978 research outputs found
Sensing Subjective Well-being from Social Media
Subjective Well-being(SWB), which refers to how people experience the quality
of their lives, is of great use to public policy-makers as well as economic,
sociological research, etc. Traditionally, the measurement of SWB relies on
time-consuming and costly self-report questionnaires. Nowadays, people are
motivated to share their experiences and feelings on social media, so we
propose to sense SWB from the vast user generated data on social media. By
utilizing 1785 users' social media data with SWB labels, we train machine
learning models that are able to "sense" individual SWB from users' social
media. Our model, which attains the state-by-art prediction accuracy, can then
be used to identify SWB of large population of social media users in time with
very low cost.Comment: 12 pages, 1 figures, 2 tables, 10th International Conference, AMT
2014, Warsaw, Poland, August 11-14, 2014. Proceeding
Open-Ended Evolutionary Robotics: an Information Theoretic Approach
This paper is concerned with designing self-driven fitness functions for
Embedded Evolutionary Robotics. The proposed approach considers the entropy of
the sensori-motor stream generated by the robot controller. This entropy is
computed using unsupervised learning; its maximization, achieved by an on-board
evolutionary algorithm, implements a "curiosity instinct", favouring
controllers visiting many diverse sensori-motor states (sms). Further, the set
of sms discovered by an individual can be transmitted to its offspring, making
a cultural evolution mode possible. Cumulative entropy (computed from ancestors
and current individual visits to the sms) defines another self-driven fitness;
its optimization implements a "discovery instinct", as it favours controllers
visiting new or rare sensori-motor states. Empirical results on the benchmark
problems proposed by Lehman and Stanley (2008) comparatively demonstrate the
merits of the approach
Expressive Dominant Versus Receptive Dominant Language Patterns in Young Children: Findings from the Study to Explore Early Development
We examined language profiles of 2571 children, 30–68 months old, with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), other developmental disabilities (DD), and typical development from the general population (POP). Children were categorized as expressive dominant (ED), receptive dominant (RD), or nondominant (ND). Within each group, the ED profile was the least frequent. However, children in the ASD group were more likely to display an ED profile than those in the DD or POP groups, and these children were typically younger, had lower nonverbal cognitive skills, and displayed more severe social-affect symptoms of ASD compared to their peers with RD or ND profiles. These findings have research and clinical implications related to the focus of interventions targeting young children with ASD and other DDs
Exploring Appropriation of Global Cultural Rituals
Adolescents, as a consequence of identification with popular culture, have been described as having homogenous consumption patterns. More recently, however, it has been recognised that ‘glocalisation’ (global practices reworked to fit local contexts) affords an opportunity for differentiation. This paper considers a recent UK phenomenon, namely that of the US high school prom, and seeks to explore the ways in which this ritual has been adopted or adapted as part of youth culture. The method employed here was mixed methods and included in-depth interviews with those who attended a prom in the last three years as well as a questionnaire distributed amongst high school pupils who were anticipating a high school prom. The findings illustrate that the high school prom in the UK is becoming increasingly integrated into the fabric of youth culture although, depending on the agentic abilities employed by the emerging adults in the sample, there is differing appropriation of this ritual event particularly in relation to attitudes towards and motivations for attending the prom. A typology of prom attendees is posited. This paper contributes to our understanding of this practice in a local context
Three-dimensional random Voronoi tessellations: From cubic crystal lattices to Poisson point processes
We perturb the SC, BCC, and FCC crystal structures with a spatial Gaussian noise whose adimensional strength is controlled by the parameter a, and analyze the topological and metrical properties of the resulting Voronoi Tessellations (VT). The topological properties of the VT of the SC and FCC crystals are unstable with respect to the introduction of noise, because the corresponding polyhedra are geometrically degenerate, whereas the tessellation of the BCC crystal is topologically stable even against noise of small but finite intensity. For weak noise, the mean area of the perturbed BCC and FCC crystals VT increases quadratically with a. In the case of perturbed SCC crystals, there is an optimal amount of noise that minimizes the mean area of the cells. Already for a moderate noise (a>0.5), the properties of the three perturbed VT are indistinguishable, and for intense noise (a>2), results converge to the Poisson-VT limit. Notably, 2-parameter gamma distributions are an excellent model for the empirical of of all considered properties. The VT of the perturbed BCC and FCC structures are local maxima for the isoperimetric quotient, which measures the degre of sphericity of the cells, among space filling VT. In the BCC case, this suggests a weaker form of the recentluy disproved Kelvin conjecture. Due to the fluctuations of the shape of the cells, anomalous scalings with exponents >3/2 is observed between the area and the volumes of the cells, and, except for the FCC case, also for a->0. In the Poisson-VT limit, the exponent is about 1.67. As the number of faces is positively correlated with the sphericity of the cells, the anomalous scaling is heavily reduced when we perform powerlaw fits separately on cells with a specific number of faces
Lady Gaga as (dis)simulacrum of monstrosity
Lady Gaga’s celebrity DNA revolves around the notion of monstrosity, an extensively
