Journal of
Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics
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 ISSN: 1690-4524 (Online)    DOI: 10.54808/JSCI



TABLE OF CONTENTS





Basic Study on the Mechanism of Earphone Hearing Loss: About Correlation between Ear Age and Real Age
Hirotoshi Hishida, Yamato Fujii, Atsushi Kawano, Keiko Hishida, Yasuhiro Hishida
Pages: 1-6
ABSTRACT:
Young people around the world are at risk of the earphone hearing loss. To prevent the risk, authors have been studying on the mechanism of the earphone hearing loss in the laboratory since 2010. In the present paper, earphone hearing tests to 46 subjects are carried out to obtain the ear age compared with the real age. The ear deterioration index is proposed to evaluate the effect of earphones quantitatively. For reference, both their accumulated earphone usage time and their favorite genre of the sound source are collected from the subjects to calculate the approximately accumulated sound energy received in their life. The results are as follows. The younger the real age is, the older the ear age is. The ear ages of subjects under the age of 45 exceeds the real ages. The ear degradation index tends to be worse with the accumulated earphone usage time. Ear ages of junior high school boys aged between 13 and 14 are remarkably old. The earphone hearing loss can be explained by the concept of the fatigue fracture.


Quo Vadis Educatio? Emergence of a New Educational Paradigm
Maria Jakubik
Pages: 7-15
ABSTRACT:
Why should education change? In the literature, there are ongoing debates about what education is, what it is not, and what it should be. Therefore, the question Quo vadis educatio? is not new. Nonetheless, new solutions are needed to face new challenges. In the creative and mind economy, pressures from the environment call for a new educational paradigm.

I seek to answer the question: What is a new emerging educational paradigm that can answer the challenges of the 21st century? After exploring a selected range of literature about schools, universities as institutions, education, learning, and teaching, I propose a new educational paradigm. I argue that educational institutions should become more innovative organizations, learning opportunities should be available anytime and anyplace, and learning needs to be made fun and enjoyable. Moreover, I express the needs for an extended epistemology, a synthesis of working and learning, focusing on practitioners as learners, applying a variety of pedagogical approaches, and the need for focusing on values and ethics in educational praxes.


Educational Technology for Laboratory Experiments in Nuclear Physics and Related Sciences
Gustavo Lazarte, Kouichi Julian Andres Cruz, Alejandra Lucia Perez Lucero, Norma Adriana Chautemps, Walter Miguel Keil
Pages: 16-20
ABSTRACT:
In this work, we present a prototype of a Nuclear Radiation Counter simulator, targeted to laboratories teaching Nuclear Physics and related sciences, both in universities and high schools. Its usage is also possible in research centers, for personnel ramp up and training. This equipment simulates data based on real experiments for the elaboration of representative characteristic curves corresponding to different radioactive sources, allowing to experiment without manipulating real radioactive elements. By incorporating this simulator in the multidisciplinary teaching and learning processes in STEM fields, it is possible to run these tests in a simple manner using non-radioactive materials. This, in turn, eliminates the risks inherent to the manipulation of radioactive sources, and reduces the costs and complexity of doing these experiments. Doing experiments allows theoretical contents to be applied in practical situations that lead to involvement in the research, interpretation, integration and communication processes of the obtained results. Simulating the experiments enables to obtain the same experiences for both the student and the professor, especially in situations where it would be significantly more difficult to do the real experiment. This will facilitate sharing knowledge of Nuclear Physics beyond the local scope of the university.


