Innovative and effective methods of learning other languages and their benefits

[Abstract]: Human beings' ability to communicate in mother tongue can be easily taken for granted until a situation arises when one uses another language. How should people go about acquiring the necessary skills for learning a new language, in this situation? Can learning a new language complement modern tertiary courses such as Business? This paper discusses why and how human beings learn a new language. It presents innovative methods of learning a new language using the latest technologies and teaching/learning ideas and approaches. The use of emerging technologies such as immersive Virtual Reality is discussed. A number of multimedia language learning environments, which encourage creativity and right brain functions are presented and analyzed. The author draws on his own experience of learning several languages, which includes various branches of the Indo-European group

Linked Data based video annotation and browsing for distance learning

We present a pair of prototype tools that enable users to mark up video with annotations and later explore related materials using Semantic Web and Linked Data approaches. The �first tool helps academics preparing Open University course materials to mark up videos with information about the subject matter and audio-visual content. The second tool enables users, such as students or academics, to find video and other materials relevant to their study

CHORUS Deliverable 2.2: Second report - identification of multi-disciplinary key issues for gap analysis toward EU multimedia search engines roadmap

After addressing the state-of-the-art during the first year of Chorus and establishing the existing landscape in multimedia search engines, we have identified and analyzed gaps within European research effort during our second year. In this period we focused on three directions, notably technological issues, user-centred issues and use-cases and socio- economic and legal aspects. These were assessed by two central studies: firstly, a concerted vision of functional breakdown of generic multimedia search engine, and secondly, a representative use-cases descriptions with the related discussion on requirement for technological challenges. Both studies have been carried out in cooperation and consultation with the community at large through EC concertation meetings (multimedia search engines cluster), several meetings with our Think-Tank, presentations in international conferences, and surveys addressed to EU projects coordinators as well as National initiatives coordinators. Based on the obtained feedback we identified two types of gaps, namely core technological gaps that involve research challenges, and “enablers”, which are not necessarily technical research challenges, but have impact on innovation progress. New socio-economic trends are presented as well as emerging legal challenges

A new methodology for learning design

This paper describes the development of a new methodology for learning design. Our approach is predicated on the view that no one, simple, view of design is appropriate, because of the inherently messy and creative nature of design. Instead we are adopting an interactive and multi-faceted approach which consists of a series of cycles of user consultation, focus groups and workshops alongside the development of learning design tools and resources. In particular we will describe how we have adapted an existing mind mapping and argumentation tool, Compendium, so that it can be used as a means of guiding designers through the learning design decision making process in the creation of learning activities. We will describe the initial evaluations of the use of this tool, along with our findings to date on a series of fact finding exercises to better understand individual and team approaches to design

Access to recorded interviews: A research agenda

Recorded interviews form a rich basis for scholarly inquiry. Examples include oral histories, community memory projects, and interviews conducted for broadcast media. Emerging technologies offer the potential to radically transform the way in which recorded interviews are made accessible, but this vision will demand substantial investments from a broad range of research communities. This article reviews the present state of practice for making recorded interviews available and the state-of-the-art for key component technologies. A large number of important research issues are identified, and from that set of issues, a coherent research agenda is proposed

An Evasion Attack against ML-based Phishing URL Detectors

Background: Over the year, Machine Learning Phishing URL classification (MLPU) systems have gained tremendous popularity to detect phishing URLs proactively. Despite this vogue, the security vulnerabilities of MLPUs remain mostly unknown. Aim: To address this concern, we conduct a study to understand the test time security vulnerabilities of the state-of-the-art MLPU systems, aiming at providing guidelines for the future development of these systems. Method: In this paper, we propose an evasion attack framework against MLPU systems. To achieve this, we first develop an algorithm to generate adversarial phishing URLs. We then reproduce 41 MLPU systems and record their baseline performance. Finally, we simulate an evasion attack to evaluate these MLPU systems against our generated adversarial URLs. Results: In comparison to previous works, our attack is: (i) effective as it evades all the models with an average success rate of 66% and 85% for famous (such as Netflix, Google) and less popular phishing targets (e.g., Wish, JBHIFI, Officeworks) respectively; (ii) realistic as it requires only 23ms to produce a new adversarial URL variant that is available for registration with a median cost of only $11.99/year. We also found that popular online services such as Google SafeBrowsing and VirusTotal are unable to detect these URLs. (iii) We find that Adversarial training (successful defence against evasion attack) does not significantly improve the robustness of these systems as it decreases the success rate of our attack by only 6% on average for all the models. (iv) Further, we identify the security vulnerabilities of the considered MLPU systems. Our findings lead to promising directions for future research. Conclusion: Our study not only illustrate vulnerabilities in MLPU systems but also highlights implications for future study towards assessing and improving these systems.Comment: Draft for ACM TOP