208 research outputs found

    Operatic Pasticcios in 18th-Century Europe

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    In Early Modern times, techniques of assembling, compiling and arranging pre-existing material were part of the established working methods in many arts. In the world of 18th-century opera, such practices ensured that operas could become a commercial success because the substitution or compilation of arias fitting the singer's abilities proved the best recipe for fulfilling the expectations of audiences. Known as »pasticcios« since the 18th-century, these operas have long been considered inferior patchwork. The volume collects essays that reconsider the pasticcio, contextualize it, define its preconditions, look at its material aspects and uncover its aesthetical principles

    Investigation of iris recognition in the visible spectrum

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    mong the biometric systems that have been developed so far, iris recognition systems have emerged as being one of the most reliable. In iris recognition, most of the research was conducted on operation under near infrared illumination. For unconstrained scenarios of iris recognition systems, the iris images are captured under visible light spectrum and therefore incorporate various types of imperfections. In this thesis the merits of fusing information from various sources for improving the state of the art accuracies of colour iris recognition systems is evaluated. An investigation of how fundamentally different fusion strategies can increase the degree of choice available in achieving certain performance criteria is conducted. Initially, simple fusion mechanisms are employed to increase the accuracy of an iris recognition system and then more complex fusion architectures are elaborated to further enhance the biometric system’s accuracy. In particular, the design process of the iris recognition system with reduced constraints is carried out using three different fusion approaches: multi-algorithmic, texture and colour fusion and multiple classifier systems. In the first approach, one novel iris feature extraction methodology is proposed and a multi-algorithmic iris recognition system using score fusion, composed of 3 individual systems, is benchmarked. In the texture and colour fusion approach, the advantages of fusing information from the iris texture with data extracted from the eye colour are illustrated. Finally, the multiple classifier systems approach investigates how the robustness and practicability of an iris recognition system operating on visible spectrum images can be enhanced by training individual classifiers on different iris features. Besides the various fusion techniques explored, an iris segmentation algorithm is proposed and a methodology for finding which colour channels from a colour space reveal the most discriminant information from the iris texture is introduced. The contributions presented in this thesis indicate that iris recognition systems that operate on visible spectrum images can be designed to operate with an accuracy required by a particular application scenario. Also, the iris recognition systems developed in the present study are suitable for mobile and embedded implementations

    Naval Postgraduate School Academic Catalog - February 2023

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    University of Maine Undergraduate Catalog, 2022-2023

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    The University of Maine undergraduate catalog for the 2022-2023 academic year includes an introduction, the academic calendars, general information about the university, and sections on attending, facilities and centers, and colleges and academic programs including the Colleges of Business, Public Policy and Health, Education and Development, Engineering, Liberal Arts and Sciences, and Natural Sciences, Forestry and Agriculture