Authentic Experiences: How Active Learning and User-Generated Content Can Immerse University Students in Real Life Situations
Steven Ehrlick, Noah Schwartz, James Slotta
Pages: 21-30
ABSTRACT:
This design-based research study brought the pedagogical methods of active learning and user-generated content into a post-secondary seminar using scripted workshops and scaffolded assignments to immerse students in the real-life experience of working with actual musical artists. The site was a fourth-year undergraduate music business course. It was built upon a social constructivism framework to create a learning community environment, fostered through student blog post discussions on current music industry issues and by way of hands-on work with six musical artists. Student groups created marketing and production artifacts for each artist as needed for their burgeoning careers. In this learning environment, students interacted with music industry stakeholders: musicians, venues, managers and record labels. These tasks culminated in a student conceived, planned and executed live public showcase featuring the artists. The researchers focused on how 21st century skills could be effectively taught in a dynamic active learning environment. Secondarily, the researchers examined the instructor role in the delivery of course content that is largely student-generated. Results indicate that while students achieved most of the stated learning outcomes and experienced an invaluable real-life learning experience, the unpredictable nature of student-generated content and student anxiety associated with real-life activities make future applications of the curricular design challenging for educators who wish to replicate the design. Further research will address the balance between a dynamic learning environment and the ability of instructors to intervene when necessary, without disrupting the model.


DevSecOps Pipeline for Complex Software-Intensive Systems: Addressing Cybersecurity Challenges
Carol Woody, Timothy A. Chick, Aaron Reffett, Scott Pavetti, Richard Laughlin, Brent Frye, Michael Bandor
Pages: 31-36
ABSTRACT:
A major challenge for cybersecurity comes from new technology approaches that focus primarily on the benefits of implementation rather than on defining the governance and risk management changes necessary to establish and enforce appropriate protections. This challenge is especially important for the adoption of technology that impacts critical infrastructure and shared services, such as voting and defense. Researchers examined the challenges and the effective cybersecurity options facing Department of Defense (DoD) programs delivering cyber-physical systems and adopting DevSecOps. These researchers found a lack of broad understanding about the level of management and governance responsibility needed to define and use the DevSecOps pipeline. Adopting DevSecOps is a socio-technical decision that links technology with operational process and practice. Researchers identified several areas that require cross-functional and organizational management attention to fit the pipeline for mission use and considerations to address for producing the system. This paper describes the case study and lessons learned to date.

When a program adopts DevSecOps, it creates and supports two major systems concurrently: (1) the product the program was assigned to produce, and (2) the pipeline the program uses to develop and operationalize the product. Both systems need effective built-in security. In addition, neither the product nor the pipeline can remain static, so the cybersecurity of each must change to ensure sufficiency. The product expands with added functionality, which includes added vulnerabilities that tools and developers must address. The pipeline should be continually refined and improved as new tools and techniques better enable the consistent throughput of new features and capabilities. The focus on functionality and throughput is not sufficient for either system because the threat landscape changes constantly with new attacker capabilities. As a result, the need for improved tools to avoid and remove vulnerabilities from the product become critical. These tools must also be patched since they are software and contain vulnerabilities. As more data about the product is collected through the pipeline, it is critical to tap this information to improve the product and pipeline. However, the pipeline is not a single entity. It is a collection of highly configurable pieces built independently and assembled to perform together.

The increased use of the DevSecOps pipeline to automate software assurance, cybersecurity, and safety compliance transfers the responsibilities for identifying and addressing pipeline and product risks to roles that were not involved in the past. For example, acquirers and maintainers of pipeline tools may now be responsible for the level of verification performed on the product and its associated effectiveness. If the criteria for tool selection remains focused only on cost, availability, and compliance, the expectations for this new responsibility could fall short of stakeholder expectations, especially if structuring the pipeline does not include stakeholder requirements. There is a lack of broad understanding about the level of management and governance responsibility needed to define and assure the responsible use of a DevSecOps pipeline. Our work is focused on bringing these under-addressed areas to light.


Plagiarism in an Online Learning Environment: Reflections on Best Practice Using the Analytical Lens of Behavioural Science
Gerard Creaner, Sinead Creaner
Pages: 37-42
ABSTRACT:
Many universities are facing the prospect of a significant increase in online teaching and assessment for the coming 2020-21 academic year as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. On-campus, in-person delivery and assessment methods are often transposed to an online environment with little modification. This does not always work.

