abstract: Online learning communities have changed the way users learn due to the technological affordances web 2.0 has offered. This shift has produced different kinds of learning communities like massive open online courses (MOOCs), learning management systems (LMS) and question and answer based learning communities. Question and answer based communities are an important part of social information seeking. Thousands of users participate in question and answer based communities on the web like Stack Overflow, Yahoo Answers and Wiki Answers. Research in user participation in different online communities identifies a universal phenomenon that a few users are responsible for answering a high percentage of questions and thus promoting the sustenance of a learning community. This principle implies two major categories of user participation, people who ask questions and those who answer questions. In this research, I try to look beyond this traditional view, identify multiple subtler user participation categories. Identification of multiple categories of users helps to provide specific support by treating each of these groups of users separately, in order to maintain the sustenance of the community. In this thesis, participation behavior of users in an open and learning based question and answer community called OpenStudy has been analyzed. Initially, users were grouped into different categories based on the number of questions they have answered like non participators, sample participators, low, medium and high participators. In further steps, users were compared across several features which reflect temporal, content and question/thread specific dimensions of user participation including those suggestive of learning in OpenStudy. The goal of this thesis is to analyze user participation in three steps: a. Inter group participation analysis: compare pre assumed user groups across the participation features extracted from OpenStudy data. b. Intra group participation analysis: Identify sub groups in each category and examine how participation differs within each group with help of unsupervised learning techniques. c. With these grouping insights, suggest what interventions might support the categories of users for the benefit of users and community. This thesis presents new insights into participation because of the broad range of features extracted and their significance in understanding the behavior of users in this learning community. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Computer Science 2015

Data Quality (DQ) has been a long-standing concern for a number of stakeholders in a variety of domains. It has become a critically important factor for the effectiveness of organisations and individuals. Previous work on DQ methodologies have mainly focused on either the analysis of structured data or the business-process level rather than analysing the data itself. Question and Answer Reports (QAR) are gaining momentum as a way to collect responses that can be used by data analysts, for instance, in business, education or healthcare. Various stakeholders benefit from QAR such as data brokers and data providers, and in order to effectively analyse and identify the common DQ problems in these reports, the various stakeholders' perspectives should be taken into account which adds another complexity for the analysis. This thesis investigates DQ in QAR through an in-depth DQ analysis and provide solutions that can highlight potential sources and causes of problems that result in "low-quality" collected data. The thesis proposes a DQ methodology that is appropriate for the context of QAR. The methodology consists of three modules: question analysis, medium analysis and answer analysis. In addition, a Question Design Support (QuDeS) framework is introduced to operationalise the proposed methodology through the automatic identification of DQ problems. The framework includes three components: question domain-independent profiling, question domain-dependent profiling and answers profiling. The proposed framework has been instantiated to address one example of DQ issues, namely Multi-Focal Question (MFQ). We introduce MFQ as a question with multiple requirements; it asks for multiple answers. QuDeS-MFQ (the implemented instance of QuDeS framework) has implemented two components of QuDeS for MFQ identification, these are question domain-independent profiling and question domain-dependent profiling. The proposed methodology and the framework are designed, implemented and evaluated in the context of the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) case study. The experiments show that we can identify MFQs with 90% accuracy. This thesis also demonstrates the challenges including the lack of domain resources for domain knowledge representation, such as domain ontology, the complexity and variability of the structure of QAR, as well as the variability and ambiguity of terminology and language expressions and understanding stakeholders or users need.

