Keystroke dynamics in the pre-touchscreen era

Biometric authentication seeks to measure an individual’s unique physiological attributes for the purpose of identity verification. Conventionally, this task has been realized via analyses of fingerprints or signature iris patterns. However, whilst such methods effectively offer a superior security protocol compared with password-based approaches for example, their substantial infrastructure costs, and intrusive nature, make them undesirable and indeed impractical for many scenarios. An alternative approach seeks to develop similarly robust screening protocols through analysis of typing patterns, formally known as keystroke dynamics. Here, keystroke analysis methodologies can utilize multiple variables, and a range of mathematical techniques, in order to extract individuals’ typing signatures. Such variables may include measurement of the period between key presses, and/or releases, or even key-strike pressures. Statistical methods, neural networks, and fuzzy logic have often formed the basis for quantitative analysis on the data gathered, typically from conventional computer keyboards. Extension to more recent technologies such as numerical keypads and touch-screen devices is in its infancy, but obviously important as such devices grow in popularity. Here, we review the state of knowledge pertaining to authentication via conventional keyboards with a view toward indicating how this platform of knowledge can be exploited and extended into the newly emergent type-based technological contexts

Regional/District economic developments

Federal Reserve District, 5th ; Economic indicators

Narrating other natures a third wave ecocritical approach to Toni Morrison, Ruth Ozeki, and Octavia Butler

This study examines literary constructions of nature and the natural in works by women of color. Together, these chapters explore how oppressive environmental narratives are often used by dominant power structures to develop and maintain dominance and, by using a third wave ecocritical approach that puts ecofeminist and environmental justice perspectives at the center of ecocritical cultural studies, these chapters reveal how literature can challenge such narratives and create opportunities for counter narratives to be voiced. Each novel discussed takes on a different strain of oppressive environmental narrative that has been co-opted or apportioned for a specific agenda, be it racist, capitalist, or colonial. Through fiction, Toni Morrison, Ruth Ozeki, and Octavia Butler are able to expose these narratives, to call attention to the damage wreaked by these narratives, and to produce counter-narratives which disrupt the idea that nature is a static monolith which can be looked to in order to justify an agenda and solidify an identity. Chapter one offers an overview of ecocriticism and how it started and how it evolved. It discusses how first wave ecocritics, amidst the urgency to instill an environmental ethic in readers of literature, had a tendency to celebrate a seemingly universal nature that offered comfort and serenity. Chapter two examines Toni Morrison s Beloved and the history of African American women s views of nature and how the institution of slavery fractured African American relationships with the environment and rendered nature as a place of conflict for slaves. The third chapter discusses Ruth Ozeki s novel My Year of Meats and transnational environmental issues as seen in food production and consumption. It looks at how environmental narratives are used in order to privilege corporate power and profit, through a compartmentalized, controlled view of nature that relies on essentialized racial and gendered identities. The final chapter on Octavia Butler s Xenogenesis Trilogy focuses on rejecting the natural through the use of science fiction that highlights and magnifies the ways that environmental issues are being manipulated and used to maintain existing hierarchies

Invisible Worker(s), Invisible Hazards: An Examination of Psychological and Physical Safety Amongst Frontline Workers in Long-term Residential Care Facilities in the 'New' Global Economy

Research has consistently demonstrated that the long-term residential care (LTRC) frontline workforce encounters a range of serious health and safety hazards and risks that result in physical and psychological injury, illness, absenteeism, and related costs. Using the lens of feminist political economy, this dissertation explores the risks workers encounter on the frontlines of LTRC, how these workplace risks are shaped by broader social, economic, political, and historical factors, as well as the ways frontline workers resist, challenge, or shape the conditions of their work in this setting. My analysis of primary data is informed by interviews with 17 frontline workers working within for-profit, non-profit, and municipal LTRC facilities within Ontario and 2 key informants. Restructuring and reform of health and social care services under neoliberalism have profoundly transformed the character, funding, organization, and delivery of LTRC. These changes have serious implications for workforce configurations, the conditions of work and care, workplace health and safety, worker control over their labour, and capacities for worker resistance to the conditions of their work. Within the LTRC organizational hierarchy, frontline workers are of marginal status. The frontline workforce is composed predominately of women and increasingly marginalized immigrants and racialized groups, whose care labour on the frontlines is often naturalized, undervalued, and treated as unskilled and safe. This research provides evidence that restructuring and work reorganization processes, policies, and practices constitute a form of structural violence, which contribute to, intensify, and/or give rise to new sources of struggle, inequity, risk, violence, alienation, and exploitation on the everyday/everynight frontlines of LTRC

