Bill F. Ndi’s Peace Mongers at War: Deuniversalizing Francophone Cameroon Pedigrees and Pluriversalizing Southern Cameroons Contagions

This paper discusses Francophone Pedigrees and Southern Cameroon Contagions in Bill Ndi s Peace Mongers at War by drawing on Mignolo s conception of the pluriverse Francophone Pedigrees refer to Francophone-imposed hegemonic benchmarks by which Anglophone Cameroon culture and politics are condescendingly assessed and self-assertingly dismissed Southern Cameroon Contagions designate readily convivial pluriversal and accommodating Anglophone cultures and politics downgraded by Francophones as pestilences or infestations The paper contends that Peace Mongers at War attests that in moments such as the ongoing Anglophone crisis dialogue cannot exist without humility and the naming of the Cameroonian polity cannot continue to be an act of Francophone Pedigrees arrogance The paper asserts that Francophones start from the premise that naming the Cameroonian world is the task of the Francophone elite and that the presence of Anglophones in history is a sign of deterioration that they are closed to and even offended by the contribution of Anglophones because they are afraid of being displace

Understanding Developers Privacy Concerns Through Reddit Thread Analysis

With the growing global emphasis on regulating the protection of personal information and increasing user expectation of the same, developing with privacy in mind is becoming ever more important. In this paper, we study the concerns, questions, and solutions developers discuss on Reddit forums to enhance our understanding of their perceptions and challenges while developing applications in the current privacy-focused world. We perform various forms of Natural Language Processing (NLP) on 437,317 threads from subreddits such as r/webdev, r/androiddev, and r/iOSProgramming to identify both common points of discussion and how these points change over time as new regulations are passed around the globe. Our results show that there are common trends in privacy topics among the different subreddits while the frequency of those topics differs between web and mobile applications

From Apathy to Algoactivism: Worker Resistance to Algorithmic Control in Food Delivery Platforms

Platforms in the gig economy rely on algorithmic control to manage their workforce, but recent scientific evidence has shown that workers have begun to resist this control. Due to lacking focus and limited empirical data, the phenomenon of worker resistance to algorithmic control is still insufficiently understood. Based on a topic modeling approach with over 2 million text documents extracted from Reddit forums of different food-delivery platforms, we identify 14 resistance actions showing how food-delivery workers resist algorithmic control. Our study contributes to current research by expanding the understanding of resistance to algorithmic control in the gig economy, showing what resistant actions workers take, and discussing the concepts of individual opacity and collective knowledge as possible escalators and de-escalators of this resistance

APPLICATION OF PHARMACOMETRIC METHODS TO OPTIMIZE TRIAL DESIGN AND DOSING IN CRITICALLY ILL INFANTS

Christoph P. Hornik: Application of Pharmacometric Methods to Optimize Trial Design and Dosing in Critically Ill Infants (under the direction of Daniel Gonzalez) Drug development in critically ill infants is challenging. Limited number of eligible trial participants, low consent rates, inability to perform or tolerate trial assessments, and ethical considerations all contribute to a low rate of successful clinical trials in this population. As a result, drugs administered to infants are often incompletely studied to ensure their efficacy and safety, and administered without a US Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved indication (off-label). Off-label drug use is associated with increased risk of unwanted drug toxicities or therapeutic failures, which can result in poor infant outcomes. To improve infant outcomes, innovative strategies in drug development are needed to generate the data necessary to identify safe and effective drug dosing regimens. The work performed in this dissertation provides 3 examples of innovative approaches to drug development in critically ill infants. Central to these innovations is leveraging pharmacometric methods to address 3 common obstacles: (1) sample size determination of infant pharmacokinetic (PK) trials; (2) characterization of the relationship between drug exposure and efficacy to identify efficacious doses; and (3) evaluation of the association between drug exposure and safety to identify safe doses. Each of these 3 obstacles is overcome with the help of a specific pharmacometric approach. In aim 1, populationPK (popPK) modeling and simulation is applied to determine optimal sample sizes for various infant PK trial designs. In aim 2, popPK/pharmacodynamic (PD) modeling is used to characterize the exposure response relationship between methylprednisolone and antiinflammatory changes in neonates undergoing cardiac surgery on cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB). In aim 3, popPK models are combined with electronic health record (EHR)-derived real-world data (RWD) sources to develop a novel platform to study the relationship between predicted drug exposures and safety events captured during routine clinical care.Doctor of Philosoph