In concept, online communities allow people to access the wide range of knowledge and abilities of a heterogeneous group of users. In reality, current implementations of various online communities suffer from a lack of participation by the most qualified users. The participation of qualified users, or experts, is crucial to the social welfare and widespread adoption of such systems. This research proposes techniques for identifying the most valuable contributors to several classes of online communities, including question and answer (QA) forums and other content-oriented social networks. Once these target users are identified, content recommendation and novel quantitative incentives can be used to encourage their participation. This research represents an in-depth investigation into QA systems, while the major findings are widely applicable to online communities in general. An algorithm for recommending content in a QA forum is introduced which can route questions to the most appropriate responders. This increases the efficiency of the system and reduces the time investment of an expert responder by eliminating the need to search for potential questions to answer. This recommender is analyzed using real data captured from Yahoo! Answers. Additionally, an incentive mechanism for QA systems based on a novel class of incentives is developed. This mechanism relies on systemic rewards, or rewards that have tangible value within the framework of the online community. This research shows that human users have a strong preference for reciprocal systemic rewards over traditional rewards, and a simulation of a QA system based on an incentive that utilizes these reciprocal rewards outperforms a leading incentive mechanism according to expert participation. An architecture is developed for a QA system built upon content recommendation and this novel incentive mechanism. This research shows that it is possible to identify the most valuable contributors to an online community and motivate their participation through a novel incentive mechanism based on meaningful rewards. / text

This master thesis studies teenage users that are common to the semi-anonymous question and answer platform Sayat.me. Sayat.me offers users with a profile the possibility to receive questions and feedback from friends and peers. What is so special about the platform is that the commenters’ identity remains undisclosed, which means that all messages are by default anonymous. Previous research has demonstrated the frequent occurrence of cyberbullying or online abuse on these platforms. Adults are puzzled as to why semi-anonymous question and answer platforms are so popular amongst teenagers. Departing from a theoretical framework with key concepts from digital and social media theories, the analysis tries to create a better understanding of this phenomenon from Belgian teenagers’ point of view. The results of the interviews show that, first of all, Sayat.me is not considered as an independent social media site, but rather as an extension of it. On social media, ‘sociality’ and ‘connection’ is what matters, but on Sayat.me sociality mainly plays an indirect role where users receive compliments from and are comforted by friends. Compliments, approval and admiration is what teenagers keeps coming back to the platform. Although teenagers often encounter online abuse, they do not feel cyberbullied, even so they consider this abuse as ‘natural’ on the platform. In addition, it appears that the way you are handling Sayat.me says a lot about you as a person, which is why teens use Sayat.me to present themselves or to portray a certain image. However, teenagers only imagine their friends or peers as the audience and do not consider their Sayat.me for their parents’ eyes. The situation is that parents are confused and do not understand their children’s online behaviour, whilst teenagers are annoyed with their parents’ incomprehension and overprotectiveness.

