56 research outputs found
Developing Intercultural Competence Through Student Organisation Activities: Case Study on ESN Laurea
No full textThe goal of the thesis was to analyse the implementation of intercultural competence in the operation and activities of ESN Laurea. ESN Laurea is a student organisation within Laurea University of Applied Sciences and serves as the case company for this thesis. It is a local section of the Erasmus Student Network, and the youngest section of ESN Finland. Having remained in the organisation for the longest amount of time out of its members, the author of this thesis has hands-on experience and knowledge about the organisation’s history and operation that proved to be useful for the development of this thesis.
The main research method implemented was the qualitative semi-structured interview with open-ended questions. The interview aimed to survey Laurea and its student bodies’ impact on student life, with participants being former international exchange and degree students of Laurea from academic years 2015 to 2018. The focus of this interview was the social aspect of the participants’ student career at Laurea.
With the interview outcome analysed, a long-term condensed action plan for ESN Laurea was developed, containing two parts representing two aspects in need of improvement for the organisation. The outcome of this thesis can be used as a reference point for the organisation and its future boards, in the process of further developing ESN Laurea and its operation as part of Laurea University of Applied Sciences and the Erasmus generation
Improving Integration of International Students: Case Study ESN Laurea
No full textThe main purpose of this research thesis is to determine the current integration issues faced by the international students at Laurea University of Applied Sciences. The secondary objective is to map how Erasmus Student Network Laurea can help with improving the integration situation. ESN Laurea is a non-profit organisation that focuses on supporting international students of the university. It was founded and is run by the students of Laurea, including the author of this thesis.
This thesis introduces Erasmus Student Network as an international organisation, including its structure, history and mission. More focus is given to the case company, ESN Laurea. Being a founding member of this organisation allowed the author to thoroughly explain its history, activities and goals. Moreover, theory of integration and culture is researched with the use of books, articles and online sources and they are presented in this thesis.
The main research methods used in this thesis are semi-structured interviews and a survey. Some of the data were gathered from the face-to-face interviews conducted with an international officer of Laurea, as well as with a group of international students. The questions asked included ones about the respondents’ experiences with internationalization, integration and activity of school organisations. More data were gathered with an online survey, answered by 42 Laurea students.
The outcome of this thesis reports the current issues that the international students of Laurea face in terms of their integration process. It became evident which areas need improvement, such as having more intermixed courses with the local students, information and guidance provided during the introduction week, as well as a growing demand for cultural events. Based on that knowledge, ESN Laurea is given recommendations on how to use its existing platform in helping the international students.
The recommendations are based on the opinions and suggestions shared by the respondents of the interviews and survey, as well as the theoretical framework and conducted research. ESN Laurea, as well as other student organisations of Laurea UAS, are encouraged to use the results of this thesis while planning their activities
Chaotic systems learning with hybrid echo state network/proper orthogonal decomposition based model
No full textWe explore the possibility of combining a knowledge-based reduced order model (ROM) with a reservoir computing approach to learn and predict the dynamics of chaotic systems. The ROM is based on proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) with Galerkin projection to capture the essential dynamics of the chaotic system while the reservoir computing approach used is based on echo state networks (ESNs). Two different hybrid approaches are explored: one where the ESN corrects the modal coefficients of the ROM (hybrid-ESN-A) and one where the ESN uses and corrects the ROM prediction in full state space (hybrid-ESN-B). These approaches are applied on two chaotic systems: the Charney-DeVore system and the Kuramoto-Sivashinsky equation and are compared to the ROM obtained using POD/Galerkin projection and to the data-only approach based uniquely on the ESN. The hybrid-ESN-B approach is seen to provide the best prediction accuracy, outperforming the other hybrid approach, the POD/Galerkin projection ROM, and the data-only ESN, especially when using ESNs with a small number of neurons. In addition, the influence of the accuracy of the ROM on the overall prediction accuracy of the hybrid-ESN-B is assessed rigorously by considering ROMs composed of different numbers of POD modes. Further analysis on how hybrid-ESN-B blends the prediction from the ROM and the ESN to predict the evolution of the system is also provided. Aerodynamic
Can the use of an Enterprise Social Network improve communication within an organization compared to intranet and email?
