Examining the Importance of AI-Based Criteria in the Development of the Digital Economy: A Multi-Criteria Decision-Making Approach

As one of the main pillars of global transformation in the contemporary world, the digital economy helps create new economic and business opportunities through new technologies. In addition to improving efficiency and reducing costs, this transformation plays a vital role in the economic growth and development of various countries. Artificial intelligence, as one of the key technologies in the development of the digital economy, has a profound impact on optimizing processes, increasing productivity, and enhancing customer experience. By processing big data and providing advanced analytics, this technology makes economic decisions faster and more accurately and affects various sectors of the digital economy. In this regard, 20 key AI-based criteria in the development of the digital economy were extracted from a review of previous studies and were placed in four general categories. The four general categories include structural, organizational, technological and economic. Hesitant Fuzzy Best Worst Method (HF-BWM) was used to rank the AI-based criteria in the development of the digital economy. “Investing in innovation (C16)”, “Potent processing capabilities (C1)”, “Process automation and intelligence (C11)”, “Identifying growth opportunities (C6)” and “Adapting business models to changes (C7)” ranked one to five, respectively. Managers in the digital economy should pay attention to investing in innovation and strengthening processing infrastructure to exploit new technologies and make more accurate decisions. Process intelligence, identifying new areas of growth and adapting the business model to market changes also help improve efficiency, reduce costs, exploit new opportunities and make organizations stable in the face of rapid changes and increasing competition

Dextran-Gold Nanoparticle-Based Tablets and Swabs for Colorimetric Detection of Urinary H2O2

Diagnosis of oxidative stress is essential to avoiding serious life-threatening situations. Hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) is a potential biomarker of oxidative stress. Herein, we introduce a reagent-free, nanoscale approach for the colorimetric detection of urinary H2O2 utilizing dextran-gold nanoparticles (dAuNPs). The plasmonic properties of these nanoparticles are central to their function, leveraging their high surface area and tunable optical characteristics for sensitive detection. We transformed the colloidal dAuNPs solution into two formats: as a tablet (dAuNPs-Tablet) or impregnated on a cotton swab (dAuNPs-Swab). The assay generates hydroxyl radicle (•OH) from H2O2 via the Fenton reaction, followed by nanoscale-driven detection of H2O2 using a plasmonic tablet and swab sensors. In the presence of H2O2 in a sample, the red color of the tablet solution or plasmonic swab turns to blue color due to salt-induced nanoparticles aggregation. The transition in color is observed due to •OH-assisted degradation of the dextran layer around dAuNPs, leading to the loss of colloidal stability and subsequent aggregation of dAuNPs. Sodium chloride acts as the aggregating agent, enhancing the nanoscale interactions. The detection limit in artificial urine is found to be 50 µM for the tablet sensor and 100 µM for the swab sensor. The plasmonic tablet is more stable as compared to a plasmonic swab which gradually loses stability, after one month, with approximately 40% degradation within three months. Interference studies demonstrate the high selectivity of both platforms for H2O2 detection. Notably, we investigated the H2O2 levels in human urine samples from healthy volunteers (both female and male) before and after green tea consumption. The observed decrease in H2O2 level in urine post-green tea consumption suggests a potential role of green tea antioxidants in mitigating oxidative stress. The utilization of nanoprobes in our research not only enhances our understanding of oxidative stress dynamics but also drives advancements in point-of-care detection platforms, offering enhanced portability and ease of use of nanoprobes. These platforms open exciting avenues in healthcare diagnosis

Multi-Valued Model Checking IoT and Intelligent Systems with Trust and Commitment Protocols

Abstract Multi-Valued Model Checking IoT and Intelligent Systems with Trust and Commitment Protocols Ghalya Alwhishi, Ph.D. Concordia University, 2024 In the era of connectivity, numerous domains utilize multi-sensor Internet of Things (IoT) and Intelligent Systems (IS) applications, which involve complex interactions among numerous components in open environments. This complexity challenges the verification of these systems’ reliability and efficiency. This study pioneers the verification of IoT applications and intelligent systems within multi-source data environments, employing multi-agent commitment and trust protocols, particularly in uncertain and inconsistent settings. Our research introduces efficient frameworks to model and verify these systems, incorporating commitment and trust protocols in settings characterized by uncertainty and inconsistency. We extend existing logics of commitment CTLcc and CTLc and the logic of trust TCTL to multi-valued cases for reasoning about uncertainty and inconsistency. We introduce 3v-CTLc and 3v-CTLcc, three-valued logics of commitment for reasoning about uncertainty, and 4v-CTLc and 4v-CTLcc, four-valued logics of commitment for reasoning about inconsistency. In the context of trust, we introduce 3v-TCTL and 4v-TCTL, multivalued logics for reasoning about uncertainty and inconsistency over systems with trust protocols. To address the complexity and time needed for developing direct algorithms, coupled with the scarcity of multi-valued model checking tools, we developed reduction algorithms. These algorithms transform the introduced multi-valued logics of commitment and trust into their classical case or into CTL, facilitating interaction with efficient model checkers such as MCMAS+ and MCMASt, and NuSMV, respectively. To demonstrate the practicality and applicability of the tool in real settings, we presented and reported experimental results over multiple IoT and IS applications in healthcare, finance, and smart buildings. Our findings indicate that the proposed approaches and the MV-Checker tool are highly efficient and scalable, providing accurate results under varying conditions