Submitted by Lucienne Costa (lucienneferreira@ufcg.edu.br) on 2018-04-30T19:24:01Z No. of bitstreams: 1 NIGINI ABILIO OLIVEIRA – TESE (PPGCC) 2017.pdf: 1277477 bytes, checksum: a8ef0f0459a6aacf859888c83f4ffde5 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-04-30T19:24:01Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 NIGINI ABILIO OLIVEIRA – TESE (PPGCC) 2017.pdf: 1277477 bytes, checksum: a8ef0f0459a6aacf859888c83f4ffde5 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-05-04 / Os sites de Perguntas e Respostas (Q&A) têm o objetivo de solucionar os problemas de seus participantes fornecendo ferramentas para que eles criem colaborativamente respostas para perguntas feitas, construindo assim um repositório de conhecimento pesquisável. Mais do que um repositório de informações, esses ambientes são comunidades de pessoas que interagem em torno do conhecimento criado. No entanto, como os colaboradores estão espalhados por todo o mundo, estes tendem a não compartilhar o mesmo contexto socioeconômico e cultural. Essas diferenças podem criar barreiras ou oportunidades de colaboração, e a falta de observação dessas diferenças pode resultar em comunidades menos diversificadas e produtivas. Esta pesquisa baseia-se na premissa de que ambientes online abertamente disponíveis podem ser projetados para apoiar igualmente o engajamento de comunidades culturalmente diversas e visa melhorar o conhecimento sobre como fazê-lo no caso de sites de Q&A. Embora o sucesso dos ambientes de perguntas e respostas online dependa da participação dos usuários, a literatura mostra que o número de contribuições varia entre os países, além de estarem associados a valores culturais regionais. Nós seguimos estes resultados para examinar: (1) se tais diferenças se mantêm em dois sites populares não explorados previamente; (2) Se as diferenças na participação dos grupos nacionais também ocorrem porque alguns países têm uma porcentagem maior de usuários que estão dispostos a contribuir; e (3) Quais valores e perspectivas culturais sobre a colaboração podem orientar a concepção de sites de Q&A e outros ambientes interculturais de produção de conhecimento colaborativo mais inclusivos. Para responder às nossas perguntas de pesquisa usamos uma abordagem de métodos mistos, começando por desenvolver uma exploração quantitativa da participação dos grupos nacionais e das explicações significativas para possíveis diferenças. Em seguida, mostramos como essas diferenças podem ser compreendidas através de um estudo qualitativo: uma comparação baseada nos valores humanos segundo a perspectiva dos projetistas do site e das preferências dos participantes de três países. Nossa análise quantitativa confirmou resultados anteriores sobre a relação entre cultura nacional – mais especificamente o construto “Individualismo versus Coletivismo” – e diferenças em participação online. / Question and Answer (Q&A) sites have the goal of solving participant’s problems by provid- ing tools for them to collaboratively create answers to posed questions and build a repository of searchable knowledge. More than a repository for information though, these environments are communities of people that interact around the created knowledge. However, because collaborators are spread around the world they tend not to share the same socioeconomic context nor the cultural background. Such differences can either create barriers or opportunities for collaboration, and a lack of observation of these differences might result in less diverse and productive communities. This research is grounded in the perspective that openly-available online environments can be designed to equally support the engagement of culturally diverse communities, and aims to improve the knowledge on how to do so in the case of Q&A sites. While the success of online Question & Answer environments relies on user participation, previous work has shown that the number of contributions varies between countries and that they are also associated with regional cultural values. We follow this lead to examine: (1) If such differences hold for two not previously explored popular Q&A sites; (2) Whether differences in national groups participation also happen because certain countries have a higher percentage of users who are willing to contribute; and (3) What local cultural values and perspectives on collaboration can guide the design of more inclusive Q&A sites and other knowledge-based intercultural peer-production activities. To answer our research questions we use a mixed-methods approach, starting by developing a quantitative exploration of national groups’ participation and the significant explanations for its differences. We then show how these differences can be further understood through a qualitative study, a human values based comparison of the site designers’ perspectives and the participants’ preferences from three national groups. Our quantitative analysis confirm previous results regarding the relation between national culture – more specifically the “Individualism versus Collectivism” construct – and differences in online participation. For instance, we find that the countries with a smaller percentage of participants who engage in answering or commenting to posts are more likely to be from countries that have been shown to be more collectivists (mostly the ones outside North America and Western Europe) or have lower English proficiency indexes. We complement this result with an analysis of interviews with Question & Answer site users from three countries: China, India and United States. Our results show that Indian and Chinese participants seem to search for more social interactions than Americans – an affordance that is in general not supported by the studied sites. This research surfaces the human values inherent to online Question & Answer communities and the existent tensions between different stakeholders collaborating to create high quality knowledge artifacts. Based on that we discuss how specific design decisions on these sites, such as the competitive reward mechanism used to encourage contributions could be changed to encourage currently passive people to contribute. By clarifying the nuanced information underlying the relation between cultural theories and online engagement we hope to contribute to the design of more culturally-aware online environments.

<p>Online communication has increased the need to rapidly interpret complex emotions due to the volatility of the data involved; machine learning tasks that process text, such as sentiment analysis, can help address this challenge by automatically classifying text as positive, negative, or neutral. However, while much research has focused on detecting offensive or toxic language online, there is also a need to explore and understand the ways in which people express positive emotions and support for one another in online communities. This is where sentiment dictionaries and other computational methods can be useful, by analyzing the language used to express support and identifying common patterns or themes.</p> <p><br></p> <p>This research was conducted by compiling data from social question and answering around machine learning on the site Stack Exchange. Then a classification model was constructed using binary logistic regression. The objective was to discover whether predictions of marked solutions are accurate by treating the comments as reviews. Measuring collaboration signals may help capture the nuances of language around support and assistance, which could have implications for how people understand and respond to expressions of help online. By exploring this topic further, researchers can gain a more complete understanding of the ways in which people communicate and connect online.</p>

