content validity. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) with principal axis factoring was used to estimate the construct validity. Cronbach’s alpha (α) and intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) were used to check internal consistency and test re-test reliability. Results: The S-CVI for the Hindi RSES was 0.98. Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) (=0.79), and Bartlette’s test for sphericity was significant ( χ2 = 425.06, df = 45, P < .001). EFA extracted three common factors, explaining 62.62% of the total variance. The factor loading of all items suggests a good representation of their underlying construct; all items >0.47, except item 1 (= –0.373). The test re-test, an ICC was r = 0.76 ( P < .001), and Cronbach’s alpha (α) after deletion of item 1 was 0.81, suggesting excellent reliability. Conclusion: The Hindi Rosenberg self-esteem scale is a psychometrically tested scale to assess self-esteem in the Hindi-speaking adult population. These findings provide empirical judgment for using the translated Hindi RSES to measure self-esteem among the adult population. The authors recommend verifying the psychometric properties in a more extensive and varied population.

Drivers’ Knowledge, Attitude and Practices Towards Traffic Rules and Regulations

Research frequently reports that the majority of crashes (up to 80%), are the fault of drivers. Further, the WHO reports that most fatal crashes occur in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC). In LMIC, including Pakistan, most drivers have low levels of knowledge about traffic rules and regulations, have negative attitudes towards rules and regulations and often violate road safety rules. This study used a structured survey of drivers in Karachi, Pakistan (n=260). Most respondents were aware that helmet use for motorbike riders is compulsory (74.6%), agreed it was important to follow road signs (74.2%) and wear a seat belt (64.6%). However, over half did not know the speed limit in residential areas (54.6%) and almost half considered drug use when driving was not dangerous or were against the penalty or fine for violation of traffic laws (45.4%). In addition, 45.8% of all drivers thought driving licenses were unnecessary. This study suggests there may be low levels of driver knowledge of certain road rules (e.g. speed limit), negative attitudes about certain safe driving practices (drug driving), and low levels of value placed on driving license in Karachi, Pakistan. Analysis suggest that knowledge and attitude affect driver practices in Karachi, Pakistan. Strengthening enforcement and related public communication measures about traffic rules and greater penalties that are sufficiently deterring for the violators of the traffic rules is needed. There must also be a formal mechanism to issue the driving licence after a proper test of the knowledge of road rules and driving following those rules.

Comparison of the effect of lidocaine and its combination with melatonin and the Valsalva maneuver on etomidate induced injection pain

Background & Objective: Etomidate is commonly used in anesthesia practice because of its rapid recovery time, low incidence of apnea, and lower incidence of allergic reactions; but pain upon injection is one of the unfavorable complications of this drug, which can cause both physical and mental discomfort to the patients. It is imperative to use appropriate means to lower the pain at the injection site of etomidate in patients undergoing anesthesia. We conducted this study to compare the effects of lidocaine, lidocaine and the Valsalva maneuver, with a combination of lidocaine, melatonin and the Valsalva maneuver on decreasing the pain of etomidate injection. Methodology: This clinical trial enrolled 135 patients. The patients were allocated into 3 groups, with one group receiving lidocaine (Group 1), the second group receiving lidocaine and the Valsalva maneuver (Group 2), and the last group receiving a combination of lidocaine, melatonin and the Valsalva maneuver. The pain resulting from injecting etomidate was evaluated based upon the Visual Analog Scale (VAS) score (with 1 being no pain and 10 the most severe imaginable pain). Data were compared and analyzed using proper statistical tests using SPSS version 23. Results: The results of this study showed that the overall pain score in all of the groups after injection of etomidate did not show any significant difference. The mean VAS score in Group 1 was 0.27 ± 0.88, in Group 2 it was 0.16 ± 0.63, and in Group 3 0.04 ± 0.2. However, the difference between the groups was statistically not significant (P = 0.32). Conclusion: The current study shows that the pain on injection of etomidate in the three groups of the study was reduced in a similar fashion; however, in the group which combined lidocaine, melatonin and the Valsalva maneuver, pain was the lowest, but the overall differences in score in the three groups were statistically not different. Keywords: Etomidate, lidocaine, melatonin, Valsalva maneuver. Citation: Nazemroaya B, Poudeh ND. Comparison of the effect of lidocaine and its combination with melatonin and the Valsalva maneuver on etomidate induced injection pain. Anaesth. pain intensive care 2024;28(5):842−849; DOI: 10.35975/apic.v28i5.2279 Received: July 27, 2024; Reviewed: September 04, 2024; Accepted: September 09, 2024

