Technology of Satellite and Mobile Communication in Modern Distance Education

This paper describes the use of technology of satellite and mobile communication for quality improving of modern distance education.

An improved conflicting evidence combination approach based on a new supporting probability distance

To avoid counter-intuitive result of classical Dempster's combination rule when dealing with highly conflict information, many improved combination methods have been developed through modifying the basic probability assignments (BPAs) of bodies of evidence (BOEs) by using a certain measure of the degree of conflict or uncertain information, such as Jousselme's distance, the pignistic probability distance and the ambiguity measure. However, if BOEs contain some non-singleton elements and the differences among their BPAs are larger than 0.5, the current conflict measure methods have limitations in describing the interrelationship among the conflict BOEs and may even lead to wrong combination results. In order to solve this problem, a new distance function, which is called supporting probability distance, is proposed to characterize the differences among BOEs. With the new distance, the information of how much a focal element is supported by the other focal elements in BOEs can be given. Also, a new combination rule based on the supporting probability distance is proposed for the combination of the conflicting evidences. The credibility and the discounting factor of each BOE are generated by the supporting probability distance and the weighted BOEs are combined directly using Dempster's rules. Analytical results of numerical examples show that the new distance has a better capability of describing the interrelationships among BOEs, especially for the highly conflicting BOEs containing non-singleton elements and the proposed new combination method has better applicability and effectiveness compared with the existing methods.

Applying A Normalized Compression Metric To The Measurement Of Dialect Distance

The paper discusses the application of a similarity metric based on compression to the measurement of the distance among Bulgarian dia- lects. The similarity metric is de ned on the basis of the notion of Kolmo- gorov complexity of a le (or binary string). The application of Kolmogorov complexity in practice is not possible because its calculation over a le is an undecidable problem. Thus, the actual similarity metric is based on a real life compressor which only approximates the Kolmogorov complexity. To use the metric for distance measurement of Bulgarian dialects we rst represent the dialectological data in such a way that the metric is applicable. We propose two such representations which are compared to a baseline distance between dialects. Then we conclude the paper with an outline of our future work.

Leader‐Member Exchange (LMX) and performance:a meta‐analytic review

This paper reports a meta-analysis that examines the relationship between leader-member exchange (LMX) relationship quality and a multidimensional model of work performance (task, citizenship, and counterproductive performance). The results show a positive relationship between LMX and task performance (146 samples, ρ = .30) as well as citizenship performance (97 samples, ρ = .34), and negatively with counterproductive performance (19 samples, ρ = -.24). Of note, there was a positive relationship between LMX and objective task performance (20 samples, ρ = .24). Trust, motivation, empowerment, and job satisfaction mediated the relationship between LMX and task and citizenship performance with trust in the leader having the largest effect. There was no difference due to LMX measurement instrument (e.g., LMX7, LMX-MDM). Overall, the relationship between LMX and performance was weaker when (a) measures were obtained from a different source or method and (b) LMX was measured by the follower than the leader (with common source- and method-biased effects stronger for leader-rated LMX quality). Finally, there was evidence for LMX leading to task performance but not for reverse or reciprocal directions of effects.

Distance Matrix Approach to Content Image Retrieval

As the volume of image data and the need of using it in various applications is growing significantly in the last days it brings a necessity of retrieval efficiency and effectiveness. Unfortunately, existing indexing methods are not applicable to a wide range of problem-oriented fields due to their operating time limitations and strong dependency on the traditional descriptors extracted from the image. To meet higher requirements, a novel distance-based indexing method for region-based image retrieval has been proposed and investigated. The method creates premises for considering embedded partitions of images to carry out the search with different refinement or roughening level and so to seek the image meaningful content.

Using Reengineering Techniques for Distance Study Course Improvement

The paper analyses the reengineering concept as it comes from software engineering and management fields. We combine two viewpoints and apply them to solve a problem of reengineering of a distance study system, in general, and the unit of learning, in particular. We propose a framework for reengineering of unit of learning, based on general model of software reengineering, and present a case study, in which we describe, how one topic of distance study course was reengineered, considering triple consistency principle and requirements for computer science. The proposed framework contributes to increasing quality, effectiveness and systematization of delivering distance studies.

Distance Learning Education of Software Engineering: Principles and Experiences

Whether distance learning spells the end of traditional campuses, as some maintain, or whether distance learning instead represents a powerful addition to a growing array of delivery options for higher education, its impact on higher education is great and growing. Distance learning is creating alternative models of teaching and learning, new job descriptions for faculty, and new types of higher education providers. The advent of Distance and Distributed Learning has raised numerous questions about quality and quality assurance: ² How do established distance learning institutions ensure quality? ² What more needs to be done? ² How do quality assurance agencies view the distinction between on- and off-campus teaching and learning? This talk discusses these issues from the viewpoints of funding organisa- tion, quality assurance agencies and the learners.

Converting a regular learning course Into distance course

Доклад по покана, поместен в сборника на Националната конференция "Образованието в информационното общество", Пловдив, октомври, 2006 г.

A Distance-Based Method for Attribute Reduction in Incomplete Decision Systems

There are limitations in recent research undertaken on attribute reduction in incomplete decision systems. In this paper, we propose a distance-based method for attribute reduction in an incomplete decision system. In addition, we prove theoretically that our method is more effective than some other methods.

