5324 research outputs found
Sort by
Feature selection using salp swarm algorithm with chaos
No full textThe paper was presented in the 2nd International Conference on Intelligent Systems, Metaheuristics & Swarm Intelligence (ISMSI 2018) which was held in Phuket, Thailand during March 24-25, 2018The performance of classification algorithms is highly sensitive to the data dimensionality. High dimensionality may cause many problems to a classifier like overfitting and high computational time. Feature selection (FS) is a key solution to both problems. It aims to reduce the number of features by removing the irrelevant, redundant and noisy data, while trying to keep an acceptable classification accuracy. FS can be formulated as an optimization problem. Metaheuristic algorithms have shown superior performance in solving this type of problems. In this work, a chaotic version of Salp Swarm Algorithm (SSA) is proposed, which is considered one of the recent metaheuristic algorithms. The proposed approach is applied for the first time on feature selection problems. Four different chaotic maps are used to control the balance between the exploration and exploitation in the proposed approach. The proposed approaches are evaluated using twelve real datasets. The comparative results shows that the chaotic maps significantly enhances the performance of the SSA algorithm and outperforms other similar approaches in the literature
A comparison between health research output and burden of disease in Arab countries : evidence from Palestine
No full textAn article published : Health Research Policy and Systems (2018) 16:25, pp. 1-9Background: Research conducted on conditions responsible for the greatest disease burden should be given the highest priority, particularly in resource-limited settings. The present study aimed to assess the research output in relation to disease burden in Palestine and to identify the conditions which are under- or over-investigated, if any.
Methods: We searched PubMed and Scopus for reports of original research relevant to human health or healthcare authored by researchers affiliated with Palestinian institutions and published between January 2000 and December 2015. We categorised the condition studied in included articles using the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) taxonomy.
Data regarding burden of disease (percentage of deaths and disability-adjusted life years (DALYs)) was obtained from the Palestine profile in the GBD study. We examined the degree of discordance between the observed number of published articles for each disease/condition with the expected number based on the proportion of disease burden of that disease/condition.
Results: Our search identified 2469 potentially relevant records, from which 1650 were excluded following the screening of titles and abstracts. Of the remaining 819 full-text articles, we included 511 in our review. Communicable (infectious) diseases (n = 103; 20%) was the condition with the highest number of published studies. However, cancer (n = 15; 3%) and chronic respiratory diseases (n = 15; 3%) were the conditions with the lowest number of published studies. Research output was poorly associated with disease burden, irrespective of whether it was measured in terms
of DALYs (rho = −0.116, P = 0.7) or death (rho = 0.217, P = 0.5). Cardiovascular disease, cancer, and maternal and neonatal deaths accounted for more than two-thirds of the total deaths in Palestine (67%), but were infrequently addressed (23%) in published articles.
Conclusions: There is evidence of research waste measured by a mismatch between the health burden of certain diseases/conditions and the number of published research reports on those diseases/conditions in Palestine. A national research priority-setting agenda should be developed to meet the local community’s need for quality evidence to implement independent and informed health policies
Civil and security public servants’ right to strike in Palestine : balancing rights and public interests
No full textتقوم نظرية النموذج العالمي للحقوق الأساسية ذات التوجه الترميمي، التي وضعها "كاي مولر"، على مجموعة من الفرضيات التي تساعد في تحديد كون الحق حقاً أساسياً. تعمل الباحثة في هذه الورقة البحثية على إسقاط هذه الفرضيات على حق العاملين في الخدمة المدنية و قوى الأمن الفلسطينية في الإضراب، حيث تتناول الباحثة مبررات اعتبار حق هذه الفئة في الإضراب هو حق أساسي، والآثار المترتبة على ذلك من التزامات تقع على الدولة والأفراد، وصولاً إلى كيفية إعمال التوازن ما بين الحق في الإضراب وحماية المصلحة العامة والأمن العام، انتهاءً إلى معرفة مدى تمتع هذه الفئة بالحق في الإضراب و القيود المعقولة التي من الممكن أن تَرِد في هذا الحق
استخدام محاكاة الحركة البراونية لدراسة تفاعل المادة الوراثية (DNA) مع مركبات النانو كاتيونيك ديندريمرز
No full textGene therapy holds a promise in treating genetic diseases by directly delivering
therapeutic DNA into living cells. Although viruses have been shown to be
efficient delivery vectors, their toxicity has limited their general use. As an
alternative, polyamidoamine (PAMAM) dendrimers are considered to be ideal
candidates for synthetic vectors due to their unique intrinsic biophysical
properties. At neutral pH, a PAMAM dendrimer is cationic and can effectively
bind to negatively charged nucleic acid strands to form efficient transfection
complexes.
