Leveraging Multimodal Shapley Values to Address Multimodal Collapse and Improve Fine-Grained E-Commerce Product Classification

Multimodal models can experience multimodal collapse, leading to sub-optimal performance on tasks like fine-grained e-commerce product classification. To address this, we introduce an approach that leverages multimodal Shapley values (MM-SHAP) to quantify the individual contributions of each modality to the model's predictions. By employing weighted stacked ensembles of unimodal and multimodal models, with weights derived from these Shapley values (MM-SHAP), we enhance the overall performance and mitigate the effects of multimodal collapse. Using this approach we improve previous results (F1-score) from 0.67 to 0.79

Measuring Software Resilience Using Socially Aware Truck Factor Estimation

Continued timely maintenance is a key aspect of project security, but typically requires in-depth knowledge of a project's code base. Truck Factor is a metric that aims to represent how vulnerable a project is to losing this knowledge through the attrition of key contributors. However, the accuracy of existing Truck Factor estimators scales poorly with project size since they tend to ignore influential team members in managerial roles, which are more common in large projects.This work proposes SNet, a novel socially aware Truck Factor estimator based on social network analysis. SNet uses network centrality measures and social signals such as GitHub Issue interactions to estimate Truck Factor and identify Truck Factor contributors. We evaluate SNet against an existing ground truth comprised of twenty-six open source projects. Our social network analysis approach achieves superior contributor classification performance (Median F1 score = 0.8) while reducing computation time by over 2x compared to state-of-the-art estimators

Applying Social Networks to Snowball Sampling of a ‘Hard-to-Reach’ Population and to Illustrate Qualitative Findings

Ever since Moreno's sociograms were introduced in the 1930s, social network analysis has been a popular way of analysing existing and custom-built data. Social network analysis has been gaining popularity since online social networks were invented with their ever-increasing volumes of social media data available to extract and analyse. This paper explores using social networks as part of the methodology and data analysis stages of an existing research project. The research concerns victims of online crime asking who individuals and organisations can approach for cybersecurity help and advice after becoming online crime victims. Participants worked in UK law enforcement, government, businesses and support organisations. Two networks were built and analysed. The recruitment network monitored snowball sampling of a ‘hard-to-reach’ population-UK adults whose work concerned victims of online crime or who were online crime victims. The organisations' network described the landscape for supporting victims. The recruitment network tracked the recruitment of participants and highlighted successful and influential contacts in the network. The organisations' network explained and illustrated the qualitative findings. Social networks give insights into data missed by other methods of analysing data collected. Sociograms were added to text-based sections in the doctoral thesis to help explain the inherent messiness of the interdisciplinary field of cybercrime

Trapped in Time and Place:Cognitive Immobility Among Diaspora Communities

This article adopts the interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) approach to explore the phenomenon of cognitive immobility, where individuals remain cognitively trapped in experiences or locations despite elapsed time and physical distance from those events and places. It explores how (im)mobility and life transitions hold people in the past. The study focuses on the cognitive experiences of Mrs Eve, an African-American woman who on her first visit to Dakar, Senegal, felt a deep, unexplained connection to the place. The article triangulates Mrs Eve’s experiences against those shared by other individuals in previously published peer-reviewed narratives to reveal how (im)mobility and life transitions can lead to cognitive immobility. It underscores that traumatic or memorable life experiences can result in cognitive immobility under certain circumstances and thus enriches the discourse on people who are cognitively trapped in their past

Queering Cloud: Music, Gender and Sexuality in Video Games

Listeners use music to construct, organize and shape their gender and sexual identities. This chapter proposes that music can act as a binding agent between player and game, and may encompass the performance of gender and sexuality in games. Games, and game music, allow us to play with the feeling of performing genders and sexualities beyond our everyday lives. The mimetic and motoric properties of music, linking players with avatars, lets us “feel along” with genders and sexualities in games.In Robert Yang’s game Stick Shift (collected as part of Radiator 2), music is used to present and structure a queer sexual experience for players, inviting them to share in the erotic trajectory. In Final Fantasy VII: Remake, players musically adopt and perform different orientations related to gender and sexuality: the hero Cloud’s heterosexual experience is presented visually and musically, so players can listen and feel along with the music as an analogue for his sensations. Later, a sequence uses rhythm-game mechanics and mimetic motor imagery of the music to help us feel along with an intimate queer encounter. Overall, the chapter argues that games can use music (1) as an analogue for sexual encounters, (2) to invoke musical tropes and traditions to explore desire, (3) for gestures that provide a sense of performance and embodiment, (4) as an opportunity to resist essentialist notions of sexuality, and (5) to open out gender depiction beyond heteronormative assumptions

Creating and affording ensembleness through the integration of movement in vocal ensemble compositions:Portfolio of compositions and supporting commentary

This portfolio comprises two individual compositions and three cycles for vocal ensemble, totalling nineteen pieces. These works integrate movement and interactions among performers and with the audience as key structural and technical elements within the creative process. Movement is treated as an inseparable medium from music, shaping both structure and sound. My aims are to explore:• The development of multidisciplinary music and movement compositions adaptable to professional and non-professional vocal ensembles, ensuring style and coherence.• Clear notation options that facilitate memorisation.• Training to develop ensemble cohesion, to achieve coherent and nuanced performances of these compositions without a conductor or clear cues.• The role of the composer-conductor in this practice.• The ensemble's comfort and practice as a real-time co-creator.My work focuses on developing ensembleness – a stronger sense of cohesion within the ensemble, along with a heightened awareness of spatial dynamics and creative possibilities – as core of my compositional approach, shifting from a theoretical framework to a performer-driven practice-based methodology. By promoting the ensemble's readiness and competence to perform beyond traditional practices, this approach to movement-based composition potentially dissolves the distinction between levels of expertise.This practice explores and compares conceptual, practical, and notational strategies from composers like Andy Ingamells, James Whittle, Jennifer Walshe, Meredith Monk, and Pauline Oliveros, alongside movement practitioners such as Dick McCaw, Émile Jaques-Dalcroze, Peter Brook, and Rudolf Laban. As a result, I strategically adopt colour coding and font sizing to aid memorisation in multidisciplinary works involving movement, developing movement and ensemble training exercises into performances, reflecting on their benefits and challenges. Discussions on memorisation practices support these findings and inform the portfolio's development.The performer-driven repertoire in this portfolio draws conclusions regarding the role of ensemble dynamics in shaping my compositional approach, aiming to develop strategies for the conceptual and practical advancement of multidisciplinary practice, leading to tangible performance improvements