Search Results (147)

Demographic disparities in mathematics proficiency have been a persistent issue in the United States public schools for the entire history of the public school system. Previous research suggests that schools serving predominantly minority students often face challenges related to fewer certified teachers and lower mathematical achievement levels. This paper investigates how school demographic composition and socioeconomic conditions are associated with differences in mathematics achievement across Alabama public schools. Focusing on the relationship between school demographics and teacher qualifications, it examines how racial composition and economic disadvantage impact student outcomes. Data on mathematics proficiency, teacher certification, experience, and school demographics were analyzed. T-test results revealed significant differences in mathematics achievement between students attending predominantly white schools and those attending predominantly schools serving historically marginalized populations, including schools serving large proportions of economically disadvantaged students. Although linear regression showed a weak overall correlation between teacher experience and proficiency, the relationship between teacher certification and student performance was significantly different from zero, suggesting a meaningful connection. Full article

Tennis match prediction has been studied extensively, yet the literature offers no controlled comparison of Elo ratings, classical machine learning, and deep neural networks under identical experimental conditions, leaving practitioners without clear guidance on model selection. We address this gap with a unified empirical study on 133,138 professional men’s tennis matches from the Association of Tennis Professionals tour (1968–2024). Four approaches are evaluated on the same temporally split data with a common 16-feature set and an aligned evaluation protocol: an enhanced Elo rating system, ten classical machine learning algorithms, seventeen deep neural network configurations spanning 207,000 to 21,000,000 parameters, and a hybrid Elo–machine learning (ELO-ML) approach that augments classical learners with three Elo-derived features. A tuned Elo baseline alone reaches 65.87% accuracy, the best of ten classical machine learning algorithms reaches 66.30%, seventeen deep neural network configurations cluster at 66.15–66.22%, and the hybrid ELO-ML approach reaches 67.52% (McNemar’s test, $p<0.001$ for all ELO-ML pairwise comparisons). All four approaches sit within a 1.65 pp band whose upper edge lies below the 70–72% accuracy commonly cited for bookmaker odds, indicating that pre-match prediction under universally available features is a difficult task in which Elo alone already captures most of the predictable signal and algorithmic sophistication adds only marginal headroom. Deep neural networks deliver substantially better probability calibration than the other approaches (Expected Calibration Error 0.0077 vs. 0.0142). Model capacity exhibits sharply diminishing returns: all seventeen network configurations, spanning a 100-fold range in parameter count (207,000 to 21,000,000), fall within a 0.07 pp accuracy band. The study establishes a controlled benchmark for tour-level tennis prediction, quantifies how narrow the headroom above Elo actually is, provides modest but consistent empirical support for the statistically enhanced learning framework, and supplies deployment-ready operating points for sports analytics practitioners. Full article

Business Process Management (BPM) process models represent routing behaviour through control-flow constructs, yet BPMN 2.0 does not provide a native mechanism for quantifying uncertainty associated with routing decisions. This study presents the Information Entropy Performance Indicator (IEPI) as a deterministic BPMN analytics artifact for evaluating routing uncertainty under externally specified routing probabilities. The IEPI framework integrates construct-level routing diagnostics, viability assessment, diagnostic flagging, compositional uncertainty propagation, and process-level reporting within a unified analytical workflow. The IEPI engine accepts as input a BPMN 2.0 process representation, a routing-probability map, and analyst-specified viability thresholds. It computes (i) construct-level diagnostics based on normalized entropy and responsiveness, (ii) block-level uncertainty and responsiveness quantities using fixed composition rules for XOR, OR, and LOOP routing constructs, and (iii) a bounded process-level viability-band reporting index. The framework is evaluated using four analytically constructed BPMN authorisation workflows designed to exercise the complete routing-construct taxonomy supported by the artifact. Results demonstrate that construct-level classifications, propagated uncertainty quantities, and process-level IEPI values are well defined and reproducible under fixed inputs. Threshold sensitivity analysis shows that local viability classifications and aggregate reporting outputs vary deterministically with threshold settings and remain consistent with the underlying routing diagnostics. The findings highlight the distinction between uncertainty propagation and viability-band compliance. While propagated uncertainty quantities characterize the accumulation of routing uncertainty within a process structure, the IEPI score provides a reporting-oriented assessment of aggregate compliance with analyst-defined viability criteria. The proposed artifact offers a reproducible and extensible analytical framework for routing-uncertainty evaluation in BPMN-based process models. Full article