Automated Data Retrieval in Distance Learning Quality

Report published in the Proceedings of the National Conference on "Education and Research in the Information Society", Plovdiv, May, 2015

Distance Distributions and Energy of Designs in Hamming Spaces

We obtain new combinatorial upper and lower bounds for the potential energy of designs in q-ary Hamming space. Combined with results on reducing the number of all feasible distance distributions of such designs this gives reasonable good bounds. We compute and compare our lower bounds to recently obtained universal lower bounds. Some examples in the binary case are considered.

Group Comparisons on Cognitive Attributes Using the Least Squares Distance Model of Cognitive Diagnosis

2010 Mathematics Subject Classification: 62P15.

Energy-efficient multihop cooperative MISO transmission with optimal hop distance in wireless ad hoc networks

In this paper, we investigate the hop distance optimization problem in ad hoc networks where cooperative multiinput- single-output (MISO) is adopted to improve the energy efficiency of the network. We first establish the energy model of multihop cooperative MISO transmission. Based on the model, the energy consumption per bit of the network with high node density is minimized numerically by finding an optimal hop distance, and, to get the global minimum energy consumption, both hop distance and the number of cooperating nodes around each relay node for multihop transmission are jointly optimized. We also compare the performance between multihop cooperative MISO transmission and single-input-single-output (SISO) transmission, under the same network condition (high node density). We show that cooperative MISO transmission could be energyinefficient compared with SISO transmission when the path-loss exponent becomes high. We then extend our investigation to the networks with varied node densities and show the effectiveness of the joint optimization method in this scenario using simulation results. It is shown that the optimal results depend on network conditions such as node density and path-loss exponent, and the simulation results are closely matched to those obtained using the numerical models for high node density cases.

Identifying DNA-binding proteins by combining support vector machine and PSSM distance transformation

Background: DNA-binding proteins play a pivotal role in various intra- and extra-cellular activities ranging from DNA replication to gene expression control. Identification of DNA-binding proteins is one of the major challenges in the field of genome annotation. There have been several computational methods proposed in the literature to deal with the DNA-binding protein identification. However, most of them can't provide an invaluable knowledge base for our understanding of DNA-protein interactions. Results: We firstly presented a new protein sequence encoding method called PSSM Distance Transformation, and then constructed a DNA-binding protein identification method (SVM-PSSM-DT) by combining PSSM Distance Transformation with support vector machine (SVM). First, the PSSM profiles are generated by using the PSI-BLAST program to search the non-redundant (NR) database. Next, the PSSM profiles are transformed into uniform numeric representations appropriately by distance transformation scheme. Lastly, the resulting uniform numeric representations are inputted into a SVM classifier for prediction. Thus whether a sequence can bind to DNA or not can be determined. In benchmark test on 525 DNA-binding and 550 non DNA-binding proteins using jackknife validation, the present model achieved an ACC of 79.96%, MCC of 0.622 and AUC of 86.50%. This performance is considerably better than most of the existing state-of-the-art predictive methods. When tested on a recently constructed independent dataset PDB186, SVM-PSSM-DT also achieved the best performance with ACC of 80.00%, MCC of 0.647 and AUC of 87.40%, and outperformed some existing state-of-the-art methods. Conclusions: The experiment results demonstrate that PSSM Distance Transformation is an available protein sequence encoding method and SVM-PSSM-DT is a useful tool for identifying the DNA-binding proteins. A user-friendly web-server of SVM-PSSM-DT was constructed, which is freely accessible to the public at the web-site on http://bioinformatics.hitsz.edu.cn/PSSM-DT/.

A szovjetológiától az új intézményi közgazdaságtanig - töprengések két évtized távlatából = From Sovietology to the new institutional economics - meditations from a distance of two decades

A következőkben arra teszünk kísérletet, hogy összegezzük a közép- és a kelet-európai rendszerváltozások és az ezt tanulmányozók fordulatos történetét az elmúlt két évtizedben. Bemutatjuk, hogy a közgazdaságtan egy kevéssé fejlett ága miképp szembesült a tudományág egésze szempontjából is talán legnehezebb értelmezési és alkalmazási kérdéseket fölvető történelmi folyamattal. Megpróbáljuk feloldani azt a rejtvényt, hogy a főáramú megközelítés megismerése és alkalmazása miért nem hozott átütő eredményt sem a térség gazdaságainak, sem magának a tudományszaknak. Megvizsgáljuk a fokozatosság és a reformok kritikus tömege viszonyát. Végül kísérletet teszünk arra, hogy e sajátos szakterület elemzéséből adódó, tartósnak bizonyuló tételeket beépítsük a fenntartható fejlődés szélesebben értelmezett, immár főáramú megközelítéseibe. ___________ The article attempts to give an account of the changes of system in Central and Eastern Europe and of those who studied them in the last two decades. It shows how a less devel-oped branch of economics faced a historical process that posed possibly the most difficult questions of interpretation and application for the whole discipline. An attempt is made to discover why recognition and application of the mainstream approach failed to bring resounding success for the economies of the region or for economics itself. The author examines the relation between continuity and the critical weight of reforms. Finally, an attempt is made to advance durable propositions based on analysis of this specific field through now mainstream approaches in terms of sustainable development.