Institutional Repository of Academic Research University of Macedonia
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2215 research outputs found
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Enhancing Core Public Service Vocabulary to Enable Public Service Personalization
No full textThe provision of public services (PS) is at the heart of public authority operations as it directly affects citizens’ lives and the prosperity of society. Part of PS provision is publishing PS descriptions in an online catalogue to inform citizens and promote transparency. The European Commission has developed Core Public Service Vocabulary Application Profile (CPSV-AP), as a standard European PS data model to facilitate PS catalogue creation and semantic interoperability. However, CPSV-AP is not sufficient to model complex PS with different versions based on rules and citizens’ circumstances (e.g., getting a passport for a child or for an emergency). As a result, citizens cannot obtain personalized information on PS. The aim of this paper is to enhance CPSV-AP in order to support the modeling of complex PS. We illustrate the use of the proposed model in a real-life case study. Specifically, we use the proposed model to develop a knowledge graph and a chatbot that provides personalized information to citizens of the city of Bjelovar (Croatia) regarding the life-event "having a baby". We believe our research is of interest to researchers on PS data models and public authorities interested in providing personalized PS information to their citizens using chatbots.13522
Improving the quality of Higher Education teaching through the exploitation of student evaluations and the use of control charts
No full textStudent evaluations of faculty members' teaching effectiveness are considered quite important in Higher Education (HE). In this paper, we elaborate on the framework of Nikolaidis and Dimitriadis, based mainly on Statistical Process Control techniques and tools, which enables a deeper analysis and broader exploitation of student evaluation data. More specifically, we thoroughly examine and evaluate through simulation, several popular types of control charts (CCs), identifying the most suitable among them, using as comparison criteria various statistical properties of CCs. The ultimate goal of our research is to provide decision makers in HE institutions with an easy-to-use reliable tool for not only monitoring the teaching process, but also identifying the effective and ineffective faculty members’ teaching performance to promote the quality of their Institution.5131289131
Income inequality and financialization: a not so straightforward relationship
No full textPurposeThe authors explore the impact of financialization on income inequality for a panel of 19 OECD countries over the period 2000–2017. The authors control for the effect of banking crises, credit market regulation and globalization, among other factors.Design/methodology/approachThe authors use three proxies for income inequality and four proxies for financialization. The authors employ a panel fixed effects approach using Driscoll and Kraay’s (1998) nonparametric covariance matrix estimator, which produces standard errors that are robust to general forms of cross-sectional dependence.FindingsThe authors provide evidence which to a great extent supports the view that the process of financialization has increased income inequality. In the disposable Gini specifications, two out of the four financialization measures are found to significantly contribute to rising inequality whilst in the specification with the market income Gini coefficient, three out of the four financialization proxies appear to adversely affect inequality. In the specification with the Gini coefficient based on manufacturing pay, the evidence is weak. Furthermore, trade unions appear to play a significant role in reducing inequality in two out of the three Gini specifications while the effect of credit market regulation is rather ambiguous.Originality/valueThe authors’ findings suggest a positive relationship between financialization and income inequality; however, the results depend on the proxies used to measure financialization and income inequality. The authors conclude that the process of financialization in triggering income inequality is complex and merits additional research.4919511
Individuals with and without Visual Impairments Use a Force Feedback Device to Identify the Friction and Hardness of Haptic Surfaces
No full textThe general purpose of this study is to promote access to haptic virtual environments. Using a haptic device, people with and without visual impairments (VI) are able to feel different textures and compare these textures based on different surface properties, i.e., friction and hardness. The objectives of this study were to examine the following: (a) whether the variables of friction and hardness were identifiable through the Touch device (Phantom Omni) and could therefore function as 3D haptic variables; (b) if there were differences between people with VI and sighted individuals in terms of their performance; (c) the differences that should exist between the values of each variable so that the virtual surfaces could be identified as different to each other; and (d) if the individual characteristics of participants have an impact on their performance. The results showed that it is necessary to use surfaces which are differentiated based on the degree of friction and hardness because the haptic properties of a virtual object are then better perceived. Individuals with VI need more time and more effort to understand friction and hardness, respectively. With the motivation of increasing access to object perception for people with VI in a virtual environment, accessibility advisors and experts can extract useful information for the development of functional and efficient 3D objects for haptic perception.2224974
Liberating older adults from the bonds of vascular risk factors: What is their impact on financial capacity in amnestic mild cognitive impairment?