In this work, we carried out multiple Brownian dynamics simulations to
investigate the physicochemical properties of DNA-PAMAM dendrimers
complexes for different lengths of single- and double- stranded DNA complexed
with various generations of PAMAM dendrimer. PAMAM dendrimer is
represented by a positively charged sphere whereas a bead-spring model is used to
model DNA strands. Our results indicate that the formation of DNA-dendrimer
complexes is affected by the salt concentration. At low salt concentration (10-
100mM) a DNA chain wraps strongly around the dendrimer, whereas the stronger
electrostatics screening effects at high salt concentration limit the wrapping of
DNA chain around dendrimers. Furthermore, the morphologies of the aggregates
depend on the interaction between DNA and PAMAM dendrimer as well as the
PAMAM generation number. For example, G2 with dsDNA seems to have a rodlike
structure while ssDNA with G4 trends to give a piece of toroid. Also the
flexible dsDNA can form toroidal morphologies with G2 dendrimers while the
aggregates of G2 dendrimers and the stiff dsDNA have rod-like structure
Triple-shape coexistence and superdeformation in Pb isotopes
No full textAn article published in Journal : Acta Physica Polonica Series B, vol. 49, no. 9, pp. 1653-1681, October 2018Received the Journal in March 14, 2018; accepted May 6, 2018Triple-shape coexistence and superdeformation in Pb isotopes with neu-
tron numbers
N
= 96
–138 is studied. The constrained calculations are
performed within the Relativistic Hartree–Bogoliubov (RHB) model using
DD-ME2, DD-PC1, and NL3* force parameters, and pairing interaction
separable in momentum space. Triple-shape coexistence (spherical, prolate
and oblate) manifests themselves in a clear manner in
184
−
190
Pb nuclei with
axial RHB calculations. Triaxial RHB calculations further confirm the find-
ings. Superdeformed minimum is observed for
188
−
220
Pb isotopes, and the
corresponding excitation energy, deformation and depth of well are compa-
rable within different force parameters used. The behaviour with neutron
number of the superdeformed excitation energy, two-neutron separation
energy in the ground state and superdeformed minimum, and its differ-
ential are fairly reproducing the trend of the available experimental data.
The present numerical results are compared with Macro–microscopic Fi-
nite Range Droplet Model (FRDM) and Hartree–Fock–Bogoliubov (HFB)
model based on the interaction Gogny-D1S force. Overall, a fairly satis-
factory agreement is found within the different force parameters and the
calculated and experimental result
Repenser l’évaluation de la traduction pédagogique avec les TICE
No full textTeaching translation for students majoring in a foreign language is considered challenging for teachers. Their role is to harness their students’ skills both in language and translation. Thus, students are asked to apply a constructivist approach in translation, and are exposed to cognitive unbalance. Therefore, students are very likely to turn to machine translation, resulting in poor translated texts. In order to avoid an end-result oriented assessment and foster process-oriented teaching, we implemented a formative evaluation system based on the use of technology. We experienced three platforms, with the aim to acquire a pragmatic formative assessment that evaluates each step of the translation process instead of simply identifying mistakes as is the case with summative assessment.
L’enseignement de la traduction pédagogique pour un public en filière langue étrangère est un défi qui exige de l’enseignant la mobilisation des compétences à la fois linguistiques et traductologiques chez l’étudiant. Celui-ci, amené à suivre une démarche constructiviste lors de l’activité traduisante, se trouve en situation de déséquilibre cognitif et aura recours par la suite aux logiciels de traduction automatique, susceptibles de fournir une traduction précaire. Afin d’éviter l’évaluation orientée produit et afin de favoriser l’enseignement orienté processus, un système d’évaluation formative est mis en place à l’aide des TICE. Nous avons testé trois plateformes pour aboutir à une évaluation formative pragmatique qui évalue chaque étape de la procédure de traduction sans pour autant sanctionner les erreurs de l’étudiant, comme ce pourrait être le cas dans l’évaluation sommative
State of necessity
No full textIn constitutional law, state or public necessity is often evoked in two occasions: (1) In defence of officials who, in order to protect a higher interest, infringe a constitutionally protected fundamental right; (2) When the infringement or limitation on fundamental rights and freedoms follow an executive extraordinary measure that is arguably unconstitutional in ordinary times but are deemed necessary for the preservation of other valuable goals. This contribution investigates whether necessity serves as an autonomous concept in constitutional law that enables state officials and the executive to escape harmful consequences of rigid adherence to a rule of law in all circumstances, and whether it can be invoked to preclude the wrongfulness of their actions—so that state officials avoid criminal prosecution and the executive avoid the defect of unconstitutionality
Gamifying the teaching and learning process in an advanced computer programming course
No full textA Chapter from a book titled: Collaboration Technologies and Social Computing : 9th International Conference, CollabTech 2017, Saskatoon, SK, Canada, August 8–10, 2017, Proceedings (Lecture Notes in Computer Science), July 12, 2017 by Takashi Yoshino (Editor), Takaya Yuizono (Editor), Gustavo Zurita (Editor), Julita Vassileva (Editor)Abstract. These days, the conventional ways of teaching programming are not attractive to students. For instance, classical lecture and tutorial classes are not sufficient and provides only one-way learning environment. Most of the students nowadays prefer to have more engaging, fun, competitive, collaborative, and instant feedback learning environment. These elements can be achieved using gamification to increase students’ interest in computer programming courses. More specifically, we used three gamification techniques in one advanced programming course: pair-programming teaching technique to maintain collaboration between students, Kahoot! system to provide an interactive quizzes system and instance feedback, and finally we used Robocode platform to teach Object-Oriented programming concepts in a fun and competitive fashion. We believe that gamifying teaching and learning process has great potential to assist teachers and engage students in a new and challenging way. This paper presents an empirical study that was carried out in one advanced computer-programming course were the mentioned gamification techniques were applied. A subjective system evaluation revealed that the students appreciated the used techniques. The results also revealed that the students’ interest in computer programming were enhanced as well