This paper looks at the experience and effectiveness of implementing a standard plagiarism awareness campaign within an online learning environment. It uses the analytical lens of behavioural science to examine the results (where the plagiarism scores for almost 20% of the adult learners were High due to poor referencing abilities) with a view to reducing these scores.

The data set has been gathered over a two-year period with 275 adult learners, coming from a variety of educational and employment backgrounds, with 5 to 25 years of work experience. All were exposed to the same lessons on plagiarism and referencing.

This paper is broadly practitioner research using case studies as illustrative of real-world phenomena. The methodology for comparison draws heavily on Bereday’s model of comparative styles and their predispositions (Bereday, 1964).

This presented the key question: How can the poor referencing abilities of otherwise capable learners be addressed to produce work that is Low plagiarism scoring?

The analytical lens of behavioural science theories (in particular Bounded Rationality and the Framing Effect) suggest some explanations for the poor referencing abilities of otherwise capable learners. Likewise, Nudge Theory, Messenger Effect and Simplification suggest opportunities for insight into how to motivate learners to produce work with lower plagiarism scores.

The key outcome is the suggestion of the need for further research into creating a positive environment for learners to explore referencing and building more credible arguments through the proper use of Subject Matter Experts (SME) opinions that support their own, rather than the current situation where referencing is seen as a box-ticking exercise that results in punishment if not done correctly.



Reflections on Translation Empirical Studies by Peirce’s Abduction Theory (Invited Paper)
Li Gao, Jiahong Guo
Pages: 43-48
ABSTRACT:
This paper originates from empirical studies of translation process, from the epistemological perspective, we can relate the translation process to how subjective spirit can attach to the external world. To unfold the translation process ontologically and epistemologically, we integrate the logical abduction inference with semantic theory “influence the best explanation”. After a large amount of TAPs data collections and theoretical discussions in translation process empirical studies (including our research), we conclude that a translator dynamically employ both of the subjective translation units and objective translation units during the translation process by combing subjectivity and objectivity physically, mentally and philosophically; As the translating conduction went on --- the proceeding of deverbalization translation strategies and mental lexical access strategies is on, the translators flexibly and frequently appeal to abduction hypothesis and abduction reasoning. We end this paper with a reflection on the experimental design of the translation process empirical study: the Survivor-ship bias points out the judge's bias to high-proficiency participants; and the limitation of inductive reasoning and analogical reasoning lead to the relevant rigor -skepticism. We call for a closer interdisciplinary and a diversity research on philosophy, logic and empirical studies on translation process.


Tourism Profiling: A Semi-automatic Classification Model of Points of Interest
Amarildo Martins de Magalhães, Renata Maria Abrantes Baracho, Thomas Mandl
Pages: 49-56
ABSTRACT:
Reviews are a powerful source of information that helps tourists in their decision-making process. However, using this volume of data to make decisions it is time consuming. For example, the city Foz do Iguaçu, located in Brazil, has more than 44k reviews on TripAdvisor. Based on these opinions, how could a tourist understand if this attraction is good for families, a romantic date, or if it offers a good outdoor experience? Moreover, which other attractions could offer similar experiences? These questions motivated this research, as we try to address the problem of classifying tourism attractions/destinations in profiles. We proposed a hybrid approach, using experts’ knowledge and machine-learning with semi-automatic classification models to solve the problem. This paper presents a new approach to classify tourism attractions in profiles using reviews. Our findings show that, the most visited places are not necessarily the most relevant to a specific profile and as such the corresponding group of tourists. Understanding these profiles can aid the discovery or the selection of a travel destination. In addition, it allows governments and the private sector to target tourism marketing actions in the most assertive way.