No full textBackgroundThere is a pressing need to clarify whether vascular risk factors (VRFs) are related to the heterogeneous cognitive performance found in mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and whether the number of VRFs relates to financial capacity impairment in patients with amnestic MCI (aMCI).MethodsA total of 112 participants were divided into three groups: patients with single-domain aMCI, patients with multiple-domain aMCI, and healthy controls (HCs), while taking into consideration whether participants had a diagnosis of one VRF or disease, or more than one VRF or disease. Patients with aMCI with VRFs (one and more than one VRF) and HCs did not differ significantly in age, education, and sex. Mini-Mental State Examination, 15-item Geriatric Depression Scale, and Legal Capacity for Property Law Transactions Assessment Scale (LCPLTAS) were administered to all groups.ResultsDiagnosis (P <0.001) and VRFs (P = 0.006) showed significant main effects on LCPLTAS but no interaction (P = 0.654). Patients with aMCI with high vascular burden were more frequently of the multiple-domain subtype, whereas patients with no vascular burden were more frequently of the single-domain subtype. A larger vascular burden is correlated with lower LCPLTAS scores.DiscussionVascular burden plays an important role in the heterogeneity of aMCI by impairing financial capacity.76624625
Local polynomial smoothing based on the Kaplan–Meier estimate
No full textThe local polynomial modeling of the Kaplan–Meier estimate for random designs under the right censored data setting is investigated in detail. Two classes of boundary aware estimates are developed: estimates of the distribution function and its derivatives of any arbitrary order and estimates of integrated distribution function derivative products. Their statistical properties are quantified analytically and their implementation is facilitated by the development of corresponding data driven plug-in bandwidth selectors. The asymptotic rate of convergence of the plug-in rule for the estimates of the distribution function and its derivatives is quantified analytically. Numerical evidence is also provided on its finite sample performance. A real life data analysis illustrates how the methodological advances proposed herein help to generate additional insights in comparison to existing methods.22121222
Measuring Romanian Students’ Attitude towards the Ethical Use of Social Networks
No full textThe aim of this study is to assess students’ ethical attitudes towards social networks (SNs)in order to identify ethical norms and principles, which should be implemented in universities.A self-reported survey was conducted on 583 Bachelor and Master students majoring in differentdomains in a Romanian university. The results revealed that students in higher education expressan overall positive attitude towards the ethical use of SNs, taking seriously various ethical concernssuch as the use of appropriate language, the selection of the content they share, and copywriting.Students also expressed a positive attitude towards the use of emoticons in their SNs communications.Significant differences were detected between different groups of students according to their gender,age, and specialization. The model of ethical attitudes provides a new perspective on how studentsand teachers know and respect the rules of using social networks in the academic environment.14171090
Microservices-Adaptive Software-Defined Load Balancing for 5G and Beyond Ecosystems
No full textAlthough 5G networks achieve impressive improvements in terms of latency, data rates and network capacity, their evolution requires the synergy of networks, clouds and applications. For example, targeted challenging applications require efficient end-to-end performance, impacted by emerging technologies beyond radio, including: (i) Software-Defined Networks (SDNs) enabling programmability in the network environment from a centralized viewpoint; (ii) cloud orchestrators dynamically adapting server resource allocation to dynamic workloads; and (iii) microservice-based applications consisting of minimal, single-purpose service functions communicating with each other, individually implemented and scaled towards efficient resource allocation and fault-tolerance. In this context, we propose an SDN load balancing solution for a specific class of services consisting of microservices with heterogeneous but simpler network and server resource requirements, compared to the resource-demands of the whole service. Our proposal adapts to the estimated resource demands of individual microservices, balances resource utilization among cloud servers and improves service operation in terms of response times, throughput and fairness. We validate experimentally the proposed platform and its mechanisms with a particular 5G and beyond use-case with the above characteristics
Modeling of a carbon emitted production inventory system with interval uncertainty via meta-heuristic algorithms
No full textModeling of a production inventory system under uncertain economic situation is a difficult task. Tackling this difficulty, the proposed work attempts to formulate a production inventory model with time dependent defective rate, greenness of the product dependent demand and production rates under interval uncertainty. Consideration of carbon emission during the production with interval valued time dependent emission rate is also an important feature of the proposed model. Furthermore, reduction technology is taken into the account for reducing the large scale of carbon emission. The proposed model is formulated mathematically with the help of interval differential equations and interval parametric approach. Thereafter, various interval valued cost components as well as average profit related to the model are obtained using interval mathematics. To handle the interval valued average profit, center-radius technique of interval optimization is applied. To verify the validity of the developed model, four numerical examples are considered and solved by meta-heuristic algorithms. Also, sensitivity analyses are carried out on the best found policy with respect to different system parameters of this model.10634336
Moving from face-to-face to online learning in a week due to the COVID-19 pandemic: higher education students' perceptions
No full textOnline learning has attracted the interest of researchers and practitioners for decades. Various advantages, challenges and factors affecting the effectiveness of online learning have been reported. However, these findings have been recorded under ideal circumstances and not extraordinary situations, such as the one imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic. In this article, the results of a survey on the perceptions of higher education students regarding the emergent transition to online learning are quantitatively and qualitatively analysed. Students evaluated positively the quality, organisation and presentation of synchronous online courses, but they were divided as to whether their quality is equivalent to that of face-to-face courses. The most prominent problems refer to the quality of internet connection, lack of appropriate infrastructure especially for online lab courses, lower quality communication and interaction and a difficulty in keeping concentrated on the course. Despite these issues, instructors and students embraced successfully the solution of online learning.14436