Digital Commons Network^™

A Nanoscale Shape-Discovery Framework Supporting Systematic Investigations Of Shape-Dependent Biological Effects And Immunomodulation, Wei Zhang, Hender Lopez, Luca Boselli, Paolo Bigini, André Perez-Potti, Zengchun Xie, Valentina Castagnola, Qi Cai, Camila P. Silveira, Joao M. De Araujo, Laura Talamini, Nicolò Panini, Giuseppe Ristagno, Martina B. Violatto, Stéphanie Devineau, Marco P. Monopoli, Mario Salmona, Valeria A. Giannone, Sandra Lara, Kenneth A. Dawson, Yan Yan

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Since it is now possible to make, in a controlled fashion, an almost unlimited variety of nanostructure shapes, it is of increasing interest to understand the forms of biological control that nanoscale shape allows. However, a priori rational investigation of such a vast universe of shapes appears to present intractable fundamental and practical challenges. This has limited the useful systematic investigation of their biological interactions and the development of innovative nanoscale shape-dependent therapies. Here, we introduce a concept of biologically relevant inductive nanoscale shape discovery and evaluation that is ideally suited to, and will ultimately become, a vehicle for machine …

Explaining Deep Learning Models For Tabular Data Using Layer-Wise Relevance Propagation, Ihsan Ullah, Andre Rios, Vaibhov Gala, Susan Mckeever

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Trust and credibility in machine learning models are bolstered by the ability of a model to explain its decisions. While explainability of deep learning models is a well-known challenge, a further challenge is clarity of the explanation itself for relevant stakeholders of the model. Layer-wise Relevance Propagation (LRP), an established explainability technique developed for deep models in computer vision, provides intuitive human-readable heat maps of input images. We present the novel application of LRP with tabular datasets containing mixed data (categorical and numerical) using a deep neural network (1D-CNN), for Credit Card Fraud detection and Telecom Customer Churn prediction use …

Ethics, Safety, And Autonomous Vehicles, William H. Widen, Philip Koopma, Benjamin Kuipers, Marilyn Wolf

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This roundtable explores the ethical and safety implications of the rapidly evolving technology of autonomous vehicles.

Newgrange Skyscape In Stellarium, Frank Prendergast

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Newgrange Skyscape in Stellarium is a new customised landscape planetarium model giving the user the unique ability to interrogate the dynamic sky above the Boyne Valley on any date of interest during the hours of daylight or darkness. Archaeological, astronomical and topographical points of interest are labelled in the model and visible even during the hours of darkness. These are summarily described in a short gazetteer appended at the end of the instruction document to encourage further exploration of the wonderful heritage found in the Boyne Valley and beyond.

Watch on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=aGPsVGBXkY4

Watch on Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/493351576

Hospital Effluents And Wastewaters Treatment Plants: A Source Of Oxytetracycline And Antimicrobial-Resistant Bacteria In Seafood, Bozena Mccarthy, Samuel Obeng Apori, Michelle Giltrap, Abhijnan Bhat, James Curtin, Furong Tian

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The present study employs a data review on the presence and aggregation of oxytetracycline (OTC) and resistance (AMR) bacteria in wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs), and distribution of the contaminated effluent with the aid of shallow and deep ocean currents. The study aims to determine the fate of OTC, AMR bacteria in seafood, and demonstrate a relationship between AMR levels and human health. This review includes (1) OTC, (2) AMR bacteria, (3) heavy metals in aquatic environments, and their relationship. Few publications describe OCT in surface waters. Although, OTC and other tetracyclines were found in 10 countries in relatively low concentrations, …

Artificial Intelligence-Based Power System Stabilizers For Frequency Stability Enhancement In Multi-Machine Power Systems, Aliyu Sabo, Noor Izzri Abdul Wahab, Mohammad Lutfi Othman, Mai Zurwatul Ahlam Mohd Jaffar, Hakan Acikgoz, Hamed Nafisi, Hossein Shahinzadeh