Submitted by Emanuel Varela Cardoso (emanuel.varela@ufcg.edu.br) on 2018-09-27T17:47:55Z No. of bitstreams: 1 CARLOS ALBERTO DE SOUZA FILHO - TESE (PPGEEI) 2017.pdf: 5845823 bytes, checksum: 59b31ed9bad1da32c8a58176ef374a61 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-09-27T17:47:55Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 CARLOS ALBERTO DE SOUZA FILHO - TESE (PPGEEI) 2017.pdf: 5845823 bytes, checksum: 59b31ed9bad1da32c8a58176ef374a61 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-03-28 / CNPq / Este trabalho apresenta o desenvolvimento de um sistemamultianalítico portátil baseado em Ressonância de Plasmons de Superfície (SPR). A solução proposta visa transformar um dispositivo computacional portátil comercial existente, como smartphones, tablets e notebooks, em um instrumento capaz de analisar substâncias orgânicas e inorgânicas. Desta forma minimiza-se consideravelmente o custo comparado aos dispositivos convencionais baseados em SPR, além de proporcionar a utilização em locais remotos e abrir a possibilidade da utilização por usuários nas mais diversas aplicações, como por exemplo realização de exames residenciais para prevenção de doenças e análise da qualidade da água. Foi demonstrado que é possível utilizar a própria tela do dispositivo para gerar a luz que excita o efeito SPR, o que torna o sistema flexível para modificar o comprimento de onda da luz utilizada e obter informações adicionais em relação aos sistemas convencionais. Os resultados obtidos comprovaram que é possível excitar o efeito SPR através de uma luz policromática para o modo de interrogação angular, encontrando a influência da componente do comprimento de onda desejada através de um filtro realizado por software no sinal de imagem captado. Além disto foi proposta a utilização da análise morfológica da curva SPR para identificação da substância a ser medida, o que reduz a complexidade computacional e aumenta a sensibilidade do instrumento. Os resultados obtidos com a análise morfológica demonstraram a possibilidade de identificação de características não observadas com o monitoramento da condição de ressonância. Com o monitoramento dos valores da largura T e assimetria da curva G , foi possível observar efeitos da variação do soluto e das condições da superfície. Para minimizar o efeito das variáveis espúrias, foi proposto um modelo matemático que permite analisar a relação sinal ruído do sistema decomposto em cada componente básico. Neste modelo foi considerado as variáveis de controles disponíveis, como corrente de injeção e tempo de integração, além da influência da temperatura. Com base neste modelo foi demonstrado que a variação do comprimento de onda da fonte de luz é mais crítica do que a temperatura. Desta forma, foram propostas duas alternativas para controlar a fonte de luz, modificando o valor da corrente para manter constante o comprimento de onda sem a necessidade do controle da temperatura. / This work presents the development of a Surface Plasmon Resonance (SPR) portable system. The proposed solution aims to transform a portable commercial computing device, such as smartphone, tablet or a notebook, in an instrument able to analyze organic and inorganic substances. In this way considerably reduces the cost compared with conventional devices based on SPR , besides providing the use in remote locations and turn possible to applying in several purposes by any users, such as residencial exams for disease prevention and water quality analysis. It was demonstrated the possibility to use the device’s screen to generate the light source for excite the SPR effect, which turns the system flexible to modify the light wavelength used and acquire additional information compared to conventional systems. The results showed that it is possible to excite SPR effect through a polychromatic light to the angular interrogation mode, finding the desired influence of wavelength component using a software filter in captured image signal. Furthermore it was proposed to use SPR curve morphological analysis for substance identification to be measured, which reduces the computational complexity and increases the instrument sensitivity. The morphological analysis results demonstrated the possibility of identify characteristics didn’t observed by monitoring the resonance condition. Monitoring the values of the SPR line broadening Gamma and asymmetry G, it was observed effects of changes in solute and surface conditions. To minimize the spurious variables effect, it was proposed a mathematical model that allow analyze the signal noise relationship of the system that was decomposed in each basic component. In this model was considered the control variables available, as light source’s current and camera integration time, further the temperature influence. Based in this model it was demonstrated that light source wavelength drifts is more critical than temperature effect. Thus it was proposed two ways for control the light source, changing the current for maintain constant the wavelength without temperature control.