Experimental Validation of the DSTATCOM Based on SiC-MOSFET Multilevel Converter for Reactive Power Compensation
Raúl Gregor, Julio Pacher, Alfredo Renault, Leonardo Comparatore, Jorge Rodas
Pages: 57-61
ABSTRACT:
Power quality problems are associated, among other things, with the reactive power generated at the AC side in distribution systems. In this regard, the three-phase distribution static compensator is becoming a viable alternative in order to achieve reactive power compensation or in other words to obtain a unity power factor. This paper introduces the experimental validation of the distribution static compensator based on a 7-level cascade H-Bridge converter. The experimental test bench is based on the silicon carbide metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor devices. The results are obtained by using a fixed switching frequency model-based predictive controller based on a pulse-width modulation strategy. The proposed design is implemented to mitigate power quality issues induced by reactive load and experimental results are provided to show the performance of the proposed controller.


Time Series Modeling of Lifespans of Earth Satellites
Venkata Jaipal Reddy Batthula, Richard S. Segall, Daniel Berleant, Venkat Kodali, Michael Howell, Hyacinthe Aboudja
Pages: 62-67
ABSTRACT:
Numerous countries have satellites for various needs like communication, weather forecasting and security. The first satellite was launched into space in 1957. Thousands of satellites’ lifetimes have already ended but many of these satellites are still in orbit although no longer functional. Nevertheless, satellite technology is improving compared with the past. We seek to understand trends in improvements to satellites related to their lifespans better, using a new dataset that has not been available before for this article, as part of a project that also analyzes other relevant data sets.

The main aim of this paper is to analyze the satellite data with data visualization tools and find some significant patterns in the data. The paper explores the average lifespan of satellites over the period of artificial satellites, 1957 to present.


Automation of Manual Tasks to Reduce Musculoskeletal Problems and Absenteeism in a Cork Company
Alfredo Silva, Ana Luísa Ferreira Andrade Ramos, Marlene Brito, António Ramos
Pages: 68-73
ABSTRACT:
Although there has been an improvement in working conditions over time, as well as incentive policies, absenteeism due to occupational diseases is still one of the main issues companies have to deal with, mainly in intensive hand work labor.

This study was conducted at a Portuguese cork stoppers company, faced with a situation of high absenteeism which results in an annual loss of 1,200,000€. It aims to evaluate the company’s workstations with greater absenteeism related to musculoskeletal diseases and suggests adequate ergonomic working conditions for those workplaces. Measures such as the automation of a process are also implemented. This automation, however, results in some problems related to decreases in quality and relocation of employees.

Although the automation of the manual tasks avoids many issues related to musculoskeletal diseases, it raises other problems for companies which are difficult to manage, such as the relocation of workers and the resistance to change and new knowledge acquisition by older and more experienced workers. This work reinforces the strategic role of ergonomics in the context of absenteeism in intensive hand work labor industry.


Information Security at Schools: A Practical Game-Based Application with Sustained Impact
Margit Scholl, Regina Schuktomow
Pages: 74-85
ABSTRACT:
The process of awareness raising should be seen as an important factor in enhancing knowledge of information security issues and developing appropriate behavior in response to them. In the project described here, this is carried out by means of awareness training based on experience-oriented learning scenarios, coaching, and mentoring concepts. These have been partially modified or newly developed on the basis of previous projects, drawing on concrete everyday school situations, using appropriate language, and applying three different levels of difficulty. A total of about 600 pupils from five pilot schools in Berlin and Brandenburg are participating in this research project. In the classes involved, information events, online surveys, trainings, and creative workshops were offered.

Attempts are also being made to train teachers and provide parents with information to help ensure an ongoing impact in schools with long-term effects. Pupils were able to take the exam for the IT security module of the International Computer Driving License. One teacher per pilot school was able to take part in the very extensive training and certification to become an information security officer. After all the trainings and experience-oriented measures that have been carried out, it is clear that teachers have developed and implemented new teaching ideas, and that the important topic of information security has been made more understandable for pupils.