Digital Commons Network^™

Dna Barcoding And Morphometrics Of Stingless Bees (Apidae: Meliponinae) In Three Selected Forests In Kenya, Nelly Njeri Ndungu

All Master’s Theses

Stingless honeybee keeping is an income generating enterprise with an indirect potential of achieving the goal of forest and biodiversity conservation in Kenya. However, little information is available on species diversity and spatial distribution of stingless bees in Kenya. This study describes variations of stingless bee samples collected from Arabuko Sokoke, Mwingi and Kakamega forests, ranging from low, middle to high altitude, respectively using morphometrics and DNA barcoding. Fourteen morphometric characters were measured to determine the extent of morphological variation of stingless bees in Kenya.In addition, mitochondrial DNA sequences data were generated using Cytochrome c Oxidase I (COI) in accordance …

Potential For Utilization Of Entomopathogenic Fungus, Beauveria Bassiana, For Control Of Banana Weevil, Cosmopolites Sordidus (Germar), Carolyne Anaye Omukoko

All Master’s Theses

Banana production in Kenya has been on the decline due to among other factors, pests and disease of which banana weevil is major. Although, entomopathogenic fungi such as Beauveria bassiana and Metarhizium anisopliae have been used successfully to control various agricultural and pasture pests, lack of effective application system limits their wider application.This study therefore seeks to evaluate the potential of utilizing the fungus to control the banana weevil using infected weevils to disseminate the entomopathogen, Beauveria bassiana for control of the banana weevil (Cosmopolites sordidus). Tests were carried out in the laboratory with ten isolates of B. bassiana ; …

Relative Attractiveness Of Anopheles Gambiae Mosquitoes To Synthetic Oduor Blends And Human Emanations, Evelyn Adhiambo Olanga

All Master’s Theses

Mosquito host seeking behaviour is mediated by chemical, physical and visual cues. Identification of chemical and physical cues utilized by mosquitoes in host location can lead to the development of novel vector management strategies. This research set out to identify synthetic odour blends that simulate human body emanations that can be used to develop mass trapping devices for vector management. The relative attractiveness of human body emanations and synthetic odour blends as attractants of Anopheles gambiae mosquitoes was investigated under semi-field conditions at the International Centre for Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE) Mbita Point, western Kenya. The effect of heat …

Entomopathogenicity Of Hyphomycete Fungi To Fruit Fly Bactrocera Invadens (Diptera: Tephritidae) And Their Potential For Biological Control On Mango, Elizabeth Awuor Ouna

All Master’s Theses

Sustainable mango production will rely increasingly on alternatives to conventional chemical insecticides that are environmentally friendly for the management of fruit flies. The use of microbial control agents such as fungi in pest suppression is considered suitable since micro-organisms usually exert low environmental impact and are target specific. Application methods of bio-pesticides in the environment, which use minimal amount of inoculum is currently under improvement from inundative to auto-inoculative methods. Such devices are usually designed to attract insects into focus of the entomopathogen and use the insect as a vector for transmission of pathogen to other members of its population. …

Do Online Reviews Reflect A Product's True Perceived Quality? An Investigation Of Online Movie Reviews Across Cultures, Noi Sian Koh, Nan Hu, Eric K. Clemons

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

When does the reported average of online ratings match perceived average assessment? We apply behavioral theory to capture intentions in rating online movie reviews in two dissimilar countries - China and the United States. We argue that consumers' rating behaviors are affected by cultural influences. Based on data collected from imdb.com and douban.com, we found significant differences across raters from these two different cultures. Additionally, we examined how cultural elements influence rating behavior for a hybrid culture - Singapore. Under-reporting bias occurs when consumers with extreme opinions are more likely to report their opinions than consumers with moderate reviews, resulting …

Dual Phase Learning For Large Scale Video Gait Recognition, Jialie Shen, Hwee Hwa Pang, Dacheng Tao, Xuelong Li