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Low frequency oscillations (LFOs) occur in a system of interconnected generators connected by weak interconnection. A power system stabilizer (PSS) is commonly used to improve the capacity of the power system dampening. Under a variety of operating conditions, traditional PSSs fail to deliver superior damping. To address this issue, a Farmland Fertility Algorithm (FFA-PSSs controller) was used to solve an optimization problem for optimal design of PSSs system parameters, and its performance efficiency was compared to GA and PSO-based PSSs controllers. In addition to PSS, flexible current transmission (FACTS) devices are widely used. PSSs controllers and FACTS devices are frequently …

Workplace Dispute Resolution In Ireland At A Crossroads: Challenges And Opportunities, Brian M. Barry Dr

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The Workplace Relations Act 2015 fundamentally reformed the workplace dispute resolution system in Ireland–the centrepiece being the Workplace Relations Commission, the new body for first-instance dispute resolution. While the overall system is an improvement on its overly-complex and confusing predecessor, the Supreme Court’s decision in Zalewski v An Adjudication Officer declaring aspects of adjudication at the WRC unconstitutional, coupled with user representatives’ persistent concerns about how adjudication is conducted, present ongoing challenges.

This article describes the results of a survey undertaken in 2019 by the author of over one hundred representatives’ views on the system, and contextualises them in light …

On Preserving The Behavior In Software Refactoring: A Systematic Mapping Study, Eman Abdullah Alomar, Mohamed Wiem Mkaouer, Christian D. Newman, Ali Ouni

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Context: Refactoring is the art of modifying the design of a system without altering its behavior. The idea is to reorganize variables, classes and methods to facilitate their future adaptations and comprehension. As the concept of behavior preservation is fundamental for refactoring, several studies, using formal verification, language transformation and dynamic analysis, have been proposed to monitor the execution of refactoring operations and their impact on the program semantics. However, there is no existing study that examines the available behavior preservation strategies for each refactoring operation.

Objective: This paper identifies behavior preservation approaches in the research literature. Method: We conduct, …

Towards Greater Investor Accountability: Indirect Actions, Direct Actions By States And Direct Actions By Individuals, Martin Jarrett, Sergio Puig, Steven R. Ratner

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Investor accountability in international investment law (IIL) has been gaining increasing traction in recent years. Most visibly, some states have included investor obligations in their investment treaties, while others have made them part of their model treaties. While highly significant for the substance of IIL, these duties need adequate procedural tools to enforce them. Otherwise, investor obligations will be only decorative features of investment treaties without any legal meaning. The oft-discussed option of counterclaims is limited insofar as it may only be launched after an investor has made a claim against a state. As a result, it is important to …

The Myth Of The Great Writ, Leah M. Litman

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Habeas corpus is known as the “Great Writ” because it supposedly protects individual liberty against government overreach and guards against wrongful detentions. This idea shapes habeas doctrine, federal courts theories, and habeas-reform proposals.

It is also incomplete. While the writ has sometimes protected individual liberty, it has also served as a vehicle for the legitimation of excesses of governmental power. A more complete picture of the writ emerges when one considers traditionally neglected areas of public law that are often treated as distinct—the law of slavery and freedom, Native American affairs, and immigration. There, habeas has empowered abusive exercises of …

Notions Of Explainability And Evaluation Approaches For Explainable Artificial Intelligence, Giulia Vilone, Luca Longo

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Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) has experienced a significant growth over the last few years. This is due to the widespread application of machine learning, particularly deep learning, that has led to the development of highly accurate models that lack explainability and interpretability. A plethora of methods to tackle this problem have been proposed, developed and tested, coupled with several studies attempting to define the concept of explainability and its evaluation. This systematic review contributes to the body of knowledge by clustering all the scientific studies via a hierarchical system that classifies theories and notions related to the concept of explainability …

Regulating Mobility Limitations In The Franchise Relationship As Dependency In The Joint Employment Doctrine, Andrew Elmore

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Franchisors often impose exhaustive operational standards on franchisees, and enforce those standards by restricting the mobility of their franchisees and their franchisees' employees. But courts often ignore mobility limits when applying joint employer doctrine. This Article argues that courts and agencies should be more likely to find, and presume, that franchisors and their franchisees are joint employers under federal and state employment law based on proof that a franchisor restricts the mobility of franchisees or their employees. In so doing, this Article traces how the Chicago School's efficiency arguments in favor of relaxing antitrust law enforcement of vertical restraints developed …

Free Justice: A History Of The Public Defender In Twentieth-Century America, Kate Levine

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Levine reviews Free justice: A history of the public defender in twentieth-century America. By Sara Mayeux. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2020. 286 pp. $26.95 paperback.

