Suppose UK voters accept the Alternative Vote in the May referendum… but then don’t use AV to signal multiple party preferences?

Most of the discussion of the AV referendum assumes that if UK voters endorse changing the voting system, they will be eager to vote 1, 2 3, 4 etc to express support for several or multiple parties. But Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher have their doubts. Reviewing the evidence from Queensland, which uses the same system as the proposed UK alternative vote, they believe that many voters will treat an AV election as just like ‘first past the post’, and not cast (or perhaps over time stop casting) multiple preferences

An Analysis of Sound Exposure in a University Instrumental Music Rehearsal Venue

The purpose of this study is to collect and analyze the sound load exposure of a population of university music students participating in instrumental music ensemble rehearsal

Automated Response to Query System

SMS (Short Message Service) is now a hugely popular and a very powerful business communication technology for mobile phones. In order to respond correctly to a free form factual question given a large collection of texts, one needs to understand the question at a level that allows determining some of constraints the question imposes on a possible answer. These constraints may include a semantic classification of the sought after answer and may even suggest using different strategies when looking for and verifying a candidate answer. In this paper we focus on various attempts to overcome the major contradiction: the technical limitations of the SMS standard, and the huge number of found information for a possible answer

Mobile Election

Mobile phones have the potential of fostering political mobilisation. There is a significant political power in mobile technology. Like the Internet, mobile phones facilitate communication and rapid access to information. Compared to the Internet, however, mobile phone diffusion has reached a larger proportion of the population in most countries, and thus the impact of this new medium is conceivably greater. There are now more mobile phones in the UK than there are people (averaging at 121 mobile phones for every 100 people). In this paper, the attempt to use modern mobile technology to handle the General Election, is discussed. The pre-election advertising, election day issues, including the election news and results as they come in, and answering questions via text message regarding the results of current and/or previous general elections are considered

Personalized Question-Answering Mobile System

Mobile messaging is an integral and vital part of the mobile industry and contributes significantly to worldwide total mobile service revenues. In today’s competitive world, differentiation is a significant factor in the success of the business communication. SMS (Short Message Service) provides a powerful vehicle for service differentiation. What is missing, however, is the availability of personalized SMS messages. In particular, the exploitation of user profile information allows a selection and content delivery that meets preferences and interests for the individual. Personalization of mobile messages is important in today’s service-oriented society, and has proven to be crucial for the acceptance of services provided by the mobile telecommunication networks. In this paper we focus on user profile description and the mechanism for delivering the relevant information to the mobile user in accordance with his/her profile

Instantaneous Database Access

The biggest threat to any business is a lack of timely and accurate information. Without all the facts, businesses are pressured to make critical decisions and assess risks and opportunities based largely on guesswork, sometimes resulting in financial losses and missed opportunities. The meteoric rise of Databases (DB) appears to confirm the adage that “information is power”, but the stark reality is that information is useless if one has no way to find what one needs to know. It is more accurate perhaps to state that, “the ability to find information is power”. In this paper we show how Instantaneous Database Access System (IDAS) can make a crucial difference by pulling data together and allowing users to summarise information quickly from all areas of a business organisation

Mobile Search and Advertising

Mobile advertising is a rapidly growing sector providing brands and marketing agencies the opportunity to connect with consumers beyond traditional and digital media and instead communicate directly on their mobile phones. Mobile advertising will be intrinsically linked with mobile search, which has transported from the internet to the mobile and is identified as an area of potential growth. The result of mobile searching show that as a general rule such search result exceed 160 characters; the dialog is required to deliver the relevant portion of a response to the mobile user. In this paper we focus initially on mobile search and mobile advert creation, and later the mechanism of interaction between the user’s request, the result of searching, advertising and dialog

Should Central Banks Use Distributed Ledger Technology and Digital Currencies to Advance Financial Inclusion?

This paper examines how central banks might use distributed ledger technology (“DLT”) to improve access to safe and affordable financial products and services. We consider how central banks might use DLT to advance objectives such as Anti-Money Laundering (“AML”) compliance and discuss both central bank digital currencies (“CBDC”) and private digital currencies. We consider implementation challenges for these new approaches relating to interoperability, privacy, and efficiency. We conclude that financial inclusion is far from an assured outcome: central banks must work to ensure that any new technologies they adopt or foster do not exclude marginalized groups and instead focus with intentionality on low-income households. Moreover, difficult issues with respect to financial disintermediation, credit availability, and financial stability would need to be addressed

An Enhanced Archive Facilitating Climate Impacts and Adaptation Analysis

We describe the expansion of a publicly available archive of downscaled climate and hydrology projections for the United States. Those studying or planning to adapt to future climate impacts demand downscaled climate model output for local or regional use. The archive we describe attempts to fulfill this need by providing data in several formats, selectable to meet user needs. Our archive has served as a resource for climate impacts modelers, water managers, educators, and others. Over 1,400 individuals have transferred more than 50 TB of data from the archive. In response to user demands, the archive has expanded from monthly downscaled data to include daily data to facilitate investigations of phenomena sensitive to daily to monthly temperature and precipitation, including extremes in these quantities. New developments include downscaled output from the new Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 5 (CMIP5) climate model simulations at both the monthly and daily time scales, as well as simulations of surface hydrologi- cal variables. The web interface allows the extraction of individual projections or ensemble statistics for user-defined regions, promoting the rapid assessment of model consensus and uncertainty for future projections of precipitation, temperature, and hydrology. The archive is accessible online (http://gdo-dcp.ucllnl.org/downscaled_ cmip_projections)

Distribution and Activity Patterns of Large Carnivores and Their Implications for Human–Carnivore Conflict Management in Namibia

Human–wildlife conflicts (HWCs) are increasing globally and contributing to the decline of wildlife species. In sub-Saharan African countries such as Namibia, most of the suitable land has been or is currently being converted to crop and livestock production to support income or subsistence agriculture. These changes in land use often incur increased levels of HWCs because of crop and livestock depredation by native species. To quantify livestock predation risks posed by carnivores in Namibia, we deployed 30 trail cameras on a 6,500-ha farm in the Khomas region of Namibia from May to July 2018. We developed occupancy models to make inferences about the factors influencing presence and temporal activity patterns of 2 carnivore species. We found that livestock were most at risk from predation by black-backed jackals (Canis mesomelas) at night in agricultural areas and from brown hyenas (Parahyaena brunnea) at night in riparian habitats. Our results suggest that farmers can reduce HWC risks by implementing animal husbandry practices to include protecting livestock at night using methods such as nighttime corrals and livestock guarding dogs (C. lupus familiaris), or herders. Increasing livestock producer access to funding (i.e., individual donations or governmental agencies) to implement improved animal husbandry practices could reduce HWCs