Stumping along a Summary for Exploration & Exploitation Challenge 2011

International audienceThe Pascal Exploration & Exploitation challenge 2011 seeks to evaluate algorithms for the online website content selection problem. This article presents the solution we used to achieve second place in this challenge and some side-experiments we performed. The methods we evaluated are all structured in three layers. The rst layer provides an online summary of the data stream for continuous and nominal data. Continuous data are handled using an online quantile summary. Nominal data are summarized with a hash-based counting structure. With these techniques, we managed to build an accurate stream summary with a small memory footprint. The second layer uses the summary to build predictors. We exploited several kinds of trees from simple decision stumps to deep multivariate ones. For the last layer, we explored several combination strategies: online bagging, exponential weighting, linear ranker, and simple averaging

Guantanamo\u27s Greatest Hits: The Semiotics of Sound and the Protection of Performer Rights under the Lanham Act

As Bruce Springsteen and Ronald Reagan, Jackson Brown and John McCain, and Tom Morello and Paul Ryan can attest, the exploitation of creative works for political or commercial purposes that run contrary to artists\u27 ideals can stir passions and trigger lawsuits. Yet for performers who are not authors of the exploited works, there is little meaningful legal relief provided by the federal Copyright Act. Instead, such performers--from featured singers and dancers to actors and other personalities known for their distinctive traits--have leaned on alternative theories for recovery, thereby raising the specter of liability outside of copyright law for such unwelcome uses. While a rich body of literature analyzes and critiques the use of publicity rights in these contexts, the vindication of performer rights through the Lanham Act and related state law has received far less attention. Furthermore, though courts in such cases have frequently ruled in tandem on right of publicity and trademark/false endorsement claims, jurists and scholars have given insufficient independent analysis to the particularities of the latter. This Article seeks to address this void by focusing on performers\u27 efforts to seek relief under the Lanham Act and related state law for unwanted uses of their creative output in promotional contexts and by considering alternatives for redressing performer concerns in a manner that better protects the public domain and balance in the intellectual property regime

Reflection and representation: modes of communicating Zimbabwean historical narratives through popular music

Music, before and after independence in the former colonies, has been playing a central role of articulating national concerns. It became an alternative medium through which historical narratives were channeled out to the public. While many scholars have acknowledged the critical role of music’s attempt to whip the autocratic governments into line, and the attempts by the governments across the world to thwart the critical/activism role of music, little emphasis was put on the mechanism of circumventing censorship, the linguistic competence (or lack of it) of music in conscientising the public on national issues. This thesis aims to harness this seemingly entertainment tool (music) into serious academic discourse by looking at the way power relations and ideological contestations are symbolically reflected, represented and communicated in popular culture, in particular the Zimbabwean Sungura and Chimurenga music. It makes a critical analysis of the diction of music as it attempts (or fails to) reflect and represent the Zimbabwean historical narratives from the early 1990s to 2008. The study tries to (semiologically) fracture the musical lexicon and the ideological stance on which it is based to show the extent to which music communicates by way of reflecting and representing the Zimbabwean historical narratives. The thesis looks at how popular music has ‘become the most prominent signifier’ and at ‘the shifting meanings and the significance of … music’ (Nooshin 2005:231) in Zimbabwe. It utilises a qualitative research approach specifically an interpretive prism. Key research methods for the study include in-depth semi-structured interviews which were conducted with purposively selected informants such as university academics and two of the selected musicians. The selected academics were purposively sampled basing on the researcher’s knowledge of their inclination towards Cultural Studies, particularly popular culture. The study has managed to bring clarity to the research questions in a big way considering the application of the various theories that framed the thesis discussion. Research findings indicate that interpretive semiotics aids to unpack the philosophy of meaning making through song. Music as a medium has the reflective effect of a mirror and a photographic effect of a camera to enunciate the ideological innuendo in the leader-led dichotomy. The study shows that protest popular music rejects knowledge that affirms the status quo; it is counter hegemonic and seeks to regenerate selfhoods and self-liberation amongst the subaltern class