Communities under prolonged disruptions operate as interconnected socio-technical systems in which the effectiveness of any response depends not only on local conditions but also on the structural relationships that link communities to one another. This study introduces an agent-based response framework for evaluating policy-driven intervention strategies across such systems. Each community is described by its population, economic conditions, and access to critical services, and is linked to other communities through a social connectivity network that defines the pathways for population movement and channels the spread of disruption stress between regions. The agent-based model then tracks how vulnerable each community is by combining its local conditions with the conditions of the communities it is most connected to, and it measures the toll of any disruption through a single social cost metric that weighs lost access to healthcare, retail, and food services. The framework is instantiated using county-level COVID-19 data for Illinois, treated as an exogenous hazard input, and evaluated through Monte Carlo simulation across risk-averse, risk-neutral, risk-seeking, adaptive, and no-aid policy regimes. Compared with the no-aid baseline, the highest-intensity (risk-averse) regime produced the lowest social cost and the highest level of assistance, while all intervention regimes resulted in lower migration. Adaptive managerial decision-making was shown to offer no consistent advantage over simple proactive rules, suggesting that consistency and speed of allocation, rather than sophistication, drive system-wide outcomes. Full article

Mobile RFID inventory in libraries must be planned and evaluated under noisy observations, configuration-dependent read regimes, and incomplete supervision. This paper presents an uncertainty-aware analytics framework for robot-assisted RFID inventory using the public RFID Location dataset. The framework has three phases. Phase 1 converts irregular list-encoded logs into atomic RFID events and quantifies how operating configuration changes read density and signal variability. Phase 2 performs map-constrained Bayesian shelf inference by synchronizing RFID reads with robot trajectory and antenna geometry and by fusing RSSI and carrier phase over feasible shelf candidates. Phase 3 translates posterior spread and non-convergence into proxy review workload and cost, enabling configuration comparison and certainty–throughput trade-off analysis when strict EPC-to-item linkage is unavailable. Across 688,073 aligned RFID observations, the pipeline produces 18,190 posterior tag estimates from five inventory runs. The empirical results show strong run dependence: the best run achieves a mean posterior spread of 0.906 m with a convergence rate of 0.553, whereas a degraded run reaches only 0.004 convergence with a mean spread above 2.1 m. Because EPC-to-item linkage is unavailable, these values are posterior concentration and workload indicators rather than ground-truthed localization-accuracy metrics. A saved phase-weight ablation further shows that adding phase information substantially sharpens posterior concentration relative to an RSSI-only baseline. Under the proxy workload model, autonomous-S1-P30 provides the most favorable balance among posterior certainty, scan effort, and implied review burden. Full article

Narrative extraction builds coherent ordered sequences of documents that trace how concepts develop over time, and is a growing area of information retrieval. In this work we focus on scientific literature, using a corpus of 3549 IEEE visualization research papers (1990–2022). A natural hypothesis is that augmenting embedding-based pathfinding with explicit domain knowledge should improve narrative quality. We present the Knowledge-Coherence Framework (KCF), which integrates structured metadata from OpenAlex into narrative extraction (building on the Narrative Trails algorithm), and conduct a systematic empirical investigation along three axes: (1) the effect of embedding model choice (MiniLM vs. SPECTER), (2) the effect of knowledge augmentation (with and without, plus sensitivity to the knowledge weight $\alpha$), and (3) the reliability of LLM-based evaluation (cross-agreement among 13 large language models). Throughout, mathematical coherence denotes the geometric mean of angular and topic similarity between consecutive documents along a path—an automatic, model-computed quantity inherited from Narrative Maps and Narrative Trails—while narrative quality refers to the LLM-judged construct. Using up to 600 evaluation pairs, we find that embedding model choice has a large effect on mathematical coherence (SPECTER: 0.94 vs. MiniLM: 0.81) and that, contrary to expectations, knowledge augmentation does not improve LLM-judged narrative quality—it slightly decreases it for both embeddings. Notably, the two notions dissociate: SPECTER produces the most mathematically coherent paths, yet MiniLM paths receive the highest LLM narrative-quality scores (5.87 vs. 5.36 out of 10). Alpha sensitivity analysis over five values ($\alpha \in \{0.0,0.3,0.5,0.7,1.0\}$, 500 pairs) confirms that LLM scores remain essentially flat while mathematical coherence steadily declines with increasing knowledge weight. Cross-model evaluation with 13 LLM judges shows high inter-model agreement (median Pearson $r=0.71$), supporting evaluation reliability. The main practical takeaways are that (i) embedding model choice, not knowledge augmentation, is the more consequential design decision, and (ii) mathematical coherence and LLM-judged narrative quality are distinct optimization targets that practitioners should not conflate. Full article