Hydrogen breath test as a diagnostic tool

Introduction and Purpose: Hydrogen breath tests serve the crucial purpose of evaluating the absorption of nutrients in the small intestine, particularly when carbohydrates are not properly absorbed, leading to bacterial overgrowth. These tests are non-invasive, cost-effective, and widely accessible diagnostic tools used to assess various gastrointestinal disorders. The objective of this review is to evaluate the effectiveness and methodology of Hydrogen breath testing (HBT). State of knowledge: The disposal of hydrogen gas is essential for maintaining efficient microbial fermentation processes in the gut. Hydrogenotrophic microbes, including acetogens, methanogenic archaea, and sulfate-reducing bacteria, are responsible for this process. Hydrogen breath tests, conducted with substrates like glucose and lactulose, aid in diagnosing conditions such as small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO), lactose and fructose intolerance, and other carbohydrate absorption disorders. These tests generate a large volume of data, which can be analyzed using data mining techniques to uncover new hypotheses. Conclusions: Hydrogen breath tests, using various substrates, are effective in diagnosing gastrointestinal disorders such as SIBO and carbohydrate malabsorption. They offer valuable insights into microbial processes in the gut and can inform individualized treatment strategies. However, careful consideration of contraindications and proper test administration protocols is essential for accurate diagnosis and interpretation of results.

The Extent of Delay in Diagnosis, Treatment and their Associated Factors among Tuberculosis Patients Attending Government Hospitals of Rishikesh, Uttarakhand: A Cross-Sectional Study.

"Tuberculosis (TB) remains a major public health problem" worldwide, affecting almost all age groups. "Early diagnosis and prompt treatment are essential to significantly reducing the TB burden." However, a significant proportion of cases remain undiagnosed and untreated, which plays a vital role in the transmission of the disease and severity of the illness in the community in most developing countries. This study aimed to assess "the extent of delay in diagnosis and treatment of TB patients" and to identify the major factors associated with such delays (whether patient or health system-related) among TB patients in Rishikesh. This descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted in Rishikesh Town, Dehradun District, Uttara khand, India. Total of 130 newly diagnosed TB patients were recruited as study participants who attended the government hospitals of Rishikesh, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Rishikesh and S P S Government Hospital, Rishikesh. A universal sampling technique was used in this study. The mean age of the study participant was 36.75 (Standard Deviation (SD), 17.6), and the median age was 34 years. Of the patients, 64.6% were men, and 35.4% were women. The extent of various delays, such as patient delay (median 16 days), diagnostic delay (median 78.5 days), treatment delay (median 4 days), health system delay (43 days), and total delay (median 81 days). The misconception of any chronic disease may lead to a false diagnosis or long treatment for symptomatic relief; the absence of proper diagnostic tests and doctor shopping could be the reasons for the prolonged diagnostic delay. Therefore, by strengthening the collaboration between private and public practitioners in order to meet the expectations of the Government of India to achieve the goals of the "National Strategic Plan for ending TB" in India by providing good quality care for all patients.

Approaching Splendid Catalysts for Li-CO2 Battery from the Theory to Practical Designing: A Review.

Lithium carbon dioxide (Li-CO2) batteries, noted for their high discharge voltage of approximately 2.8V and substantial theoretical specific energy of 1876Wh kg-1, represent a promising avenue for new energy sources and CO2 emission reduction. However, the practical application of these batteries faces significant hurdles, particularly at high current densities and over extended cycle lives, due to their complex reaction mechanisms and slow kinetics. This paper delves into the recent advancements in cathode catalysts for Li-CO2 batteries, with a specific focus on the designing philosophy from composition, geometry, and homogeneity of the catalysts to the proper test conditions and real-world application. It surveys the possible catalytic mechanisms, giving readers a brief introduction of how the energy is stored and released as well as the critical exploration of the relationship between material properties and performances. Specifically, optimization and standardization of test conditions for Li-CO2 battery research is highlighted to enhance data comparability, which is also critical to facilitate the practical application of Li-CO2 batteries. This review aims to bring up inspiration from previous work to advance the design of more effective and sustainable cathode catalysts, tailored to meet the practical demands of Li-CO2 batteries.

Penicillin Allergy in China: Consequences of Inappropriate Skin Testing Practices and Policies.