Knowledge Creation Processes in Foundation Degree Partnership Working

This thesis seeks to develop an understanding of knowledge creation processes in partnership working, conditions which foster these, and their impact on longer-term sustainability. The partnership, between a university in Greater Manchester and the Strategic Health Authority, was established in 2002 to train a new role of healthcare worker through the delivery a foundation degree in health and social care. At that time foundation degrees were new, and the 'Assistant Practitioner' role was being introduced to bridge the gap between staff at registered professional level and those at support worker level. The role is intended as generic and patient-centred in crossing traditional professional boundaries, and so presents challenges in creating, sharing and embedding knowledge, which accords well with the concept of knowledge management. The study explores Nonaka and Takeuchi's (1995) model of Knowledge Management, and Engestrom's (1997,2001) Activity Theory, in relation to how these constructs may provide insight into the knowledge processes in partnership working. 'Partnership' is a contested concept which is debated in the context of the policy drivers underpinning the development. The enquiry has employed a case study approach within an interpretive paradigm with data gathered through semi-structured interviews and a focus group. Thematic analysis of the interview data identifies and explores themes in knowledge creation and partnership working which raise questions of power dynamics. These questions are not fully addressed by the knowledge creation models, and so the relationship between power, knowledge and discourse is further considered through a Foucauldian discourse analysis approach to the focus group. The conclusions support the value of the knowledge creation models for developing insights into how partnership working supports innovation and may sustain it. The discourse analysis reveals the pervasiveness of power relationships, reflects on their impact on knowledge creation, and considers the consequences for longer-term sustainability of the partnership

Worlding the south

This collection brings together for the first time literary studies of British colonies in nineteenth-century Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, South America, Southeast Asia, and the Pacific Islands. Drawing on hemispheric studies, Indigenous studies, and southern theory to decentre British and other European metropoles, the collection offers a latitudinal challenge to national paradigms and traditional literary periodisations and canons by proposing a new literary history of the region that is predicated less on metropolitan turning points and more on southern cultural perspectives in multiple regional centres from Cape Town to Dunedin. With a focus on southern orientations, southern audiences, and southern modes of addressivity, Worlding the south foregrounds marginal, minor, and neglected writers and texts across a hemispheric complex of southern oceans and terrains. Drawing on an ontological tradition that tests the dominance of networked theories of globalisation, the collection also asks how we can better understand the dialectical relationship between the ‘real’ world in which a literary text or art object exists and the symbolic or conceptual world it shows or creates. By examining the literary processes of ‘worlding’, it demonstrates how art objects make legible homogenising imperial and colonial narratives, inequalities of linguistic power, textual and material violence, and literary and cultural resistance. With contributions from leading scholars in nineteenth-century literary and cultural studies, the collection revises literary histories of the ‘British world’ by arguing for the distinctiveness of settler colonialism in the southern hemisphere, and by incorporating Indigenous, diasporic, settler, and other southern perspectives