В рамках работы были исследованы методы построения систем планирования и управления предприятием класса ERP-систем. Цель работы – разработка программного инструмента в «1С: ERP Управление предприятием 2», позволяющего вести учет всех заказов, предстоящих и уже выполняющихся на предприятии. В ходе исследования был разработан рабочий прототип учета и планирования производства заказов на предприятии по производству литий-ионных аккумуляторов с использованием ERP-системы «1С-Предприятие». / Within the framework of this work, a study was made of the existing types of scheduler and enterprise resources planning system methods. An analysis of the existing question-answer systems was carried out. The goal of work id development software tool for schedule and resources planning for order control and management of laity-ions buttery base on ERP-system “1C: ERP Enterprise”. In the course of the study, a working prototype of schedule and resources planning for order control and management base on ERP-system “1C: ERP Enterprise” was developed.

В рамках работы были исследованы методы построения систем планирования и застройки садовых, земельных участков. Цель работы – разработка программного инструмента, позволяющего решать планирования застройки садового участка с учетом ограничений в части пожарной безопасности и санитарных норм. В качестве основы разработки экспертной системы планирования использовались продукционная модель представления знаний и язык Python. / Within the framework of this work, a study was made of the existing types of planning of garden plot development. An analysis of the existing planning systems was carried out. The goal of work id development software tool for planning of garden plot development with limitations of fire security and sanitary norms. Planning expert system based on production knowledge base and Python language.

The Linz Center of Mechatronics’ SymSpace platform is designed to provide intelligent design and training for the traditional engineer training and industrial design approach in the field of motor design, which relies on the engineer’s own experience and manual work. This paper first analyzes and explores the usage patterns and possible improvement perspectives of motor design components using SymSpace user data. Then an attempt is made to summarize the motor design manual provided by LCM using a text summary model and use it for training engineers. Next, a question-and-answer system model was used to try to provide an aid system for engineers in design. The evaluation of text summaries and question and answer systems is difficult in the motor design domain because the amount of redundant textual information in this domain is small and key information is often presented in detail rather than in the main stem of the sentence. In this case, instead of evaluating the model using traditional machine scores, this paper refers to the feedback from LCM experts as future users. The final results show that, despite the problems of difficulty in explaining the reasons; the possibility of being misleading; and the loss of information details, both attempts are generally positive and the exploration in this direction is worthwhile. / Symspace från Linz Center of Mechatronics är utformad för att tillhandahålla intelligent design och utbildning för den traditionella ingenjörsutbildningen och den industriella designmetoden inom motorkonstruktion, som bygger på ingenjörens egen erfarenhet och manuellt arbete. I den här artikeln analyseras och utforskas först användningsmönster och möjliga förbättringsperspektiv för komponenter för motorkonstruktion med hjälp av användaruppgifter från Symspace. Därefter görs ett försök att sammanfatta den motorkonstruktionshandbok som tillhandahålls av LCM med hjälp av en modell för textsammanfattningar och använda den för att utbilda ingenjörer. Därefter användes en modell för ett system med frågor och svar för att försöka tillhandahålla ett hjälpsystem för ingenjörer vid konstruktion. Utvärderingen av textsammanfattningar och fråga-och-svar-system är svår inom motorkonstruktionsområdet eftersom mängden överflödig textinformation inom detta område är liten och nyckelinformation ofta presenteras i detalj snarare än i huvudstammen av meningen. I det här fallet hänvisar den här artikeln i stället för att utvärdera modellen med hjälp av traditionella maskinpoäng till feedback från LCM-experter som framtida användare. De slutliga resultaten visar att trots problemen med svårigheten att förklara orsakerna, möjligheten att vara vilseledande och förlusten av informationsdetaljer är båda försöken generellt sett positiva och att utforskningen i denna riktning är värd att fortsätta.