Social Media Influencers (Smis) In Context: A Literature Review, Charles Alves De Castro, Isobel O'Reilly Dr, Aiden Carthy

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This review focused on three main areas, "Social Media Influencers (SMIs) in Context, The Impact of SMIs on Adolescents, and Consumer Behaviour in a Digital Era – Generation Z in Perspective". This article aims to further the overall understanding of SMIs and outlines the impact of SMIs on adolescents‘ lives. Thus, the main objective of this literature review is to raise awareness within the marketing field about the influence of social media influencers on adolescents and how brands promote their products and content through social media influencers. The review comprised a regular search using electronic journal databases and secondary data …

Audio Representations For Deep Learning In Sound Synthesis: A Review, Anastasia Natsiou, Sean O'Leary

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The rise of deep learning algorithms has led many researchers to withdraw from using classic signal processing methods for sound generation. Deep learning models have achieved expressive voice synthesis, realistic sound textures, and musical notes from virtual instruments. However, the most suitable deep learning architecture is still under investigation. The choice of architecture is tightly coupled to the audio representations. A sound’s original waveform can be too dense and rich for deep learning models to deal with efficiently - and complexity increases training time and computational cost. Also, it does not represent sound in the manner in which it is …

Profiling Food Festivals By Type, Name And Descriptive Content: A Population Level Study, Muhammet Kesgin, Rajendran S. Murthy, Rick Lagiewski

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Purpose: This research aims to classify and describe food festivals and examine the patterns in food festival naming and festival descriptions in online media. Design: This research represents the first population-level empirical examination of food festivals in the United States using a purpose-built dataset (N=2626). Methodology includes text mining to examine food festival communications. Findings: Food festival size varies across local and regional spheres within the country. Food festivals employ geographical (place-, destination-based) associations in their names. Food festivals’ descriptions and online communications showcase a welcoming environment predominantly emphasizing family-oriented and live entertainment experiences. Food festivals across the country show …

Realising Compact Growth In Dublin; Reviewing Measures Adopted By Local Authorities To Concentrate Development Along The Proposed Metrolink Luas Greenline Transport Corridor, Paul J. Lawlor Mr

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Since 1999, there have been a noticeable evolution in the Irish national and regional planning policy towards concentrating new development within the footprint of existing towns and cities. The approach of ‘realising compact growth’ has numerous benefits including reducing carbon emissions, making more effective and economic use of existing infrastructure, avoiding urban sprawl and helping to achieve more balanced regional development. To enable its achievement, the National Planning Framework (NPF) and the Regional Spatial and Economic Strategies (RSESs) have set ambitious targets for compact urban growth and they include measures that are designed to promote the development of vacant and …

A Different Way To Tax Stock Buybacks, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

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In this article, Avi-Yonah reviews the Build Back Better Act, which would impose a 1 percent excise tax on corporate stock buybacks. He argues that while the measure is an effective way to raise revenue from high-income taxpayers, it will not address the main tax problem with buybacks: the tax exemption for foreign shareholders, which Congress should reconsider.