Le mythe de l’ouverture et de la tolérance de l’État canadien envers les personnes LGBTQ+ dans Canada’s Drag Race

Le Canada est un pays reconnu à l’international pour son ouverture et sa tolérance envers les personnes LGBTQ+ et en tant que pays d’immigration. La diversité multiculturelle du pays a bien été représentée dans les trois premières saisons de Canada’s Drag Race avec des participantes drag queens provenant notamment, des minorités culturelles, de l’immigration, des membres des peuples autochtones, des réfugiées et des francophones. Néanmoins, malgré cette diversité des participantes , l’émission n’a pas permis l’expression d’une vision contradictoire au nationalisme canadien et a encensé son multiculturalisme et son ouverture précisément aux réfugiés queers, avec peu de moments contraires à ce mythe de la tolérance et de l’ouverture. Ainsi l’émission a reproduit le discours du mythe de la tolérance et de l’ouverture multiculturelle du Canada en décrivant à plusieurs reprises, les pays « étrangers » comme homophobes, et en appliquant un discours normatif sur les personnes de l’immigration comme son système d’immigration. En créant un triptyque mère-drag-patrie-commissaire, l’émission reproduit la logique nationaliste du Canada sans les altérer et renforce le discours du Canada comme terre d’accueil pour les personnes queers. Mots-clés : nationalisme canadien, homonationalisme, LGBTQ+, queer, réfugiés, immigration, migration queer, drag, drag queen, Ru Paul’s Drag Race, Canada’s Drag Race, télévision au Canada, télévision queer Abstract Canada is recognized around the world for is openness and tolerance toward LGBTQ+ people and as a country open to immigration. Having drag queens from immigrant, refugee, indigenous and French-Canadian background, the first three seasons of Canada’s Drag Race reflected the multicultural diversity of the country. Nonetheless, even with this diversity of drag queens in the race, the program didn’t allow the participants to express a more contentious vision of Canada’s nationalism and praised the multiculturalism of the nation and his acceptance precisely toward queer refugees without contradicting its openness and tolerance myth. Canada’s Drag Race reproduced the openness and tolerance myth of Canada emphasizing the homophobia of foreign countries, strengthening the perception of Canada as a safe haven for queer people and assigning a normative discourse regarding immigrant people like in its immigration apparatus. By creating a triptych drag-mother-land-IRB members, the TV series reproduced the Canadian nationalist logic without impairing it. Keywords: Canadian nationalism, homonationalism, LGBTQ+, queer, refugees, queer migration, immigrants, drag, drag queen, Ru Paul’s Drag Race, Canada’s Drag Race, Canadian television, queer televisio

Predicting User Performance for the Evaluation of User Interfaces in Immersive Augmented Reality

Augmented Reality (AR) is defined as the enhancement of the user's view with interactive, computer-generated content, and arises in several forms, including Mobile AR, Spatial AR, and notably, Immersive AR. Among these, immersive AR has piqued considerable attention from both academia and industry. It enables users to immerse themselves in virtual content registered to real-world objects through head-mounted displays (HMDs) and optics technology. Providing robust interaction with virtual objects has necessitated immersive headset designers and producers to develop a broad array of interaction techniques and input modalities, enabling users to experience both a natural interaction with virtual objects and a profound sense of presence. Well-known companies in this domain, such as Microsoft, Meta, Apple, and Magic Leap, have pioneered various interactions and input modalities such as hand gestures, head pointing, eye tracking, and voice commands. The current state of the art indicates that specific input modalities, like hand gestures and head pointing, can increase both the physical and mental workload on users, subsequently increasing the error margins in object selection and manipulation within immersive environments. In response, this research adeptly applies statistical and contemporary machine learning techniques to establish guidelines for immersive AR environment designers and developers, aiming to mitigate the effects of physical and mental workload on users, particularly during hierarchical menu selection tasks, a commonplace activity in various computer applications, including immersive AR. This thesis, embodied by four research papers, extends guidelines and recommendations for designers and developers of immersive AR headsets, endeavoring to alleviate workload and error rates induced by natural interactions such as hand gestures and head pointing while performing hierarchical menu selection. The initial research focused on identifying the most efficient combination of hierarchical menu types, like radial and drop-down menus, and input modalities, such as hand gestures and head pointing in terms of workload and performance measures. The subsequent study deployed a machine learning approach, leveraging semantic encoders and the standard cognitive performance test, WAIS-IV, to predict human performance in an immersive AR environment during hierarchical menu selection tasks. The third research introduces an analysis and index for error rate in hierarchical menu selection, utilizing both subjective and objective data derived from the users. The final research is an analysis of head pointing and hand gesture path data during menu selection tasks, elucidating an index and its relationship with both subjective and objective methods for calculating workload and error rate in immersive AR