Penicillins are the most frequently prescribed class of medications worldwide and first-line antibiotic of choice for most bacterial infections. They are also commonly labelled as the culprit of drug 'allergy'; leading to obligatory use of second-line antibiotics, suboptimal antibiotic therapy and increased antimicrobial resistance. However, the majority of reported penicillin 'allergy' labels are found to be incorrect after allergy testing, emphasising the importance of proper drug allergy testing and evaluation. Penicillin skin testing (PST) remains an important component of drug allergy diagnosis; however, its practice and policies significantly differ across the world. Inappropriate and non-evidence-based PST practices can lead to consequences associated with allergy mislabelling. Even within different regions of China, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, there are marked differences in the implementation, execution and interpretation of PST. This review aims to examine the differences in PST between Mainland China, Hong Kong and the rest of the world. We critically analyse the current practice of 'pre-emptive' PST in Mainland China, which has a significant false-positive rate leading to high levels of penicillin allergy mislabelling. Non-evidence-based practices further compound the high false-positive rates of indiscriminatory PST. We postulate that inappropriate PST policies and practices may exacerbate the mislabelling of penicillin allergy, leading to unnecessary overuse of inappropriate second-line antibiotics, increasing antimicrobial resistance and healthcare costs. We advocate for the importance of more collaborative research to improve the contemporary workflow of penicillin allergy diagnosis, reduce mislabelling and promote the dissemination of evidence-based methods for allergy diagnosis.

Urgensi Persetujuan Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat dalam Pengangkatan Jabatan Publik

Every country and every government, whatever its form and system of government, is required to design and implement policies that are appropriate to the socio-economic conditions of its people and are effective in directing the policies that must be implemented by government organs and government bureaucracy. decisions made by someone who has authority in government, both formal and informal. The approval of the House of Representatives (DPR) for appointments to public positions that are not regulated in the 1945 Constitution of the Republic of Indonesia is an important mechanism in the Indonesian constitutional system. Although the 1945 NRI Constitution does not regulate in detail all public positions, several derivative laws give the DPR the authority to approve the appointment of certain officials. This process is important to ensure checks and balances in government, prevent abuse of power by the executive, and increase accountability and transparency. Through an open fit and proper test, Constitutional Court Decision Number 16/PUU-XII/2014, I Request for re-examination regarding paragraphs (2) to (8) Article 30 of the Corruption Eradication Commission Law, Law concerning DPR Involvement in Recruitment Corruption Activities candidate for member of the Corruption Eradication Commission. Participating in filling public positions by the DPR is regulated by the 1945 Constitution of the Republic of Indonesia (1945 Constitution) and so on. The 1945 Constitution with its broad authority has its own objectives. This study seeks to understand how constitutional DPR protocols can assess the competence and integrity of candidates for public office, so that elected officials are able to carry out their duties well and receive legitimacy from the people. Thus, the DPR's involvement in this process strengthens democratic principles and improves the quality of government in Indonesia.

Effect of Gestational Hypertension on Neonatal Hemoglobin Level

This study aims to determine the effect of gestational hypertension on neonatal hemoglobin levels. This cohort study was performed on 150 pregnant women, 60 of whom had gestational hypertension and 90 were healthy. Participants were selected using sequential and quota non-probability sampling methods, respectively. The data were collected from interviews and examination forms. The newborns’ umbilical cords were clamped 30-60 sec after the delivery in both groups. Umbilical cord blood samples were taken to determine neonatal hemoglobin levels and sent to the laboratory immediately. Independent t-test was used to compare the two groups in terms of mean hemoglobin; general linear model with an identical link function was used to compare the two groups in terms of mean hemoglobin, considering the effect of confounding variables. SPSS software version 25 was used for the statistical analysis of the data. The statistical significance level in this study was considered to be 0.05. The mean neonatal hemoglobin level in women with gestational hypertension was significantly higher than that in the healthy group (16.73±1.81 gr/dl vs. 15.56±1.79, P<0.001). This difference remained significant after adjusting for demographic and background variables as well as medical records of the participants (P=0.008). The results revealed the hemoglobin level of newborns of mothers who had gestational hypertension, was higher than newborns of healthy mothers. Therefore, performing proper screening tests and knowledge of the hemoglobin level in these infants routinely helps the healthcare staff to prevent, decide and provide more and more useful services.