Machine Performers: Agents in a Multiple Ontological State

In this thesis, the author explores and develops new attributes for machine performers and merges the trans-disciplinary fields of the performing arts and artificial intelligence. The main aim is to redefine the term “embodiment” for robots on the stage and to demonstrate that this term requires broadening in various fields of research. This redefining has required a multifaceted theoretical analysis of embodiment in the field of artificial intelligence (e.g. the uncanny valley), as well as the construction of new robots for the stage by the author. It is hoped that these practical experimental examples will generate more research by others in similar fields. Even though the historical lineage of robotics is engraved with theatrical strategies and dramaturgy, further application of constructive principles from the performing arts and evidence from psychology and neurology can shift the perception of robotic agents both on stage and in other cultural environments. In this light, the relation between representation, movement and behaviour of bodies has been further explored to establish links between constructed bodies (as in artificial intelligence) and perceived bodies (as performers on the theatrical stage). In the course of this research, several practical works have been designed and built, and subsequently presented to live audiences and research communities. Audience reactions have been analysed with surveys and discussions. Interviews have also been conducted with choreographers, curators and scientists about the value of machine performers. The main conclusions from this study are that fakery and mystification can be used as persuasive elements to enhance agency. Morphologies can also be applied that tightly couple brain and sensorimotor actions and lead to a stronger stage presence. In fact, if this lack of presence is left out of human replicants, it causes an “uncanny” lack of agency. Furthermore, the addition of stage presence leads to stronger identification from audiences, even for bodies dissimilar to their own. The author demonstrates that audience reactions are enhanced by building these effects into machine body structures: rather than identification through mimicry, this causes them to have more unambiguously biological associations. Alongside these traits, atmospheres such as those created by a cast of machine performers tend to cause even more intensely visceral responses. In this thesis, “embodiment” has emerged as a paradigm shift – as well as within this shift – and morphological computing has been explored as a method to deepen this visceral immersion. Therefore, this dissertation considers and builds machine performers as “true” performers for the stage, rather than mere objects with an aura. Their singular and customized embodiment can enable the development of non-anthropocentric performances that encompass the abstract and conceptual patterns in motion and generate – as from human performers – empathy, identification and experiential reactions in live audiences

An autoethnography of becoming a kindergarden teacher: from self-awareness to nonviolent social change

Abstract. This study seek to represent my educational journey from childhood to the present. It aspires at answering two main research questions that I faced over my time working as a kindergarten teacher in a local school in Verona, Italy. They are: what have been the principal factors (life events and knowledge gained) to lead my educative journey? What has been the impact nonviolent communication had on my educative practice? Embracing the view of transmissional theorists which see education as tool to change socio-cultural values, I reflect on the perspective nonviolent thinkers have on the western modern culture. I take on different disciplines, such as anthropology, linguistic and neurosciences, to address the importance of transmitting nonviolent values through education, in order to possibly overcome the violent paradigm spread within the contemporary society. I approach nonviolent communication as a strategy to bring such a change. The main research questions are considered under the autoethnographic approach which makes the study a highly personal account. The results of this work demonstrate that the factors determining my choice of being an educator have been influenced by both my personality, my schooling experience and the knowledge I matured throughout my life and my working experience. Finally, I state that to enact a social change through an educational practice, good will is not enough. Personal, cultural, anthropological and neuroscientific awareness on the role education, have been crucial in order to shape my profession, as well as myself as a person. At present, I acknowledge that through my educative performance, I can contribute to change a predominant violent cultural paradigm into a nonviolent one

Rural food security in Mutare District, Zimbabwe, 1947-2010

By taking Mutare District as its lens to explore the dynamics of rural food security in Zimbabwe, this thesis assesses the role of the state in tackling hunger among its rural populations. It examines the impact of colonial and post-colonial food policy on efforts to combat food insecurity. The thesis explores the uneasy options pursued by rural communities in response to droughts and other threats of hunger. It identifies and ranks crop failure as the chief culprit to the district’s efforts towards food security. The thesis illustrates the contestations between the state and its rural people over which sustainable approaches to adopt in order to end hunger and how such debates continually shaped policy. It grapples with questions about the various understandings of food security advanced by scholars within the rural African context. It demonstrates, for instance, that the post-colonial state inherited an erstwhile crop production structure which shunned food crops in favour of cash crops. There was obvious bias against local preferences for a robust, home-grown food regime which did not put rural livelihoods at risk of starvation. The thesis also argues that food can be used as an instrument of war as evidenced during the liberation struggle when the vast majority of people residing in rural areas, particularly women and children, were pushed to the edges of survival. In addition, the thesis demonstrates that the infamous Marange diamonds turned out to be a curse rather than a blessing due to the state’s lack of transparency in the beneficiation chain. It concludes by a detailed examination of the political economy of food aid, demonstrating why donors have not succeeded for long to combat hunger in the district. In light of this background, the thesis provides a more nuanced analysis of the whole question of rural food security using archival material, newspapers, government and civil society reports, interviews and field observation. The thesis benefits from the use of a multi-pronged theoretical framework to capture the disparate themes that form the bedrock of this study