A Survey Of Machine Learning Techniques For Video Quality Prediction From Quality Of Delivery Metrics, Obinna Izima, Ruairí De Fréin, Ali Malik

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A growing number of video streaming networks are incorporating machine learning (ML) applications. The growth of video streaming services places enormous pressure on network and video content providers who need to proactively maintain high levels of video quality. ML has been applied to predict the quality of video streams. Quality of delivery (QoD) measurements, which capture the end-to-end performances of network services, have been leveraged in video quality prediction. The drive for end-to-end encryption, for privacy and digital rights management, has brought about a lack of visibility for operators who desire insights from video quality metrics. In response, numerous solutions …

A Strategy Model For Workplace Mediation Success, Brian M. Barry Dr

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The article proposes a three-step model to help workplace mediators decide on the optimum strategy for mediating workplace disputes. The model uses a grid – the Workplace Mediation Strategy Grid – which is based on a modified version of a grid Professor Leonard Riskin developed for categorising mediation orientations (Riskin 1994; Riskin 1996). The model asks the mediator to first consider the nature of the workplace dispute based on three facets of the dispute. This guides the mediator to plot a position on the Grid which represents two fundamental aspects of strategy for mediating that dispute: (1) how broadly the …

Provenance: An Intermediary-Free Solution For Digital Content Verification, Bilal Yousuf, M. Atif Qureshi, Brendan Spillane, Gary Munnelly, Oisin Carroll, Matthew Runswick, Kirsty Park, Eileen Culloty, Owen Conlan, Jane Suiter

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The threat posed by misinformation and disinformation is one of the defining challenges of the 21st century. Provenance is designed to help combat this threat by warning users when the content they are looking at may be misinformation or disinformation. It is also designed to improve media literacy among its users and ultimately reduce susceptibility to the threat among vulnerable groups within society. The Provenance browser plugin checks the content that users see on the Internet and social media and provides warnings in their browser or social media feed. Unlike similar plugins, which require human experts to provide evaluations and …

Beyond The Public Square: Imagining Digital Democracy, Mary Anne Franks

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To create online spaces that do not merely replicate existing hierarchies and reinforce unequal distributions of social, economic, cultural, and political power, we must move beyond the simplistic clich6 of the unregulated public square and commit to the hard work of designing for democracy.

When we say 'public square,' ... we need to ask- who or what is this public? Who owns this space, what makes it public? . . . This is the essence of democracy: the ability to question power, and the power to do so. - Tom Wilkinson

Introduction: New Directions, New Voices In Family Law In India, Sarasu Esther Thomas, Jeffrey A. Redding, Rachel Taylor

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In July 2019, select family law scholars from around India and the world gathered at the National Law School of India University (NLSIU) in Bengaluru, India to participate in a conference on “New Directions, New Voices in Family Law in India” jointly sponsored by NLSIU, the University of Oxford – Faculty of Law, and Melbourne Law School. The papers and presenters were diverse and the conference conversations were enthusiastic. As a result of this conference, four quite different but interlinked papers were eventually selected for inclusion in this special issue of the Indian Law Review. These papers bring much needed …

Optimization Of Unit Operations For Microencapsulating Ferrous Fumarate During Scale-Up Of Double Fortification Of Salt With Iron And Iodine, Oluwasegun Modupe, Kiruba Krishnaswamy, Yao Olive Li, Levente L. Diosady

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Objectives: This study evaluates factors responsible for the floating of iron premix in double fortified salt (DFS), which initially affected the large-scale implementation of the salt fortification program in India, and provides solutions to the scale-up of the technology.

Materials and Methods: To mitigate this time-sensitive scale-up challenge. First, the iron premix samples were obtained from the industrial scale-up pilot studies in India, evaluated for the impact of the amount of coating material (5 per cent, 7.5 per cent, and 10 per cent (in weight)), type of formulation (soy stearin, SEPIFILM and hydroxypropyl methylcellulose), amount of titanium dioxide (25-35 per …

Problematic Interactions Between Ai And Health Privacy, W. Nicholson Price Ii

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Problematic Interactions Between AI and Health Privacy Nicholson Price, University of Michigan Law SchoolFollow Abstract The interaction of artificial intelligence (AI) and health privacy is a two-way street. Both directions are problematic. This Essay makes two main points. First, the advent of artificial intelligence weakens the legal protections for health privacy by rendering deidentification less reliable and by inferring health information from unprotected data sources. Second, the legal rules that protect health privacy nonetheless detrimentally impact the development of AI used in the health system by introducing multiple sources of bias: collection and sharing of data by a small set …