IRIDA- An Indian perspective

Iron deficiency anemia (IDA) is the most common type of anemia globally (IDA), the treatment being iron supplementation. However, in a few individuals, there is absent to suboptimal response to iron supplementation due to iron not being taken up by the body of the individual. This condition is known as iron-refractory IDA (IRIDA). Iron refractory iron deficiency anemia is a rare genetic condition that follows an autosomal recessive inheritance due to a defect in the TMPRSS6 gene encoding Matriptase-2. This protein is a transmembrane serine protease that plays an essential role in down-regulating hepcidin, the key regulator of iron homeostasis. Hallmarks of this disease are microcytic hypochromic anemia, low transferrin saturation, and normal/high serum hepcidin values. The anemia appears in the post-natal period, although in some cases it is only diagnosed in adulthood. The disease is refractory to oral iron treatment but shows a slow response to intravenous iron injections and partial correction of the anemia. This condition is likely being missed or under-diagnosed in our iron deficient endemic setting due to a lack of general awareness amongst physicians in establishing the diagnosis or due to the lack of availability of proper genetic testing.

Under and Through Water Datasets for Geospatial Studies: the 2023 ISPRS Scientific Initiative “NAUTILUS”

Abstract. Benchmark datasets have become increasingly widespread in the scientific community as a method of comparison, validation, and improvement of theories and techniques thanks to more affordable means for sharing. While this especially holds for test sites and data collected above the water, publicly accessible benchmark activities for geospatial analyses in the underwater environment are not very common. Applying geomatic techniques underwater is challenging and expensive, especially when dealing with deep water and offshore operations. Moreover, benchmarking requires ground truth data for which, in water, several open issues exist concerning geometry and radiometry. Recognizing this scientific and technological challenge, the NAUTILUS (uNder And throUgh waTer datasets for geospatIaL stUdieS) project aims to create guidelines for new multi-sensor/cross-modality benchmark datasets. The project focuses on (i) surveying the actual needs and gaps in through and under-the-water geospatial applications through a questionnaire and interviews, (ii) launching a unique publicly available database collecting already existing datasets scattered across the web and literature, (iii) designing and identifying proper test site(s) and methodologies to deliver to the extended underwater community a brand-new multi-sensor/cross-modality benchmark dataset. The project outputs are available to researchers and practitioners in underwater measurements-related domains, as they can now access a comprehensive tool providing a synthesis of open questions and data already available. In doing so, past research efforts to collect and publish datasets have received additional credit and visibility.

Optimization and development of a new rotary magnetic refrigerator

AbstractMagnetic refrigeration is becoming increasingly relevant as a means to achieve sustainability in refrigeration, thanks to its durability, efficiency, and low environmental impact. This paper regards the design of a new rotary magnetic refrigerator feasible for domestic use at room temperature. An interdisciplinary approach was necessary to perform the design, construction, and optimization of the device through mechanical design, thermo-hydraulic design, and integration into a proper test rig. Optimization of critical parts, such as the regenerator, the magnet structure, and the external heat exchangers, was performed using numerical models. The optimal values of control parameters were determined using a parametric sweep study. The results of all these steps of the study resulted in significant progress in designing and constructing an efficient rotary magnetic refrigerator. This work presents the insights obtained from the project implementation, including the design and construction aspects, presented in a practical way that can guide future projects in the field of magnetic refrigeration. Graphical abstract

Model-Agnostic Adaptive Testing for Intelligent Education Systems via Meta-learned Gradient Embeddings

The field of education has undergone a significant revolution with the advent of intelligent systems and technology, which aim to personalize the learning experience, catering to the unique needs and abilities of individual learners. In this pursuit, a fundamental challenge is designing proper test for assessing the students’ cognitive status on knowledge and skills accurately and efficiently. One promising approach, referred to as Computerized Adaptive Testing (CAT), is to administrate computer-automated tests that alternately select the next item for each examinee and estimate their cognitive states given their responses to the selected items. Nevertheless, existing CAT systems suffer from inflexibility in item selection and ineffectiveness in cognitive state estimation, respectively. In this paper, we propose a Model-Agnostic adaptive testing framework via Meta-leaned Gradient Embeddings, MAMGE for short, improving both item selection and cognitive state estimation simultaneously. For item selection, we design a Gradient Embedding based Item Selector (GEIS) which incorporates the concept of gradient embeddings to represent items and selects the best ones that are both informative and representative. For cognitive state estimation, we propose a Meta-learned Cognitive State Estimator (MCSE) to automatically control the estimation process by learning to learn a proper initialization and dynamically inferred updates. Both MCSE and GEIS are inherently model-agnostic, and the two modules have an ingenious connection via meta-learned gradient embeddings. Finally, extensive experiments evaluate the effectiveness and flexibility of MAMGE.