Exploring accuracy in journalism stories reporting on neuroscience research findings: A comparative case study

Abstract Neuroscience has seen explosive growth in research and public interest, but research findings are often reported inaccurately, impacting public understanding. Exploratory descriptive case study methods were used to analyze two peer reviewed research articles, one on brain imaging for patients in a Persistent Vegetative State (PVS), and another on Brain Training (BT), and all journalism stories regarding these two studies. Statistical and content analyses were used to analyze the accuracy of the translation of the research into journalism stories. PVS research received more media attention and this reporting was less accurate than for BT research; the information was also discussed and presented in different ways, including broad implications and generalizations in the PVS, but not the BT, stories. The difference in level of media saturation and accuracy between PVS and BT research is likely because the PVS stories often linked the social/ethical issues of life and death to the research

Nothing Like a Good Fiasco! Exploring the Potential of Tabletop Role-Playing Games (TRPGs) As Literacy Experiences

Within this position paper, we describe the use of Fiasco, a tabletop role-playing game (TRPG), as it relates to the creation of literacy experiences. Fiasco is a TRPG that utilizes prompts inspired by genre fiction to collaboratively generate, establish, and resolve scenes between a varied cast of characters in several rounds improvisational roleplay. To explore the range of literacy experience opportunities, present in its play, we present our experiences designing and playing a Fiasco session and reflect upon the transformative potential of tabletop games in creating literacy experiences. The position we undertake, in favor of the considered use of TRPGs for learning through serious gaming in classrooms, is reflective of the experiences within our local gaming and learning communities. Based upon this experience and relevant literature, we contend that table-top gaming fits well within literacy pedagogy and explore how they can be used in classrooms. Therefore, our discussion is centered upon the potential of tabletop games experiences to be considered inventive, specifically in relation to the teaching and learning of literacy skills within a serious gaming framework

Cross-cultural comparison of anxiety symptoms in Colombian and Australian children [Una comparacion transcultural de sintomas de la ansiedad en tre ninos colombianos y australianos]

Introduction: This cross-cultural study compared both the symptoms of anxiety and their severity in a community sample of children from Colombia and Australia. Method: The sample comprised 516 children (253 Australian children and 263 Colombian children), aged 8 to 12-years-old. The Spence Children’s Anxiety Scale (SCAS) was used to measure both the symptoms and levels of anxiety. Results: The results showed a significant difference in the severity of the symptoms between the children in the two countries. In general, Colombian children reported more severe symptoms than their Australian peers, however there were no difference in the types of symptoms reported by the children in the two countries. Discussion and Conclusion: The implications of these findings and their importance to cross-cultural research are discussed

An IC Intervention for Post-Conflict Northern Ireland Secondary schools

Without carefully planned, sustained resourcing of children and young people, post-conflict Northern Ireland (NI) may fail to flourish. In May, 2016, MI5 (the UK domestic security agency) increased the security threat level from moderate to substantial for NI related terrorism. For over two years we have been partnership building in post-conflict NI to produce a plan for developing an evidence-based integrative complexity resource for NI secondary schools. Integrative complexity interventions have been shown effective at increasing capacities in a range of contexts, on different conflicts and extremisms, with diverse population samples (evaluated using the cross-culturally validated integrative complexity measurement frame). Based on over forty years of research,[1] integrative complexity measures assess how we think about our social world, from rapid, inflexible, closed thinking toward more deliberate, flexible, open thinking about our own and opposed groups. The latter predicts more peaceful outcomes to conflict. This research plan has the most rigorous and systematic empirical design to date, to advance the theory and method of integrative complexity science in partnership with end-users for promoting capacities to live well with difference and disagreement. The findings will benefit NI and other post-conflict regions struggling to overcome legacies of violence. [1] Peter Suedfeld and Philip E. Tetlock, “Integrative complexity at forty: Steps toward resolving the scoring dilemma,” Political Psychology 35 (2014): 597-601