Algorithm Optimization and Hardware Acceleration for Machine Learning Applications on Low-energy Systems

Machine learning (ML) has been extensively employed for strategy optimization, decision making, data classification, etc. While ML shows great triumph in its application field, the increasing complexity of the learning models introduces neoteric challenges to the ML system designs. On the one hand, the applications of ML on resource-restricted terminals, like mobile computing and IoT devices, are prevented by the high computational complexity and memory requirement. On the other hand, the massive parameter quantity for the modern ML models appends extra demands on the system\u27s I/O speed and memory size. This dissertation investigates feasible solutions for those challenges with software-hardware co-design

Fostering public climate change discussions from a social interaction perspective

Public discussions on climate change, as a form of social interaction, are widely recognized as effective tools for promoting collective action. However, there is limited research on examining the factors that influence climate change discussions from a social interaction perspective. In the present study, we conducted a large sample (N = 1,169) survey to investigate personal (such as self-efficacy and personal response efficacy) and others' (such as perceived others' response efficacy and social norms) factors influencing climate change discussions from a social interaction perspective. The results showed that (i) for people with high climate change perceptions, personal response efficacy, self-efficacy, and social norms have positive effects on climate change discussions, but the effect of perceived others' response efficacy on climate change discussion is not significant; (ii) for people with low climate change perceptions, self-efficacy and social norms have positive effects on climate change discussions, but the effects of personal response efficacy and perceived others' response efficacy on climate change discussion are not significant; (iii) irrespective of individuals' high or low perceptions of climate change, social norm remains the most important predictor of climate change discussions. These findings make valuable contributions to the theoretical literature and intervention efforts regarding climate change discussions from a social interaction perspective

Fostering public climate change discussions from a social interaction perspective

Public discussions on climate change, as a form of social interaction, are widely recognized as effective tools for promoting collective action. However, there is limited research on examining the factors that influence climate change discussions from a social interaction perspective. In the present study, we conducted a large sample (N = 1,169) survey to investigate personal (such as self-efficacy and personal response efficacy) and others' (such as perceived others' response efficacy and social norms) factors influencing climate change discussions from a social interaction perspective. The results showed that (i) for people with high climate change perceptions, personal response efficacy, self-efficacy, and social norms have positive effects on climate change discussions, but the effect of perceived others' response efficacy on climate change discussion is not significant; (ii) for people with low climate change perceptions, self-efficacy and social norms have positive effects on climate change discussions, but the effects of personal response efficacy and perceived others' response efficacy on climate change discussion are not significant; (iii) irrespective of individuals' high or low perceptions of climate change, social norm remains the most important predictor of climate change discussions. These findings make valuable contributions to the theoretical literature and intervention efforts regarding climate change discussions from a social interaction perspective

Chinese residents’ attitudes toward consumption-side climate policy: The role of climate change perception and environmental topic involvement

Carbon tax&nbsp;policy&nbsp;and green energy&nbsp;policy&nbsp;are considered to be important instruments for CO2&nbsp;reduction, but usually it is investigated from&nbsp;the&nbsp;production side. From&nbsp;the&nbsp;full lifecycle perspective, however,&nbsp;the&nbsp;consumption side is&nbsp;the&nbsp;main driver&nbsp;of&nbsp;production and process emissions. Given that China is a major carbon emitter and a country with a large population, it is&nbsp;of&nbsp;great significance to understand&nbsp;Chinese&nbsp;residents&#39;&nbsp;attitudes&nbsp;towards&nbsp;climate&nbsp;policies&nbsp;aimed at&nbsp;the&nbsp;consumption side, so as to promote&nbsp;climate&nbsp;policies. We conducted a large-sample survey (N = 4699) to reveal&nbsp;the&nbsp;current state&nbsp;of&nbsp;support for personal carbon tax and green energy&nbsp;policy&nbsp;among&nbsp;Chinese&nbsp;residents.&nbsp;The&nbsp;results showed that&nbsp;Chinese&nbsp;residents were highly supportive&nbsp;of&nbsp;both&nbsp;policies, driven primarily by&nbsp;climate&nbsp;change&nbsp;perception;&nbsp;environmental&nbsp;topic&nbsp;involvement&nbsp;significantly mediated these relationships. We believe that based on our findings, policymakers could consider regulating emissions from&nbsp;the&nbsp;consumption side, increasing public understanding and awareness&nbsp;of&nbsp;climate&nbsp;change, encouraging&nbsp;the&nbsp;public to actively participate in&nbsp;environmental&nbsp;topics, giving financial subsidies to low-income groups and developing regions with unbalanced resources and economy.</p