Adaptive Priors in Probabilistic Topic Models for Bursty Discovery in Textual Data

In the field of natural language processing, topic modeling plays an important role in detecting latent topics in large amounts of text. Models that use traditional methods of representation, however, often fail to capture the 'burstiness' characteristic of natural language - the tendency for previously occurring words to recur within the same document. In order to address this limitation, we introduce two innovative topic modeling frameworks: the Generalized Dirichlet Compound Multinomial Latent Dirichlet Allocation (GDCMLDA) and the Beta-Liouville Dirichlet Compound Multinomial Latent Dirichlet Allocation (BLDCMLDA). Using Dirichlet Compound Multinomial distribution together with Generalized Dirichlet and Beta-Liouville distributions, both frameworks integrate advanced distribution methods. By integrating these concepts, it is possible to model the burstiness phenomenon while maintaining a variety of topic proportion patterns that can be varied and flexible. As a result of our comprehensive evaluations across multiple benchmark text datasets, we conclude that GDCMLDA and BLDCMLDA are superior to existing models. The evidence for this is found in the improved performance metrics, including the scores for perplexity and coherence. Our results confirm that the proposed models are able to capture the complexities of word usage dynamics, thus contributing to a significant advancement in topic modeling

Reappraising Beliefs About Losing Control: An Experimental Investigation

Background and Objectives: Beliefs about losing control over one’s thoughts, emotions, behaviours, and/or bodily functions have been shown to cause obsessive-compulsive symptoms. The cognitive model of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) suggests that catastrophic misappraisals of intrusions will lessen if underlying maladaptive beliefs are effectively reduced. The primary aim of this study was to experimentally investigate whether preexisting appraisals about losing control could be reduced by reappraising a previous perceived loss of control. Methods: A sample of (n = 52) undergraduate participants underwent either a brief cognitive intervention or a control memory task. Appraisals about losing control and anxiety were measured before and after the manipulation. Results: In comparison to participants in the control condition, participants in the experimental condition reported a significantly greater reduction in appraisals about having lost control (F(1, 50) = 10.79, p = .002, ηp2 = .18) and about losing control in the future (F(1, 50) = 7.82, p = .007, ηp2 = .14) but not anxiety F(1, 50) = .81, p = .37, ηp2 = .02). Limitations: The absence of an impact on anxiety may be attributed to an underpowered sample size or the lack of a more robust intervention. Conclusions: Results suggest that pre-existing beliefs about losing control can be reduced via a brief cognitive reappraisal-based intervention. Findings are discussed with respect to clinical and phenomenological implications

“This Game Made Me Cry”: A Material Auto-Ethnography of Pilgrimage and Video Game Design

Initiated during COVID, this research utilizes material autoethnographic methods to study the video games Gris, Journey, and Season: Letter to the Future. This thesis contributes to 1) the debates in pilgrimage and cyberpilgrimage around the validity of a pilgrimage not physically taken, 2) the potential of a relationship between games and pilgrimage and what that reveals about both mediums, and 3) offering tools to game designers looking to replicate the emotional experiences felt in each of the games played, asking: what do video games as a medium afford pilgrimage, what does pilgrimage offer journeying games, and what can we learn about digital journeying through their comparison? Is playing a video game the same as doing a terrestrial pilgrimage? This work concludes that playing a video game is not the same as doing a terrestrial pilgrimage, but that it has specific affordances and constraints which make it affective due to the way it attends to the body, senses, material, locality, and everyday. It is a counter-argument to the idea that both play and cyberpilgrimage are disembodied. Games afford a unique kind of experience and transformation for undertaking pilgrimage, and pilgrimages afford a unique kind of play. As such, to ask at what pilgrimage and games can afford each other is not to assert dominance (or homogeneity) between terrestrial and cyber- pilgrimage, but rather to ask at large: What are the varieties of meaning derived from different forms of pilgrimage and what brings them about