From deterministic to probabilistic forecasts: The ‘shift-target’ approach in the milan urban area (Northern Italy)

The number of natural catastrophes that affect people worldwide is increasing; among these, the hydro-meteorological events represent the worst scenario due to the thousands of deaths and huge damages to private and state ownership they can cause. To prevent this, besides various structural measures, many non-structural solutions, such as the implementation of flood warning systems, have been proposed in recent years. In this study, we suggest a low computational cost method to produce a probabilistic flood prediction system using a single forecast precipitation scenario perturbed via a spatial shift. In fact, it is well-known that accurate forecasts of heavy precipitation, especially associated with deep moist convection, are challenging due to uncertainties arising from the numerical weather prediction (NWP), and high sensitivity to misrepresentation of the initial atmospheric state. Inaccuracies in precipitation forecasts are partially due to spatial misplacing. To produce hydro-meteorological simulations and forecasts, we use a flood forecasting system which comprises the physically-based rainfall-runoff hydrological model FEST-WB developed by the Politecnico di Milano, and the MOLOCH meteorological model provided by the Institute of Atmospheric Sciences and Climate (CNR-ISAC). The areas of study are the hydrological basins of the rivers Seveso, Olona, and Lambro located in the northern part of Milan city (northern Italy) where this system works every day in real-time. In this paper, we show the performance of reforecasts carried out between the years 2012 and 2015: in particular, we explore the ‘Shift-Target’ (ST) approach in order to obtain 40 ensemble members, which we assume equally likely, derived from the available deterministic precipitation forecast. Performances are shown through statistical indexes based on exceeding the threshold for different gauge stations over the three hydrological basins. Results highlight how the Shift-Target approach complements the deterministic MOLOCH-based flood forecast for warning purposes

Story beats in videogames as value-driven choice-based unit operations

We present a framework of story beats, defined as microunits of dramatic action, as a tool for the ludonarrative analysis of videogames. First, we explain the Goal - Action - Reaction - Outcome model of the story beat. Then, we present six types of story beats, Action, Interaction, Inaction, Mental, Emotion, and Sensory, providing videogame examples for each category. In the second half of the paper, we contextualise this framework in the classic game studies theory of videogame narrative and player action: unit operations, gamic action, anatomy of choice, and game design patterns, wrapping it up in the most recent trends in cognitive narratology. Ultimately, we present the story beat as a ludonarrative unit, working simultaneously as a ‘unit operation’ in the study of games as systems, and as a microunit of character action in narrative analysis. The conclusion outlines prospective directions for using story beats in formal, experiential, and cultural game research.We present a framework of story beats, defined as microunits of dramatic action, as a tool for the ludonarrative analysis of videogames. First, we explain the Goal - Action - Reaction - Outcome model of the story beat. Then, we present six types of story beats, Action, Interaction, Inaction, Mental, Emotion, and Sensory, providing videogame examples for each category. In the second half of the paper, we contextualise this framework in the classic game studies theory of videogame narrative and player action: unit operations, gamic action, anatomy of choice, and game design patterns, wrapping it up in the most recent trends in cognitive narratology. Ultimately, we present the story beat as a ludonarrative unit, working simultaneously as a ‘unit operation’ in the study of games as systems, and as a microunit of character action in narrative analysis. The conclusion outlines prospective directions for using story beats in formal, experiential, and cultural game research

Porous nanosystems for biological applications

The present thesis aims to provide suitable information on the fundamentals about the controlled manipulation and targeted application of nanoscale porous materials. The research interests in this work are focused on the controlled colloidal synthesis and functionalization of two specific porous materials based on porous coordination polymers (PCPs) and calcium carbonate polymeric nanoparticles (CCPNs), as nanocarriers for intended biological and catalytic applications