Children-led environmental communication fosters their own and parents' conservation behavior

Carbon neutrality is one effective way to mitigate climate change, and it requires the efforts of all sectors of society. Researchers have developed several communication strategies to encourage climate collective action, but they have mainly focused on adults. We propose children-led environmental communication is a productive pathway for promoting collective action. The present study, using a total of 458 matched household-level survey data and qualitative data from eight children, explored the role of children-led environmental communication. The results show that: (1) Children-led environmental communication facilitates their own climate change worry which in turn leads to conservation behaviors. (2) For parents with little literacy of carbon neutrality, their climate change worry is positively predicted by environmental communication led by their children which also leads to conservation behaviors. (3) Climate change education promotes children-led environmental communication by increasing carbon neutrality knowledge. In conclusion, children-led environmental communication is driven by climate change education, which in turn promotes conservation behavior in children as well as in their parents. We suggest that educators and communicators could consider children-led environmental communication as a new breakthrough in promoting collective action to mitigate climate change. &nbsp;</p

Anthropomorphic Strategies Promote Wildlife Conservation through Empathy: The Moderation Role of the Public Epidemic Situation

The global illegal wildlife trade directly threatens biodiversity and leads to disease outbreaks and epidemics. In order to avoid the loss of endangered species and ensure public health security, it is necessary to intervene in illegal wildlife trade and promote public awareness of the need for wildlife conservation. Anthropomorphism is a basic and common psychological process in humans that plays a crucial role in determining how a person interacts with other non-human agents. Previous research indicates that anthropomorphizing nature entities through metaphors could increase individual behavioral intention of wildlife conservation. However, relatively little is known about the mechanism by which anthropomorphism influences behavioral intention and whether social context affects the effect of anthropomorphism. This research investigated the impact of negative emotions associated with a pandemic situation on the effectiveness of anthropomorphic strategies for wildlife conservation across two experimental studies. Experiment 1 recruited 245 college students online and asked them to read a combination of texts and pictures as anthropomorphic materials. The results indicated that anthropomorphic materials could increase participants' empathy and decrease their wildlife product consumption intention. Experiment 2 recruited 140 college students online and they were required to read the same materials as experiment 1 after watching a video related to epidemics. The results showed that the effect of wildlife anthropomorphization vanished if participants' negative emotion was aroused by the video. The present research provides experimental evidence that anthropomorphic strategies would be useful for boosting public support for wildlife conservation. However, policymakers and conservation organizations must be careful about the negative effects of the pandemic context, as the negative emotions produced by it seems to weaken the effectiveness of anthropomorphic strategies

How to win public support for financial climate policies: both climate anxiety and economic anticipation work

Considering the dual objectives of financial climate policies (such as carbon tax) -mitigating climate change and supporting economic growth, our paper aims to discover the unique process of increasing support for financial climate policies, which was a lack of attention before. Building on the structural equation modelling analysis of a nationwide longitudinal survey including 2322 valid samples in China, this research finds the positive influence of climate anxiety and economic anticipation on the support for financial climate policies, driven by the enhancement of perceived win-win benefits of policies. The findings provide researchers with a new perspective in understanding public support for financial climate policies and the psychological process underneath. Policy-makers could benefit from the findings by strategically managing the climate anxiety and economic anticipation of the public and raising public awareness of personal benefits beyond climate benefits when implementing financial climate policies

Can policy implementation increase public waste sorting behavior? The comparison between regions with and without waste sorting policy implementation in China

Waste threatens human health and the environment. Public participation, as an essential link in the whole waste management chain, is important for countries to achieve carbon neutrality and promote sustainable development. However, some countries are still in the initial stage of policy practice, for example, China&rsquo;s waste sorting policy is still in the pilot stage and has not yet covered the whole country. Therefore, it is necessary to understand whether waste sorting policy has a catalytic effect on public waste sorting behavior, and based on the Theory of Planned Behavior, knowledge and intention were proposed to have chain-mediating effect. With a large-sample national survey, we compared the differences in public waste sorting behavior between areas with and without waste sorting policies and examined the mechanism. Results showed that the public in areas with waste sorting policies participated more in actual waste sorting behavior than the public in areas without waste sorting policies, and the proposed effects of knowledge and intention were verified. The research results provide valuable insights for policymakers and stakeholders from multiple perspectives of policy implementation, policy instruments, and population differences.</p