179 research outputs found
Powering the Academic Web
Context: Locating resources on the Web has become increasingly difficult for users and poses a number of issues. The sheer size of the Web means that despite what appears to be an increase in the amount of quality material available, the effort involved in locating that material is also increasing; in effect, the higher quality material is being diluted by the lesser quality. One such group affected by this problem is post-graduate students. Having only a finite amount of time to devote to research, this reduces their overall quality study time.
Aim: This research investigates how post-graduate students use the Web as a learning resource and identifies a number of areas of concern with its use. It considers the potential for improvement in this matter by using a number of concepts such as: collaboration; peer reviewing and document classification and comparison techniques.
This research also investigates whether by combining several of the identified technologies and concepts, student research on the Web can be improved.
Method: Using some of the identified concepts as components, this research proposes a model to address the highlighted areas of concern. The proposed model, named the Durham Browsing Assistant (DurBA) is defined, and a number of key concepts which show potential within it are uncovered.
One of the key concepts is chosen, that of document comparison. Given a source document, can a computer system reliably identify other documents which most closely match it from other on the Web?
A software tool was created which allowed the testing of document comparison techniques, this was called the Durham Textual Comparison system (DurTeC) and it had two key concepts. The first was that it would allow various algorithms to be applied to the comparison process. The second concept was that it could simulate collaboration by allowing data to be altered, added and removed as if by multiple users.
A set of experiments were created to test these algorithms and identify those which gave the best results.
Results: The results from the experiments identified a number of the most promising relationships between comparison and collaboration processes. It also highlighted those which had a negative effect on the process, and those which produced variable results.
Amongst the results, it was found that:
1. By providing DurTeC with additional source documents to the original, as if through a recommendation process, it was able to increase its accuracy substantially.
2. By allowing DurTeC to use synonym lists to expand its vocabulary, in many cases, it was found to have reduced its accuracy.
3. By restricting those words which DurTeC considered in its comparison process, based upon their value in the source document, accuracy could be increased. This could be considered as a form of collaborative keyword selection.
Conclusion: This research shows that improvements can be made in the accuracy of identifying similar resources by using a combination of comparison and collaboration processes. The proposed model, DurBA would be an ideal host for such a system
Professionalism, Oversight, and Institution- Balancing: The Supreme Court\u27s Second Best Plan for Political Debate on Television
Televised political debates have become a staple of modern elections. Proponents of open access to such debates argue that third party participation is a democratic necessity. They see as catastrophic the Supreme Court\u27s decision in Arkansas Educational Television Commission v. Forbes, in which a state broadcaster was given the discretion to exclude a minor party candidate from a televised debate so long as the decision was viewpoint-neutral. This Article reads the Court\u27s decision as a functional, second best solution that seeks to mediate the expressive and democratic values implicated in both open and closed access models. More generally, the Article sees in Forbes germs of an institution-balancing vision of politics in the media. Under this approach, public broadcasters would be empowered to serve as realistic programming counterweights to the electoral coverage of the commercial media. While there are reasons to be skeptical about the ultimate effectiveness of this institution-balancing strategy, only until refined, election-specific and historically-grounded data are collected and assessed in a context-specific fashion can we begin to evaluate the Court\u27s approach in application
Simons Foundation 2020 Annual Report
The Simons Foundation is pleased to present this copy of our 2020 annual report. Staying connected through Zoom, emails and conference calls, our grantees and scientists made groundbreaking advancements over the last year
Square dancing: official magazine the Sets in Order American Square Dance Society.
Published monthly for and by Square Dancers and for the general enjoyment of all
Course Manual Winter School on Structure and Functions of Marine Ecosystem: Fisheries
Marine ecosystems comprises of diverse organisms
and their ambient abiotic components in varied
relationships leading to an ecosystem functioning.
These relationships provides the services that are
essential for marine organisms to sustain in the nature.
The studies examining the structure and functioning
of these relationships remains unclear and hence
understanding and modelling of the ecological
functioning is imperative in the context of the threats
different ecosystem components are facing. The relationship between marine
population and their environment is complex and is subjected to fluctuations
which affects the bottom level of an ecosystem pyramid to higher trophic
levels. Understanding the energy flow within the marine ecosystems with
the help of primary to secondary producers and secondary consumers are
potentially important when assessing such states and changes in these
environments.
Many of the physiological changes are known to affect the key functional
group, ie. the species or group of organisms, which play an important role
in the health of the ecosystem. In marine environment, phytoplankton are
the main functional forms which serves as the base of marine food web.
Any change in the phytoplankton community structure may lead to alteration
in the composition, size and structure of the entire ecosystem. Hence, it is
critical to understand how these effects may scale up to population,
communities, and entire marine ecosystem. Such changes are difficult to
predict, particularly when more than one trophic level is affected. The
identification and quantification of indicators of changes in ecosystem
functioning and the knowledge base generated will provide a suitable way
of bridging issues related to a specific ecosystem. New and meaningful
indicators, derived from our current understanding of marine ecosystem
functioning, can be used for assessing the impact of these changes and can
be used as an aid in promoting responsible fisheries in marine ecosystems.
Phytoplantkon is an indicator determining the colour of open Ocean. In
recent years, new technologies have emerged which involves multidisciplinary
activities including biogeochemistry and its dynamics affecting
higher trophic levels including fishery. The winter school proposed will
provide the insights into background required for such an approach involving
teaching the theory, practical, analysis and interpretation techniques in
understanding the structure and functioning of marine ecosystems from
ground truth measurements as well as from satellite remote sensing data.
This is organized with the full funding support from Indian council of
Agricultural Research (ICAR) New Delhi and the 25 participants who are
attending this programme has been selected after scrutiny of their
applications based on their bio-data. The participants are from different
States across Indian subcontinent covering north, east, west and south.
They are serving as academicians such as Professors/ scientists and in similar
posts. The training will be a feather in their career and will enable them to
do their academic programmes in a better manner. Selected participants
will be scrutinized initially to understand their knowledge level and classes
will be oriented based on this. In addition, all of them will be provided with
an e-manual based on the classes. All selected participants are provided
with their travel and accommodation grants. The faculty include the scientists
who developed this technology, those who are practicing it and few user
groups who do their research in related areas. The programme is coordinated
by the Fishery Resources Assessment Division of CMFRI. This programme
will generate a team of elite academicians who can contribute to sustainable
management of marine ecosystem and they will further contribute to
capacity building in the sector by training many more interested researchers
in the years to come
Chapter 6: State-Building and Democracy
https://nsuworks.nova.edu/hcas_dcrs_facbooks/1038/thumbnail.jp
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