    Lost in technology: Towards a critique of repugnant rights

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    Modern law is founded on an idea of justice that is made felt through rights and entitlements legal subjects enjoy. As such, for law and its idea of justice, rights are inherently good and therefore abundant. On encounter with injustice, it has become commonplace to inquire what laws and rights have been flouted, as if injustice would disappear in encounter with rights that encode justice. But what if no number of laws and rights – even with faultless execution – is up for the task of upholding what we deem just? In this dissertation, I look at the heart of this question, and find the law’s answer not simply wanting but repugnant. The research is animated by interaction of three topoi: personhood, technology, and international law. The first part concerns how these concepts are perceived in law and by those working with laws. As part of the unearthing of the conceptual ground rules, a trilemma between effectiveness, responsiveness, and coherence familiar from regulatory research and international law rears its head. I show how setting the priority on effective and responsive solutions has amounted to derogation of justice and diminishment of law’s foundational entity, a natural person. I explore whether these outcomes could be avoided within liberal international law and answer my own question on the negative. I title this systematic outcome a theory of repugnant rights. The latter part of the dissertation concerns technology, its regulation, and tendency to produce repugnant outcomes in international law. I focus on bio- and information technologies and their legal coding as tools to dismantle legal protection provided by our quality of being human. I will show how intricate legal norms break and remake us in ways that blur the boundaries between persons and things. Once something falls beyond or below the category of a person, its legal status can be warped, twisted, and turned – all while remaining at arm’s length from the person it was once legally part of. Technological intervention to such things allows for effective circumvention of legal shelter provided by human rights, as I show through example of regulation of surrogacy and data storage. To come to terms with the repugnancy, I seek shelter from anger as a transitory category that would enable us to move across the present impasse with rights. I suggest that at the very least international lawyers ought to be angry at quotidian horrors international law upholds. And through such anger overcome the misery and repugnancy of international law.--- Moderni oikeus pohjaa ajatukseen oikeudenmukaisuudesta, joka ilmenee oikeussubjektien nauttimien ja käyttämien oikeuksien välityksellä. Näin ymmärrettynä oikeuden ja sen omaaman oikeudenmukaisuuden käsityksen kannalta oikeudet ovat itseisarvoisesti hyviä, mikä selittää niiden suuren määrän. Kun kohtaamme epäoikeudenmukaisuutta tapaamme kysyä, mitä lakeja ja oikeuksia on loukattu, ikään kuin epäoikeudenmukaisuus kaikkoaisi sen kohdatessa oikeuden sisältämän oikeudenmukaisuuden idean. Mutta entä jos mikään määrä lakeja ja oikeuksia – edes täydellisesti täytäntöönpantuna – ei riitä puolustamaan oikeudenmukaisena pitämäämme? Väitöskirjassani kurkistan tämän kysymyksen ytimeen ja löydän vastauksen, joka ei ole ainoastaan riittämätön vaan myös vastenmielinen. Väitöksessäni operoin oikeushenkilön, teknologian ja kansainvälisen oikeuden rajapinnoilla. Väitökseni ensimmäinen osa koskee sitä, kuinka oikeuden ja lakien parissa työskentelevät mieltävät nämä käsitteet. Näiden käsitteiden tarkastelun yhteydessä havaitsen sääntelytutkimuksesta ja kansainvälisestä oikeudesta tutun tehokkuuden, responsiivisuuden ja johdonmukaisuuden välisen trilemman. Osoitan, miten tehokkaiden ja responsiivisten ratkaisujen asettaminen etusijalle on merkinnyt lipeämistä oikeudenmukaisuudesta ja samalla oikeuden keskeisen subjektin, luonnollisen henkilön, merkityksen pienentymistä. Tutkin, voitaisiinko tämä trilemma välttää liberaalin kansainvälisen oikeuden puitteissa, ja vastaan omaan kysymykseeni kielteisesti. Nimeän tämän tuloksen vastenmielisten oikeuksien teoriaksi. Väitöskirjan jälkimmäinen osa käsittelee teknologiaa, sen säätelyä ja sen taipumusta tuottaa vastenmielisiä lopputuloksia kansainvälisessä oikeudessa. Tarkastelen lähemmin bio- ja informaatioteknologioita ja niiden oikeudellista sääntelyä, sekä sitä millaisia välineitä ne tarjoavat ihmisyyden tarjoaman oikeudellisen suojan purkamiseen. Osoitan kuinka monimutkaiset oikeudelliset normit rikkovat ja muokkaavat meitä tavoilla, jotka hämärtävät ihmisten ja asioiden välisiä rajoja. Kun jokin ei ole enää henkilö, sen oikeudellista asemaa voidaan vääristää, vääntää ja kääntää. Teknologinen puuttuminen tällaisiin esineisiin ja asioihin mahdollistaa ihmisoikeuksien tarjoaman laillisen suojan tehokkaan kiertämisen, kuten osoitan sijaissynnytyksen ja datan tallennuksen sääntelyn kautta. Vastauksena oikeuden vastenmielisyydelle haen suojaa vihasta. Viha tarjoaa sellaisen tilapäisen kategorian, jonka avulla voimme välttää havaitsemani oikeuksien umpikujan. Katson, että kansainvälisen oikeuden harjoittajien olisi vähintäänkin oltava vihaisia kohdatessaan kansainvälisen oikeuden synnyttämiä ja mahdollistamia jokapäiväisiä kauhuja. Turvautumalla vihaan, jonka voimme myöhemmin asettaa sivuun, voisimme selättää kansainvälisen oikeuden surkeuden ja sen vastenmielisyyden