This article examines the requirements for the successful deployment of business analytics in industry and uses this as a framework to provide a business intelligence perspective on the demise of a case study company, drinks manufacturer HP Bulmer Ltd., resulting in the collapse and takeover of the company in 2003. Based on a scoping literature review and a qualitative interpretivist approach, the article investigates the critical success factors for business analytics software projects and classifies these into five main organisational pillars that are required for successful analytics deployment. Then, using documents available in the public domain, the article examines the case study of HP Bulmer Ltd., which used analytics software in the 1990s and early 2000s as the company attempted to establish itself as a global drinks manufacturer. The article reports on how the company struggled to put the necessary pillars in place for successful use of their analytics systems, but having finally achieved this, then failed to take the necessary decisions to steer the company towards profitability as opposed to rapid growth in turnover. The article uses the case study to reflect on the key aspects of analytics technology deployment and the wider field of digitalisation and digital transformation, and points to the critical importance of political will to formulate and steer data-informed strategy. The research contributes to the development of theory regarding analytics deployment and will be of value to practitioners faced with the challenges of implementing analytics systems in industry. Full article

This study explores the intricate behavioral consumer psychology dynamics of how certain elements—color, price, gender differences, and the concept of the frequency illusion—affect emotions, brand awareness, and consumer decision-making in a digital environment. Going beyond conventional analyses, this study also explores the intersection of sustainable business practices, elucidating the potential for ethical, environmentally conscious, and business-sustainable decision-making. Utilizing a quantitative method and survey data from 207 respondents, this research contributes to a more profound level of understanding of consumer decision-making in the Lebanese retail sector, offering strategic insights for organizations seeking to enhance brand recognition, while aligning with responsible and sustainable practices in today’s dynamic and competitive environment. The study found that psychological cues—color, price, gender differences, and frequency illusion—significantly influence emotions, brand awareness, and consumer decision-making in retail. Future research should examine the tensions in consumer decision-making, where brand awareness and emotional cues can simultaneously facilitate and bias choices, with effects contingent on exposure, demographic characteristics, digital fluency, and cultural context. Full article

This paper uses visualization techniques to analyze the learning process of six machine learning classifiers for multichannel time series classification (MTSC), including five deep learning models—1D CNN, CNN-LSTM, ResNet, InceptionTime, and Transformer—and one non-deep learning method, ROCKET. Sixteen datasets from the University of East Anglia (UEA) multivariate time series repository were employed to assess and compare classifier performance. To explore how data characteristics influence accuracy, we applied channel selection, feature selection, and similarity analysis between training and testing sets. Visualization techniques were used to examine the temporal and structural patterns of each dataset, offering insight into how feature relevance, channel informativeness, and group separability affect model performance. The experimental results show that ROCKET achieves the most consistent accuracy across datasets, although its performance decreases with a very large number of channels. Conversely, the Transformer model underperforms in datasets with limited training instances per class. Overall, the findings highlight the importance of visual exploration in understanding MTSC behavior and indicate that channel relevance and data separability have a greater impact on classification accuracy than feature-level patterns. Full article

The Spanish Public University System (SUPE) assigns student placements through a multi-step application process governed by legal criteria. Analyzing how students move between different degree programs during this process is crucial for universities to optimize and plan their academic offerings. This paper analyzes a decade of student pre-registration data (2014–2023) to track evolving preferences and mobility between degrees. We model this process as a directed graph, mapping student traffic and studying the formation of directional communities within the degree network. A significant challenge is the weakly connected and poorly conditioned nature of these graphs, which impedes standard community detection algorithms. Extending prior work that relied on manually set thresholds for pruning edges, we propose a novel adaptive pruning algorithm that requires no manual intervention. Applying this method to annual data improves community detection performance and reveals gradual shifts in student preferences and demand, particularly in response to new degrees. These insights provide a valuable decision-making tool for higher education institutions, helping them refine their degree offerings in response to evolving trends. Full article

Operations scheduling of mass customized products is vital in the modern make-to-order (MTO) supply chains. In these systems, order acceptance decisions should be coordinated with available capacity in different sections of the supply chain while considering their potential correlations and interactions. One of the fundamental challenges in optimization of these systems is the computation time of solving models with multiple coupling constraints between supply chain units. This paper addresses this issue by proposing a game-based framework that decomposes the related mixed integer programming mathematical model and it is coordinated and solved using integrated game-based Alternating Direction Method of Multipliers (ADMM). The proposed Stackelberg Leader-Follower game optimizes order acceptance decisions while considering the requirements in supply, production planning, maintenance, inventory, and distribution units. To validate the efficiency of the proposed framework, the model is tested with a simulated four-layer supply chain. The results of experiments proved that decompositions of the model to smaller subsections and solving it in a distributed manner not only optimizes supply chain participating units but also coordinate their movements to achieve the global optimal solution. The proposed framework offers managers a practical decision layer that preserve local autonomy of the supply chain units and reduce their data sharing and computation burdens and concerns. Full article