No full textThe objective of this research was to evaluate the effectiveness of using Enterprise Social Network (ESN) for internal communication. The key was to identify the organizational goal which is employee engagement; then to assess if using ESN can help the company reach the goal. Meanwhile, the author investigated if the ESN is a possible alternative to email and intranet by comparing their function and popularity.
The author applied the quantitative approach and collected primary data through a survey at the case company – Staria. Among over 250 personnel, there were 59 respondents from nine departments. The author combined descriptive and exploratory methods to explain the results.
The result described how the ESN boosts employees’ emotional engagement and behavioral engagement, particularly relating this platform to email and intranet. Additionally, the ESN was recognized as an effective tool for the digital workspace during the epidemic. Moreover, the author also discovered the limitations of the ESN for further improvement.
The research finally concluded that using ESN can help to enhance the efficiency of internal communication. The last chapter exhibited recommendations for other academic researchers to develop the thesis idea further and for the company to choose a suitable communication channel and a strategic approach for their internal communication
The issue of forming of students’ competence in open information and educational environment: the aspect of use of social networking in education.
No full textАвтор розглядає електронні соціальні мережі (ЕСМ) як елемент відкритого інформаційно-освітнього середовища, що має властивості персоніфікації. Представлено результати дослідження формування інформаційно-комунікаційної компетентності учнів, психолого-педагогічних умов організації навчально-виховного процесу з використанням ЕСМ та освітніх результатів.The author studies electronic social networks (ESN) as part of an open information educational environment that has personalization features. Results of the study of formation of students’ information and communication competence, psychological and pedagogical conditions of educational process using ESN and educational outcomes are presented
Enriching and designing metaschemas for the UMLS semantic network
No full textThe disparate terminologies used by various biomedical applications or professionals make the communication between them more difficult. The Unified Medical Language System (UMLS) of the National Library of Medicine (NLM) is an attempt to integrate different medical terminologies into a unified representation framework to improve decision making and the quality of patient care as well as research in the health-care field. Metathesaurus (META) and Semantic Network (SN) are two main components of the UMLS system, where the SN provides a high-level abstract of the concepts in the META.
This dissertation addresses three problems of the SN. First, the SN\u27s two-tree structure is restrictive because it does not allow a semantic type to be a specialization of several other semantic types. This restriction leads to the omission of some subsumption knowledge in the SN. Secondly, the SN is large and complex for comprehension purposes and it does not come with a pictorial representation for users. As a partial solution for this problem, several metaschemas were previously built as higher-level abstractions for the SN to help users\u27 orientation. Third, there is no efficient method to evaluate each metaschema. There is no technique to obtain a consolidated metaschema acceptable for a majority of the UMLS\u27s users.
In this dissertation work the author attacked the described problems by using the following approaches. (1) The SN was expanded into the Enriched Semantic Network (ESN), a multiple subsumption structure with a directed acyclic graph (DAG) IS-A hierarchy, allowing a semantic type to have multiple parents. New viable IS-A links were added as warranted. Two methodologies were presented to identify and add new viable IS-A links. The ESN serves as an extended high-level abstract of the META. (2) The ESN\u27s semantic relationship distribution and concept configuration were studied. Rules were defined to derive the ESN\u27s semantic relationship distribution from the current SN\u27s semantic relationship distribution. A mapping function was defined to map the SN\u27s concept configuration to the ESN\u27s concept configuration, avoiding redundant classifications in the ESN\u27s concept configuration. (3) Several new metaschemas for the SN and the ESN were built and evaluated based on several different partitioning techniques. Each of these metaschema can serve as a higher-level abstraction of the SN (or the ESN)
Characterization of the non-stationary nature of steady-state visual evoked potentials using echo state networks
