675 research outputs found
Addressing enterprise information security
Information is a critical resource for an organisation. Increasingly, information security is becoming an everincreasing complex responsibility for IT management responsible for the safe-keeping of this critical resource. This paper describes that implementing good security can be greatly simplified by following procedures and processes already developed and documented by Information Security experts. Augmenting this is a recommendation that educational institutions offering IT programs include security education components to develop a pool of IT security trained graduates to address the huge demand by industry and users of IT systems for secure systems
Active Object Localization in Visual Situations
We describe a method for performing active localization of objects in
instances of visual situations. A visual situation is an abstract
concept---e.g., "a boxing match", "a birthday party", "walking the dog",
"waiting for a bus"---whose image instantiations are linked more by their
common spatial and semantic structure than by low-level visual similarity. Our
system combines given and learned knowledge of the structure of a particular
situation, and adapts that knowledge to a new situation instance as it actively
searches for objects. More specifically, the system learns a set of probability
distributions describing spatial and other relationships among relevant
objects. The system uses those distributions to iteratively sample object
proposals on a test image, but also continually uses information from those
object proposals to adaptively modify the distributions based on what the
system has detected. We test our approach's ability to efficiently localize
objects, using a situation-specific image dataset created by our group. We
compare the results with several baselines and variations on our method, and
demonstrate the strong benefit of using situation knowledge and active
context-driven localization. Finally, we contrast our method with several other
approaches that use context as well as active search for object localization in
images.Comment: 14 page
Gaussian Processes with Context-Supported Priors for Active Object Localization
We devise an algorithm using a Bayesian optimization framework in conjunction
with contextual visual data for the efficient localization of objects in still
images. Recent research has demonstrated substantial progress in object
localization and related tasks for computer vision. However, many current
state-of-the-art object localization procedures still suffer from inaccuracy
and inefficiency, in addition to failing to provide a principled and
interpretable system amenable to high-level vision tasks. We address these
issues with the current research.
Our method encompasses an active search procedure that uses contextual data
to generate initial bounding-box proposals for a target object. We train a
convolutional neural network to approximate an offset distance from the target
object. Next, we use a Gaussian Process to model this offset response signal
over the search space of the target. We then employ a Bayesian active search
for accurate localization of the target.
In experiments, we compare our approach to a state-of-theart bounding-box
regression method for a challenging pedestrian localization task. Our method
exhibits a substantial improvement over this baseline regression method.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figure
Microblogging as a Facilitator of Online Community in Graduate Education
Part-time and distance-learning students can experience a sense of isolation from their peers and the university. Concern about this isolation and resulting student attrition has increased in the midst of explosive growth in online course enrollments. One possible solution: building a stronger sense of community within the online graduate classroom using microblogging technology such as Twitter. Unfortunately, scholars across disciplines define community in different ways with some rejecting the concept altogether in favor of other theoretical constructs. And, few scholars have examined the notion of online classroom community from an English Studies perspective exploring the rhetorical exigencies that underpin this concept. Scholars often write about online community in aspirational terms and fail to demonstrate its existence empirically (Kling and Courtright, 2003).
Through the application of two existing pedagogical theories (Rovai\u27s (2002) concept of classroom community and the well-established Community of Inquiry framework) this dissertation empirically documents the existence of online classroom community in two cases studies of graduate distance-learning summer sessions. This mixed-methods research study then demonstrates that microblogging technology is capable of both supporting and facilitating the growth of that sense of online classroom community. Because it stands at the convergence of a student\u27s academic and personal interests, social media software such as Twitter—whether used as a front- or backchannel to the course—is uniquely positioned to serve both as a virtual third place and as a venue for exercising Brooke\u27s (1999) writing underlife activities and extending Mueller\u27s (2009) notions of where and how these activities can be played out in a digital context. Finally, this dissertation also offers a five-part alternative definition of online classroom community that strongly links the digital space itself with the affective/emotional concerns addressed in some other theoretical constructions of community
Evolving Order and Chaos: Comparing Particle Swarm Optimization and Genetic Algorithms for Global Coordination of Cellular Automata
We apply two evolutionary search algorithms: Particle Swarm Optimization
(PSO) and Genetic Algorithms (GAs) to the design of Cellular Automata (CA) that
can perform computational tasks requiring global coordination. In particular,
we compare search efficiency for PSO and GAs applied to both the density
classification problem and to the novel generation of 'chaotic' CA. Our work
furthermore introduces a new variant of PSO, the Binary Global-Local PSO
(BGL-PSO)
Discipling Leadership is Key to Church Revitalization: A Revitalization Strategy for Declining Churches
This thesis project is designed to help diagnose the spiritual condition of church leaders as well as to implement a plan to encourage biblical leadership development. Due to the lack of biblical leaders, churches across the country are declining and/or dying. The Southern Baptist Convention in 2019 reported more churches closed than opened. This is a trend that must change, and it starts with leadership. A major problem in our churches today is the leaders are not biblically discipled. Without biblical leaders, the church will not be as Jesus intended. This research project will focus on helping churches create leaders who will lead from a biblical point of view rather than men’s point of view. It looks at studies of other churches, surveys of individual leaders, and previous scholarly literature. The research will show a lack of biblical leadership as well as the hope that abounds when churches raise up biblical leaders. A plan is given to help develop leaders into ones using their God-given abilities to help move God’s church forward. With the implementation of this plan, a church can get on the path to revitalization and begin making an impact as commanded in Acts 1:8, in their Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and The World
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