Patterns and embodiment: An examination of human knowing in A Day Made of Glass

In 2011 and 2012, Corning, a glass company, released a series of videos on Youtube featuring A Day Made of Glass. These videos became popular and thought-provoking as they visualized a world of ubiquitous display and augmented reality. In this paper, I examine the effects such a future would have on human knowing with the critique of the digital humanities. In particular, I develop a framework using the literary/cybernetics perspective of N. Katherine Hayles and the epistemological perspective of Michael Polanyi. Analyzing the video, I conclude that while the technology of A Day Made of Glass does not enhance human embodiment and sense of touch, it has much to offer the visual aspect of knowin

Hypertargeting facebook profiles vulnerable to ISIS recruitment with "Breaking the ISIS brand counter narrative video clips" in multiple facebook campaigns

Despite the territorial demise of Islamic State of Iraq and Syria [ISIS], their cyberoperations continue to entice supporters. In an effort to disrupt ISIS’s appeal, the International Center for the Study of Violent Extremism has produced over 150 short video clips featuring ISIS insiders denouncing the group, published in over 100 Facebook campaigns in multiple languages and regions. This article details 16 campaigns hyper-targeted at profiles that, based on predetermined and assessed indicators, suggested increased risk of exposure to ISIS-related content. Qualitative and quantitative metrics possibly suggest positive changes in online attitudes and behavior, reducing support and incitement to terrorism

Beating ISIS in the Digital Space: Focus Testing ISIS Defector Counter-Narrative Videos with American College Students

ISIS recruits on a 24/7 basis in over 21 languages over the Internet using videos, memes, tweets and other social media postings and swarming in on anyone that retweets, likes or endorses their materials to try to seduce them into the group.  Their unprecedented social media drive has resulted in over 30,000 foreign fighters from more than 100 countries migrating to Syria and Iraq.  ISIS recruitment in the U.S. is for the most part Internet based and has resulted in the actual and attempted recruitment of over 100 individuals residing in the U.S. with over 200 Americans traveling to Syria to join terrorist groups.  To date very little counter-narrative material exists and most of it is cognitive versus emotionally impactful.  The International Center for the Study of Violent Extremism (ICSVE) Breaking the ISIS Brand – the ISIS Defectors Interviews Project has managed to collect 43 ISIS defector interviews and thus far produce two video clips of ISIS defectors denouncing the group which were focus tested in this research in a small normative college student sample of 75 undergraduate students.  The results demonstrate that American college students find the videos authentic, disturbing and turn them away from ISIS, fulfilling the goals that the project is aiming for in producing counter-narrative materials

Developing talent in this century through curriculum differentiation: A timeline for professional development

A 5-year model for professional development was created to offer teachers of secondary gifted and talented students in the Dubuque Community School District varied opportunities to expand their repertoire of skills in the area of curriculum differentiation. The model was based on specific concerns about curriculum differentiation expressed by respondents on a questionnaire/needs assessment form sent to all teachers with identified students in one or more classes. Major concerns were found to be: (a) sufficient time for curriculum development to permit differentiation to be incorporated into lesson plans, (b) opportunities to meet with other teachers to share differentiation ideas, (c) structural changes involving time, space, or materials that would make differentiating easier to implement

Hypertargeting Facebook Profiles Vulnerable to ISIS Recruitment with “Breaking the ISIS Brand Counter Narrative Video Clips” in Multiple Facebook Campaigns

Despite the territorial demise of Islamic State of Iraq and Syria [ISIS], their cyberoperations continue to entice supporters. In an effort to disrupt ISIS’s appeal, the International Center for the Study of Violent Extremism has produced over 150 short video clips featuring ISIS insiders denouncing the group, published in over 100 Facebook campaigns in multiple languages and regions. This article details 16 campaigns hyper-targeted at profiles that, based on predetermined and assessed indicators, suggested increased risk of exposure to ISIS-related content. Qualitative and quantitative metrics possibly suggest positive changes in online attitudes and behavior, reducing support and incitement to terrorism

Extrapolation to complete basis-set limit in density-functional theory by quantile random-forest models

The numerical precision of density-functional-theory (DFT) calculations depends on a variety of computational parameters, one of the most critical being the basis-set size. The ultimate precision is reached with an infinitely large basis set, i.e., in the limit of a complete basis set (CBS). Our aim in this work is to find a machine-learning model that extrapolates finite basis-size calculations to the CBS limit. We start with a data set of 63 binary solids investigated with two all-electron DFT codes, exciting and FHI-aims, which employ very different types of basis sets. A quantile-random-forest model is used to estimate the total-energy correction with respect to a fully converged calculation as a function of the basis-set size. The random-forest model achieves a symmetric mean absolute percentage error of lower than 25% for both codes and outperforms previous approaches in the literature. Our approach also provides prediction intervals, which quantify the uncertainty of the models' predictions

Self-Evaluation And Depression: The Effects Of Self-Esteem Versus Self-Acceptance On Measures Of Affect, Beliefs And Intellectual Performance

Whereas the self-esteem model for self-evaluation permeates the field of psychology, Albert Ellis, in his theory of rational emotive therapy, proposes an alternative in a self-acceptance model. While self-esteem is based on significant others and personal competencies, self-acceptance occurs irrespective of these factors. This study compares self-esteem with self-acceptance

Validity constraints for data analysis workflows

\ua9 2024Porting a scientific data analysis workflow (DAW) to a cluster infrastructure, a new software stack, or even only a new dataset with some notably different properties is often challenging. Despite the structured definition of the steps (tasks) and their interdependencies during a complex data analysis in the DAW specification, relevant assumptions may remain unspecified and implicit. Such hidden assumptions often lead to crashing tasks without a reasonable error message, poor performance in general, non-terminating executions, or silent wrong results of the DAW, to name only a few possible consequences. Searching for the causes of such errors and drawbacks in a distributed compute cluster managed by a complex infrastructure stack, where DAWs for large datasets typically are executed, can be tedious and time-consuming. We propose validity constraints (VCs) as a new concept for DAW languages to alleviate this situation. A VC is a constraint specifying logical conditions that must be fulfilled at certain times for DAW executions to be valid. When defined together with a DAW, VCs help to improve the portability, adaptability, and reusability of DAWs by making implicit assumptions explicit. Once specified, VCs can be controlled automatically by the DAW infrastructure, and violations can lead to meaningful error messages and graceful behavior (e.g., termination or invocation of repair mechanisms). We provide a broad list of possible VCs, classify them along multiple dimensions, and compare them to similar concepts one can find in related fields. We also provide a proof-of-concept implementation for the workflow system Nextflow