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The final year design project is one of the most important components of any undergraduate engineering program. Fair and efficient project allocation procedures can be vital in ensuring a great student experience and exceptional learning out of these projects, which then could contribute in shaping students' future prospects. In this paper, we review a wide range of project allocation strategies used in various universities at undergraduate levels. We then focus on the project allocations in transnational education (TNE) contexts, which inherit additional allocation challenges. We highlight these challenges and provide recommendations to solve them. We present and compare project allocation strategies adopted at two of the largest TNE programs in China. We also present the factors that influence the project allocations, particularly regarding TNE provisions. Finally, we describe the challenges associated with the project allocations in the TNE scenario, along with proposing some feasible solutions to address these challenges.

Human activity recognition (HAR) using wearable sensors enables continuous monitoring for healthcare applications. However, the conventional centralised training of deep learning models on sensor data poses challenges related to privacy, communication costs, and on-device efficiency. This paper proposes a federated learning framework integrating spiking neural networks (SNNs) with long short-term memory (LSTM) networks for energy-efficient and privacy-preserving HAR. The hybrid spiking-LSTM (S-LSTM) model synergistically combines the event-driven efficiency of SNNs and the sequence modelling capability of LSTMs. The model is trained using surrogate gradient learning and backpropagation through time, enabling fully supervised end-to-end learning. Extensive evaluations of two public datasets demonstrate that the proposed approach outperforms LSTM, CNN, and S-CNN models in accuracy and energy efficiency. For instance, the proposed S-LSTM achieved an accuracy of 97.36% and 89.69% for indoor and outdoor scenarios, respectively. Furthermore, the results also showed a significant improvement in energy efficiency of 32.30%, compared to simple LSTM. Additionally, we highlight the significance of personalisation in HAR, where fine-tuning with local data enhances model accuracy by up to 9% for individual users. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to demonstrate the differences in the values of linguistic politeness strategies in the Bugis language inherited by King Bone, Arumpone (abbreviated as AP), and King Wajo, Batara Wajo (abbreviated as BW), respectively through the Latoa Lontara manuscript (Bone) and the Sukku'na Wajo Lontara manuscript. This is very interesting because theoretically (Brown & Levinson, 1978), the dialogue in the two Lontara manuscripts was asymmetrical or hierarchical (the dialogue between the king and the subordinates), so superiors may use the cukuk speech to subordinates. However, this study found that BW used the cukuk speech, while AP did not. The difference in the choice of politeness strategy was that AP chose the type of distance politeness or self-politeness, while BW chose camaraderie politeness. As for subordinates, they should use congaa speech to their superiors in asymmetrical speech situations. However, the facts show that the subordinates of both kings never use the congaa speech to their respective superiors. In this case, Kajaolallido (abbreviated as KL), the AP's subordinate used the sanraa speech as used by AP to him, and even used the cukuk speech to AP when was asked to give moral advice. Meanwhile, BW's subordinates always used the cukuk language to BW. The most important finding here is that the power of the moral advice variable becam [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the last decade radio frequency (RF) sensing has emerged as an alternative in‐home monitoring and tracking technology because of its inherent device‐free and privacy‐preserved features over camera and wearable technologies. In this work, contrary to conventional radar‐based sensing and WiFi‐based setups which require line‐of‐sight (LoS) to process and collect the RF signals for monitoring, it is shown for the first time in literature the potential of using RF sensing for vitals, that is, heartbeat detection in the non‐line‐of‐sight (NLoS) using an in‐house‐developed reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS), that is, wireless on the walls. The developed RIS is the world's first prototype which consists of "4096 elements". The unit cell elements are individually controlled via PIN diodes, 1‐bit, operating at 3.75 GHz specified for the fifth‐generation (5G) network. Near‐field beam steering is demonstrated, with a switching speed of 15 ms. For the first time in the literature its is demonstrated that RIS can assist in the detection of microactivities including the human heartbeat in NLoS indoor complex environment, a limitation with the existing RF sensing technologies to date. In addition, it is experimentally verified that the RIS can potentially reduce the e‐field magnitude at the user's by regulating the gain at the user terminal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper will prove the existence of colloquial Makassar Indonesian (CMI) by showing its syntactic characteristics based on the use of personal pronoun affixes. This is very interesting and important because in general colloquial Indonesian languages are spoken in other cities in Indonesia, for example Jakarta, Manado, Ambon, etc. is a subsystem of the Indonesian language (hereinafter abbreviated as IND), but CMI is really a subsystem or subvariant of the Makassar language (MAK), the mother tongue of the Makassarese people. Therefore, it is not easy for Makassar newcomers to master this CMI. To master it, they must first learn the basic rules of MAK syntax. The fundamental thing in this case is the change in language typology, namely CMI has been proven to have adopted the V-S-O (Verb-Subject-Object) typology of MAK. Meanwhile, IND has the S-V-O (Subject-Predicate-Object) typology. This happened because there was language contact between MAK and Malay (now IND), a language which became the forerunner to the birth of IND as the national language and the state language of the Republic of Indonesia. In this case, at first Makassar city residents tried to use Malay, but with MAK syntactic interference. Gradually this form of interference became the entry point for the borrowing of the MAK syntactic subsystem in the IND speeches of Makassar city residents. IND utterances with the characteristics of MAK syntax then become the characteristics of CMI, which has now reached the level of integration and convergence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Smart respiratory therapy is enabled by continual assessment of lung functions. This systematic review provides an overview of the suitability of equipment-to-patient acoustic imaging in continual assessment of lung conditions. The literature search was conducted using Scopus, PubMed, ScienceDirect, Web of Science, SciELO Preprints, and Google Scholar. Fifteen studies remained for additional examination after the screening process. Two imaging modalities, lung ultrasound (LUS) and vibration imaging response (VRI), were identified. The most common outcome obtained from eleven studies was positive observations of changes to the geographical lung area, sound energy, or both, while positive observation of lung consolidation was reported in the remaining four studies. Two different modalities of lung assessment were used in eight studies, with one study comparing VRI against chest X-ray, one study comparing VRI with LUS, two studies comparing LUS to chest X-ray, and four studies comparing LUS in contrast to computed tomography. Our findings indicate that the acoustic imaging approach could assess and provide regional information on lung function. No technology has been shown to be better than another for measuring obstructed airways; hence, more research is required on acoustic imaging in detecting obstructed airways regionally in the application of enabling smart therapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]