    Transformando la educación a través del conocimiento

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    La educación es uno de los motores de transformación social más poderoso que existen y ejerce como instrumento de cohesión social, igualando las diferencias de género, etnia, situación económica, etc. La investigación educativa es, pues, una actividad estratégica: las mejoras en educación repercuten en el conjunto de la sociedad. Es en este contexto donde se sitúa el presente volumen, titulado Transformando la educación a través del conocimiento. Esta obra recoge un total de 127 capítulos con experiencias de investigación teórica y aplicación práctica sobre experiencias concretas de innovación docente. Las contribuciones, centradas en áreas educativas diversas (educación lingüística, artística, en ciencias sociales y ambientales, etc.) y de diferentes niveles educativos (tanto de los preuniversitarios, como de educación superior), tienen en común que ofrecen una mirada renovada sobre los retos que debe enfrentar la educación actual: la inclusión educativa, la integración de las TIC en la educación, la transición entre diferentes niveles educativos, la igualdad de género o la educación emocional son, entre muchos otros, algunos de los temas abordados. El presente volumen, pues, quiere contribuir a la difusión de las algunas de las aportaciones más recientes que contribuyen al progreso del conocimiento sobre los procesos de enseñanza-aprendizaje en la sociedad actual

    Mobile translation applications: On the verge of a post-Babel world 2.0?

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    Situated within the technological realm of Translation Studies, this thesis provides an analysis of the ways in which people are using Machine Translation (MT) on a mobile device. This is a growing area of use of MT, given the increased accessibility of the technology and the proliferation of mobile devices this millennium. The thesis explores the history of MT, how the technology works and how it has reached the point of being accessible to almost anyone almost anywhere in the world, exploring the fact that MT is a form of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and that the emergence of AI and specifically MT can be examined through the lens of mobility and ubiquitous connectivity. This thesis offers an insight into how people are using the technology, what effects this may be having on their perceptions of translation and potential implications for the language barrier. It does this through two principal methods of data collection and analysis. The first is a survey of people’s use of MT on a mobile device, soliciting new data from them to enable a deeper understanding of how they use the technology, the particular features they use, their thoughts on its quality and limitations. The second is a more novel approach as it is an analysis of reviews left on the Google Play Store by users of two MT apps, Google Translate and Microsoft Translator, exploring what information can be gathered and analysed from an unsolicited dataset. This thesis offers an initial study of this new way of interacting with the technology of MT and seeks to lay groundwork for future studies, including a categorisation tool and a taxonomy of MT use, to enable reliability and comparability across studies, platforms and time. Ultimately, it argues that the technology has improved substantially since its inception in 1954, but that it is too soon to say that we are on the verge of a post-Babel world 2.0. Rather, the technology is moving human society further in this direction and towards this possibility

    Understanding Quantum Technologies 2022

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    Understanding Quantum Technologies 2022 is a creative-commons ebook that provides a unique 360 degrees overview of quantum technologies from science and technology to geopolitical and societal issues. It covers quantum physics history, quantum physics 101, gate-based quantum computing, quantum computing engineering (including quantum error corrections and quantum computing energetics), quantum computing hardware (all qubit types, including quantum annealing and quantum simulation paradigms, history, science, research, implementation and vendors), quantum enabling technologies (cryogenics, control electronics, photonics, components fabs, raw materials), quantum computing algorithms, software development tools and use cases, unconventional computing (potential alternatives to quantum and classical computing), quantum telecommunications and cryptography, quantum sensing, quantum technologies around the world, quantum technologies societal impact and even quantum fake sciences. The main audience are computer science engineers, developers and IT specialists as well as quantum scientists and students who want to acquire a global view of how quantum technologies work, and particularly quantum computing. This version is an extensive update to the 2021 edition published in October 2021.Comment: 1132 pages, 920 figures, Letter forma

    Electronic Evidence and Electronic Signatures

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    In this updated edition of the well-established practitioner text, Stephen Mason and Daniel Seng have brought together a team of experts in the field to provide an exhaustive treatment of electronic evidence and electronic signatures. This fifth edition continues to follow the tradition in English evidence text books by basing the text on the law of England and Wales, with appropriate citations of relevant case law and legislation from other jurisdictions. Stephen Mason (of the Middle Temple, Barrister) is a leading authority on electronic evidence and electronic signatures, having advised global corporations and governments on these topics. He is also the editor of International Electronic Evidence (British Institute of International and Comparative Law 2008), and he founded the innovative international open access journal Digital Evidence and Electronic Signatures Law Review in 2004. Daniel Seng (Associate Professor, National University of Singapore) is the Director of the Centre for Technology, Robotics, AI and the Law (TRAIL). He teaches and researches information technology law and evidence law. Daniel was previously a partner and head of the technology practice at Messrs Rajah & Tann. He is also an active consultant to the World Intellectual Property Organization, where he has researched, delivered papers and published monographs on copyright exceptions for academic institutions, music copyright in the Asia Pacific and the liability of Internet intermediaries
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