Towards A Framework For Comparing Functionalities Of Multimorbidity Clinical Decision Support: A Literature-Based Feature Set And Benchmark Cases., Dympna O'Sullivan, William Van Woensel, Szymon Wilk, Samson Tu, Wojtek Michalowski, Samina Abidi, Marc Carrier, Ruth Edry, Irit Hochberg, Stephen Kingwell, Alexandra Kogan, Martin Michalowski, Hugh O'Sullivan, Mor Peleg

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Multimorbidity, the coexistence of two or more health conditions, has become more prevalent as mortality rates in many countries have declined and their populations have aged. Multimorbidity presents significant difficulties for Clinical Decision Support Systems (CDSS), particularly in cases where recommendations from relevant clinical guidelines offer conflicting advice. A number of research groups are developing computer-interpretable guideline (CIG) modeling formalisms that integrate recommendations from multiple Clinical Practice Guidelines (CPGs) for knowledge-based multimorbidity decision support. In this paper we describe work towards the development of a framework for comparing the different approaches to multimorbidity CIG-based clinical decision support (MGCDS). We present …

Professional Caring In Affective Services; The Ambivalence Of Emotional Nurture In Practice, Niall Hanlon

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Emotional nurturance is a fundamental feature of all forms of professional caring. As well as delivering expert social, health, education, practical or personal services, good caregivers possess an other-centred disposition, are emotionally intelligent and relationally skilled, and morally caring. Despite this, the value, role, and status of emotional nurturance in professional care is ambivalent. Drawing on feminist care theory, Hochchild’s emotional labour theory, and Bourdieusian social reproduction theory, as well as diverse empirical studies, this paper identifies how emotion is marginalised and misrecognised and calls for the reappraisal of emotion in professional care work in ways that appreciate tensions, contradictions, …

A Quantitative Evaluation Of Global, Rule-Based Explanations Of Post-Hoc, Model Agnostic Methods, Giulia Vilone, Luca Longo

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Understanding the inferences of data-driven, machine-learned models can be seen as a process that discloses the relationships between their input and output. These relationships consist and can be represented as a set of inference rules. However, the models usually do not explicit these rules to their end-users who, subsequently, perceive them as black-boxes and might not trust their predictions. Therefore, scholars have proposed several methods for extracting rules from data-driven machine-learned models to explain their logic. However, limited work exists on the evaluation and comparison of these methods. This study proposes a novel comparative approach to evaluate and compare the …

Rces: Rapid Cues Exploratory Search Using Taxonomies For Covid-19, Wei Li, Rishi Choudhary, Arjumand Younus, Bruno Ohana, Nicole Baker, Brendan Leen, Muhammad Atif Qureshi

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To assist the COVID-19 focused researchers in life science and healthcare in understanding the pandemic, we present an exploratory information retrieval system called RCES. The system employs a previously developed EVE (Explainable Vector-based Embedding) model using DBpedia and an adopted model using MeSH taxonomies to exploit concept relations related to COVID-19. Various expansion methods are also developed, along with explanations and facets that collectively form rapid cues for a valuable navigational and informed user experience.

Shifting The Eu Taxonomy From Theory To Practice: A Review Of The Literature Highlighting Potential Academic Contributions To Its Adoption, Implementation, And Impact, Dylan Kirby, Sandra Thompson, Cormac H. Macmahon

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The EU Taxonomy seeks to identify those sustainable economic activities, thereby supporting climate change mitigation and adaptation. Recent legislation underpinning the EU Taxonomy, such as the Non-Financial Reporting Directive (NFRD) and the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR), highlight the urgency for academic contributions that might shed light on its operationalisation. At this embryonic stage in the Taxonomy’s lifecycle, there is potential for the academic community to contribute to understanding its implications. Hence, we undertake a thematic analysis of predominantly, but not exclusively, professional literature to prioritise potential empirical research or conceptualisations that might offer insights for finance and accounting professionals, …