researched concept in postmodern cultural studies. The analysis that is offered in this
paper is largely informed by Deleuze and Guattari’s notion of monstrosity, as well as
by their approach to the study of sign-systems that was deployed in A Thousand
Plateaus. By drawing on biographical and archival visual data, with a focus on the
relatively underexplored live show, an elucidation is afforded of what is really monstrous
about Lady Gaga. The main argument put forward is that monstrosity as sign
seeks to appropriate the horizon of unlimited semiosis as radical alterity and openness
to signifying possibilities. In this context it is held that Gaga effectively delimits her
unique semioscape; however, any claims to monstrosity are undercut by the inherent
limits of a representationalist approach in sufficiently engulfing this concept. Gaga is
monstrous for her community insofar as she demands of her fans to project their
semiosic horizon onto her as a simulacrum of infinite semiosis. However, this simulacrum
may only be evinced in a feigned manner as a (dis)simulacrum. The analysis of
imagery from seminal live shows during 2011–2012 shows that Gaga’s presumed
monstrosity is more akin to hyperdifferentiation as simultaneous employment of
heterogeneous and potentially dissonant inter pares cultural representations. The article
concludes with a problematisation of audience effects in the light of Gaga’s adoption of
a schematic and post-representationalist strategy in the event of her strategy’s emulation
by competitive artists
gravity constrained by PPN parameters and stochastic background of gravitational waves
We analyze seven different viable -gravities towards the Solar System
tests and stochastic gravitational waves background. The aim is to achieve
experimental bounds for the theory at local and cosmological scales in order to
select models capable of addressing the accelerating cosmological expansion
without cosmological constant but evading the weak field constraints. Beside
large scale structure and galactic dynamics, these bounds can be considered
complimentary in order to select self-consistent theories of gravity working at
the infrared limit. It is demonstrated that seven viable -gravities under
consideration not only satisfy the local tests, but additionally, pass the
above PPN-and stochastic gravitational waves bounds for large classes of
parameters.Comment: 23 pages, 8 figure
Tackling transition:the value of peer mentoring
This paper is aimed at those interested in the promotion of student retention in higher education; particularly those with an interest in peer mentoring as a means of student support. It critically discusses the results of an exploratory study analysing the perceptions of peer mentors and mentees within five universities in the United Kingdom. The aim of the study was to analyse how student peer mentoring can aid transition into university by focusing specifically on how senior students can support their junior counterparts in their first year at university. The paper discusses the results of a survey which was completed by 329 student peer mentors and mentees. Focusing on the benefits and outcomes of participation in Mentoring Programmes, the survey was distinctive in that it asked mentors and mentees similar questions. From a theoretical perspective, the paper contributes to debates about peer support in higher education showing that participation in such programmes can have positive outcomes from both social and pedagogic perspectives. Practically speaking, the results have important implications for Higher Education Institutions as the research highlights the importance of putting into place formally structured Peer Mentoring Programmes which facilitate student support at a time when new students are most at risk of ‘dropping out’
Jet size dependence of single jet suppression in lead-lead collisions at sqrt(s(NN)) = 2.76 TeV with the ATLAS detector at the LHC
Measurements of inclusive jet suppression in heavy ion collisions at the LHC
provide direct sensitivity to the physics of jet quenching. In a sample of
lead-lead collisions at sqrt(s) = 2.76 TeV corresponding to an integrated
luminosity of approximately 7 inverse microbarns, ATLAS has measured jets with
a calorimeter over the pseudorapidity interval |eta| < 2.1 and over the
transverse momentum range 38 < pT < 210 GeV. Jets were reconstructed using the
anti-kt algorithm with values for the distance parameter that determines the
nominal jet radius of R = 0.2, 0.3, 0.4 and 0.5. The centrality dependence of
the jet yield is characterized by the jet "central-to-peripheral ratio," Rcp.
Jet production is found to be suppressed by approximately a factor of two in
the 10% most central collisions relative to peripheral collisions. Rcp varies
smoothly with centrality as characterized by the number of participating
nucleons. The observed suppression is only weakly dependent on jet radius and
transverse momentum. These results provide the first direct measurement of
inclusive jet suppression in heavy ion collisions and complement previous
measurements of dijet transverse energy imbalance at the LHC.Comment: 15 pages plus author list (30 pages total), 8 figures, 2 tables,
submitted to Physics Letters B. All figures including auxiliary figures are
available at
http://atlas.web.cern.ch/Atlas/GROUPS/PHYSICS/PAPERS/HION-2011-02
Search for direct production of charginos and neutralinos in events with three leptons and missing transverse momentum in √s = 7 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector
A search for the direct production of charginos and neutralinos in final states with three electrons or muons and missing transverse momentum is presented. The analysis is based on 4.7 fb−1 of proton–proton collision data delivered by the Large Hadron Collider and recorded with the ATLAS detector. Observations are consistent with Standard Model expectations in three signal regions that are either depleted or enriched in Z-boson decays. Upper limits at 95% confidence level are set in R-parity conserving phenomenological minimal supersymmetric models and in simplified models, significantly extending previous results
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