No full textState Visual Evoked Potentials (SSVEPs) arise from a resonance phenomenon in the visual cortex that is produced by a repetitive visual stimulus. SSVEPs have long been considered a steady-state response resulting from purely oscillatory components phase locked with the stimulation source, matching the stimulation frequency and its harmonics. Here we explore the dynamical character of the SSVEP response by proposing a novel non-stationary methodology for SSVEP detection based on an ensemble of Echo State Networks (ESN). The performance of this dynamical approach is compared to stationary canonical correlation analysis (CCA) for the detection of 6 visual stimulation frequencies ranging from 12 to 22 Hz. ESN-based methodology outperformed CCA, achieving an average information transfer rate of 47 bits/minute when simulating a BCI system of 6 degrees of freedom. However, for some subjects and stimulation frequencies the detection accuracy of CCA exceeds that of ESN. The comparison suggests that each methodology captures different features of the SSVEP response: while CCA captures purely stationary patterns, the ESN-based approach presented here is capable of detecting the non-stationary nature of the SSVEP.This work was partly supported by the European Commission through the STIPED project under the Horizon 2020 Program (H2020, Grant agreement number 731827) and the AsTeRICS project under the 7th Framework Program (FP7, Grant agreement number 247730), the ICREA Academia program and the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness and FEDER (project FIS2015-66503-C3-1-P and Maria de Maeztu Programme for Units of Excellence in R&D, MDM-2014-0370). The funder, Starlab, provided support in the form of salaries for authors DIS, ASF and GR, but did not have any additional role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. The specific roles of these authors are articulated in the ‘author contributions’ section. Co-author GR is employed by Neuroelectrics Corporation. Neuroelectrics Barcelona provided support in the form of salaries for GR but did not have any additional role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. The specific roles of these authors are articulated in the ‘author contributions’ section
Characterization of the non-stationary nature of steady-state visual evoked potentials using echo state networks
No full textState Visual Evoked Potentials (SSVEPs) arise from a resonance phenomenon in the visual cortex that is produced by a repetitive visual stimulus. SSVEPs have long been considered a steady-state response resulting from purely oscillatory components phase locked with the stimulation source, matching the stimulation frequency and its harmonics. Here we explore the dynamical character of the SSVEP response by proposing a novel non-stationary methodology for SSVEP detection based on an ensemble of Echo State Networks (ESN). The performance of this dynamical approach is compared to stationary canonical correlation analysis (CCA) for the detection of 6 visual stimulation frequencies ranging from 12 to 22 Hz. ESN-based methodology outperformed CCA, achieving an average information transfer rate of 47 bits/minute when simulating a BCI system of 6 degrees of freedom. However, for some subjects and stimulation frequencies the detection accuracy of CCA exceeds that of ESN. The comparison suggests that each methodology captures different features of the SSVEP response: while CCA captures purely stationary patterns, the ESN-based approach presented here is capable of detecting the non-stationary nature of the SSVEP.This work was partly supported by the European Commission through the STIPED project under the Horizon 2020 Program (H2020, Grant agreement number 731827) and the AsTeRICS project under the 7th Framework Program (FP7, Grant agreement number 247730), the ICREA Academia program and the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness and FEDER (project FIS2015-66503-C3-1-P and Maria de Maeztu Programme for Units of Excellence in R&D, MDM-2014-0370). The funder, Starlab, provided support in the form of salaries for authors DIS, ASF and GR, but did not have any additional role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. The specific roles of these authors are articulated in the ‘author contributions’ section. Co-author GR is employed by Neuroelectrics Corporation. Neuroelectrics Barcelona provided support in the form of salaries for GR but did not have any additional role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. The specific roles of these authors are articulated in the ‘author contributions’ section
Neural-adaptive constrained flight control for air ground recovery under terrain obstacles
No full textThis article contrives a neural-adaptive constrained controller of the cable towed air-ground recovery system subject to terrain obstacles, unmeasurable cable tensions, trailing vortex, wind gust, and actuator saturation. In air-ground recovery system modeling, the towed vehicle's nominal 6 DOF affine nonlinear dynamics and the cable system's finite links-joints dynamics are formulated. To achieve accurate air-ground recovery under terrain obstacles, an asymmetric barrier Lyapunov function-based flight controller of the towed vehicle is proposed, by transforming the terrain obstacles into time-varying constraints on the vehicle's trajectory. Then, to approximate the towed vehicle's lumped unknown dynamics caused by the unmeasurable cable tensions and airflows, several echo state network (ESN) approximators are established for velocity and attitude subsystems. By using the state approximation errors-based neural weights learning strategy and minimal learning parameter technique, these ESNs possess better transient behaviors and lower online computational burden. Furthermore, the actuator saturation is automatically monitored and released, by incorporating a specially designed auxiliary compensating system into the angular rate control law for compensation. The stability of the closed-loop system is analyzed. Finally, numerical simulations under two air-ground recovery scenarios are performed to demonstrate the performance of the proposed controller.Transport and Plannin
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