The evaluation of student performance often relies on basic spreadsheet outputs that provide limited insight into item functioning. This study presents a methodological demonstration showing how widely available spreadsheet software can be transformed into a practical environment for psychometric analysis. Using a simulated dataset of 40 students responding to 20 dichotomous items, spreadsheet formulas were developed to compute descriptive statistics and Classical Test Theory (CTT) indices, including item difficulty, discrimination, and corrected item–total correlations. The demonstration was extended to Item Response Theory (IRT) through the implementation of 1PL, 2PL, and 3PL logistic models using forward-calculated item parameters. A smaller dataset of 10 students and 10 items was used to illustrate the interpretability of the indices and the generation of Item Characteristic Curves (ICCs). Results show that spreadsheets can support teachers in in-terpreting test data beyond total scores, enabling the identification of weak items, refinement of distractors, and construction of small-scale item banks aligned with competence-based curricula. The approach contributes to Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4) by promoting accessible, equitable, and high-quality assessment practices. Limitations include the instability of IRT parameter estimation in small samples and the need for teacher training. Future research should apply the approach to real classroom data, explore automation within spreadsheet environments, and examine the integration of artificial intelligence for adaptive assessment. Full article

Accurate assignment of International Classification of Diseases (ICD) codes is essential for healthcare analytics, billing, and clinical research. However, manual coding remains time-consuming and error-prone due to the scale and complexity of the ICD taxonomy. While hierarchical deep learning approaches have improved automated coding, their deployment across large taxonomies raises scalability and efficiency concerns. To address these limitations, we introduce the Augmented Decision Tree (ADT) framework, which integrates deep learning with symbolic rule-based logic for automated medical coding. ADT employs an automated lexical screening mechanism to dynamically select the most appropriate modeling strategy for each decision node, thereby minimizing manual configuration. Nodes with high keyword distinctiveness are handled by symbolic rules, while semantically ambiguous nodes are assigned to deep contextual models fine-tuned from PubMedBERT. This selective design eliminates the need to train a deep learning model at every node, significantly reducing computational cost. A case study demonstrates that this hybrid and adaptive ADT approach supports scalable and efficient ICD coding. Experimental results show that ADT outperforms a pure decision tree baseline and achieves accuracy comparable to that of a full deep learning-based decision tree, while requiring substantially less training time and computational resources. Full article

Choosing sites for solar photovoltaic (PV) power plants in developing countries like India is a crucial task while considering multiple conflicting factors and sub-factors simultaneously. Multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) is an optimisation method that provides a framework for handling such situations in an intuitionistic fuzzy environment. The complexity and uncertainty associated with the site selection model are dealt with professionally. The Criteria Importance Through Intercriteria Correlation (CRITIC) method is applied to determine the relative importance of the criteria, identifying airflow speed as the most influential factor, followed by humidity ratio, level of dust haze, availability of labour and resources, and ecological effects. This shows that airflow speed plays an important role in the power plant’s efficiency and performance. The Vlse Kriterijumska Optimizacija I Kompromisno Rešenje (VIKOR) method is then used to prioritise the alternatives as potential locations for setting up a solar PV power plant in India. A new de-i-fuzzification method based on the relative difference between two real numbers is also proposed. Sensitivity analyses and comparative studies are conducted to assess the robustness and effectiveness of the framework. Overall, the results demonstrate that the proposed framework is useful and effective for optimising site selection for solar power plants in India. Full article

Aim: Stock price prediction remains a highly challenging task due to the complex and nonlinear nature of financial time series data. While deep learning (DL) has shown promise in capturing these nonlinear patterns, its effectiveness is often hindered by the low signal-to-noise ratio inherent in market data. This study aims to enhance the stock predictive performance and trading outcomes by integrating Singular Spectrum Analysis (SSA) with deep learning models for stock price forecasting and strategy development on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX)50 index. Method: The proposed framework begins by applying SSA to decompose raw stock price time series into interpretable components, effectively isolating meaningful trends and eliminating noise. The denoised sequences are then used to train a suite of deep learning architectures, including Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN), Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM), and hybrid CNN-LSTM models. These models are evaluated based on their forecasting accuracy and the profitability of the trading strategies derived from their predictions. Results: Experimental results demonstrated that the SSA-DL framework significantly improved the prediction accuracy and trading performance compared to baseline DL models trained on raw data. The best-performing model, SSA-CNN-LSTM, achieved a Sharpe Ratio of 1.88 and a return on investment (ROI) of 67%, indicating robust risk-adjusted returns and effective exploitation of the underlying market conditions. Conclusions: The integration of Singular Spectrum Analysis with deep learning offers a powerful approach to stock price prediction in noisy financial environments. By denoising input data prior to model training, the SSA-DL framework enhanced signal clarity, improved forecast reliability, and enabled the construction of profitable trading strategies. These findings suggested a strong potential for SSA-based preprocessing in financial time series modeling. Full article