Murali Krishnamurthi

Assessing Multicultural Initiatives in Higher Education Institutions

As educational institutions engage in promoting multiculturalism on campuses, it becomes essential to assess the quality and success of those initiatives. In this paper, the plan being implemented at Northern Illinois University to assess multicultural initiatives is described. The plan is to ensure that faculty, staff, and students participate and benefit from multicultural curricular and related program, courses and curricula continue to be multiculturally transformed, multicultural curricular transformation and support program needs are being met, students obtain and demonstrate the necessary multicultural competencies, and the campus is supportive of multicultural initiatives at all levels of the university. The paper describes the range of multicultural initiatives pursued in higher education institutions and the considerations necessary in assessing such initiatives. The plan described in this paper makes use of existing assessment mechanisms and as well as a few new ones designed and implemented in several phases. The results and findings from the assessment along with recommendations for improving the initiatives are discussed in this paper. The paper concludes with a discussion on the real challenges of the plan and issues to consider when assessing multicultural initiatives in a higher education institution.

Quality monitoring of continuous flow processes

Abstract In this research, existing quality control techniques for monitoring continuous flow processes are evaluated. Autocorrelation is a common characteristic of continuous flow process data, and the effect of the autocorrelated data is modelled as an autoregressive time series model of order one or two. The process is simulated on the computer for various process parameters, and the effectiveness of a given statistical process control technique for detecting known process disturbances is evaluated by determining the average run length. Due to the limitations of existing statistical process control techniques, a recursive Kalman filter is proposed as an alternative for eliminating the autocorrelation from the process data. The modelled manufacturing process, the computer simulation results, and the recursive Kalman filter are summarized in this paper.

An expert system framework for machine fault diagnosis

Abstract This research focuses on two major issues related to the design, development, and implementation of machine fault diagnosis expert systems: (1) investigation of the actual cognitive process of human diagnostic experts, and (2) analysis of the current practices in the development of machine fault diagnosis expert systems. The investigation of the human diagnostic reasoning process has resulted in the abstraction and capturing of the human ability to learn, understand, and diagnose different machinery belonging to a particular class. The captured abstraction of human diagnostic expertise have been integrated with the expert system development expertise of knowledge engineers to provide a customized expert system shell for developing machine fault diagnosis expert systems. The designed machine fault diagnosis shell reduces the development time, effort and skill making use of generalized modules for knowledge acquisition, knowledge verification, application system generation, learning, explanation, and eliminates the burden of designing and developing each application diagnosis expert system separately. The developed shell has been validated by generating a prototype fault diagnosis expert system for a Cincinnati Milacron 786 robot.

Two approaches to the implementation of a distributed simulation system

This paper describes two approaches to the implementation of distributed simulation currently being pursued at Texas A&M University. The first approach describes the design and the implementation of a distributed simulation system onto a Motorola 68000 based architecture. This approach involves transparently distributing the language support functions of an existing simulation language (GASP) onto multiple processors. The second approach discusses the implementation of simulation support software in a high level distributed processing language. This approach involves the distribution of portions of the simulation model which can be executed in parallel onto multiple processors by the model builder. The paper discusses the details of both the approaches and the current status of their implementation.

Domain-based on-line simulation for real-time decision support

In this research the applicability of on-line simulation systems for real time decision support is explored and the concept of domain based on-line simulation systems is introduced. For the purpose of demonstrating the feasibility of this concept, a prototype domain based on-line simulation has been designed, developed, and implemented. The details of the prototype system and how it could be used to make real-time decisions for various problem situations in a chosen domain are discussed. The implemented on-line simulation system has been validated using an off-line simulation model and the results have been analyzed to evaluate the feasibility and cost effectiveness of developing domain based on-line simulation systems.

Preparing Faculty to Teach Online: Recommendations for Developing Self-Paced Training

As the popularity of online education increases and institutions seek to grow their online offerings to meet student demand, more faculty need to be trained to teach online. Campus offices such as Faculty Development centers are often tasked with training faculty for teaching online, many of whom my be adjuncts who cannot attend in-person training or commit to a specific timeframe for participation. In this paper, a flexible and customizable self-paced training model for preparing faculty to teach online is described and suggestions shared for institutions seeking to offer self-paced online professional development training opportunities for faculty.

Measuring digital professional development: analytics for the use of web and social media

Purpose – As faculty professional development increasingly occurs online and through social media, it becomes challenging to assess the quality of learning and effectiveness of programs and resources, yet it is important to evaluate such initiatives. The purpose of this paper is to explore how one faculty development center experimented with using analytics to answer questions about the use and effectiveness of its web and social media resources. Design/methodology/approach – The case study was based on direct observation of the center’s practice and review of selected data generated by the analytic tools. Findings – Unfortunately, while some analytics are available from a variety of sources, they are often distributed across tools and services. The center developed an analytics strategy to use data from Google Analytics and social media reporting tools to assess the use of online and social professional development resources. Initial results show that the center’s online and social professional developme...

Modeling a Markovian decision process by neural network

Abstract One of the difficulties in generating an optimal policy for systems planning and control by the Markov decision process is that the state transition probabilities must be known a priori. A usual approach to estimate the state transition probabilities is by using historical data. However, if the process is not completely stationary, it may be more convenient to obtain estimates of the transition probabilities by using another approach, namely, parameter adaptation by neural networks. A significant advantage of neural network modeling of the Markovian decision problem is that the temporal nonstationary state transition probabilities can be revised by a parameter learning paradigm. The objective of this paper is to present this approach and demonstrate its applicability by modeling a finite-stage decision problem.

Knowledge acquisition in a machine fault diagnosis shell

The knowledge acquisition tools and techniques discussed in the literature deal primarily with the acquisition of human expertise applied in a particular problem domain. The acquired expertise generally includes both the decision making strategies of the human expert and the descriptions of the application problem. This acquisition process can become quite repetitive and time consuming when developing a number of application expert systems which use similar problem solving expertise but differ only in their application details. In this paper, we address this issue by discussing the details of the knowledge acquisition system we have designed and developed for use in a customized machine fault diagnosis shell. The knowledge acquisition system functions as a module of the diagnosis shell and acquires details of application machinery for which diagnosis expert systems are to be developed. The acquired application specific knowledge is combined in the shell with predefined generalized diagnosis strategies and application diagnosis expert systems are rapidly generated. The designed knowledge acquisition system has been implemented using Lisp on the Symbolic Lisp machine and has been validated by acquiring and verifying the design descriptions of a Cincinnati Milacron 786 robot. In this paper, the issues related to the development of a knowledge acquisition system for a customized problem solving shell, such as the machine fault diagnosis shell, and the details of the implemented knowledge acquisition system are discussed.

Preparing Faculty for Teaching a MOOC: Recommendations from Research and Experience

Due to the increasing popularity of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) more faculty and institutions are exploring MOOCs. Faculty often seek help from campus units such as Faculty Development centers to handle the complexity of factors involved in planning, designing, developing and delivering MOOCs. As a result, Faculty Development centers should be ready to prepare faculty for teaching a MOOC. In this paper, a number of recommendations, based on research and experience, for faculty development staff to follow in helping faculty plan and design a MOOC, and organizational issues to consider are summarized.