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Accurate gait recognition from video is a complex process involving heterogenous features, and is still being developed actively. This article introduces a novel framework, called GC2F, for effective and efficient gait recognition and classification. Adopting a ”refinement-and-classification” principle, the framework comprises two components: 1) a classifier to generate advanced probabilistic features from low level gait parameters; and 2) a hidden classifier layer (based on multilayer perceptron neural network) to model the statistical properties of different subject classes. To validate our framework, we have conducted comprehensive experiments with a large test collection, and observed significant improvements in identification accuracy relative to …

Remote Attestation On Function Execution, Liang Gu, Yueqiang Cheng, Xuhua Ding, Robert H. Deng, Yao Guo, Weizhong Shao

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Remote attestation provides the basis for one platform to establish trusts on another. In this paper, we consider the problem of attesting the correctness of program executions. We propose to measure the target program and all the objects it depends on, with an assumption that the Secure Kernel and the Trusted Platform Module provide a secure execution environment through process separation. The attestation of the target program begins with a program analysis on the source code or the binary code in order to find out the relevant executables and data objects. Whenever such a data object is accessed or a …

Introducing Communication In Dis-Pomdps With Locality Of Interaction, Makoto Tasaki, Yuichi Yabu, Yuki Iwanari, Makoto Yokoo, Janusz Marecki, Pradeep Reddy Varakantham, Milind Tambe

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The Networked Distributed POMDPs (ND-POMDPs) can model multiagent systems in uncertain domains and has begun to scale-up the number of agents. However, prior work in ND-POMDPs has failed to address communication. Without communication, the size of a local policy at each agent within the ND-POMDPs grows exponentially in the time horizon. To overcome this problem, we extend existing algorithms so that agents periodically communicate their observation and action histories with each other. After communication, agents can start from new synchronized belief state. Thus, we can avoid the exponential growth in the size of local policies at agents. Furthermore, we introduce …

Teleoph: A Secure Real-Time Teleophthalmology System, Yongdong Wu, Zhou Wei, Haixia Yao, Zhigang Zhao, Lek Heng Ngoh, Robert H. Deng, Shengsheng Yu

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Teleophthalmology (TeleOph) is an electronic counterpart of today's face-to-face, patient-to-specialist ophthalmology system. It enables one or more ophthalmologists to remotely examine a patient's condition via a confidential and authentic communication channel. Specifically, TeleOph allows a trained nonspecialist in a primary clinic to screen the patients with digital instruments (e.g., camera, ophthalmoscope). The acquired medical data are delivered to the hospital where an ophthalmologist will review the data collected and, if required, provide further consultation for the patient through a real-time secure channel established over a public Internet network. If necessary, the ophthalmologist is able to further sample the images/video of …

Hoffman V. Red Owl Stores And The Limits Of The Legal Method, Robert E. Scott

Faculty Scholarship

According to the overwhelming majority view, promissory estoppel is not an appropriate ground for legally enforcing statements made during preliminary negotiations unless there is a “clear and unambiguous promise” on which the counterparty reasonably and foreseeably relies. Bill Whitford and Stewart Macaulay were among the first scholars to note the apparent absence of such a promise in the case of Hoffman v. Red Owl Stores. Several years ago, after studying the trial record, I concluded that the best explanation for the breakdown in negotiations was the fundamental misunderstanding between the parties as to the amount and nature of Hoffmann’s …

Human Rights In The Emerging World Order, Joseph Raz

Faculty Scholarship

Pursuing the so-called political account of human rights, this talk first explains some aspects of the relations between legal and moral rights, and between rights and interests, and then applies the analysis to provide an explanation of human rights. Using the rights to health and to education as examples, it rejects the traditional theory that takes human rights to be rights that people have in virtue of their humanity alone. But human rights are synchronically universal. They are rights which all people living today have, a feature that is a precondition of, and a result of, the fact that they …

Calling Bullshit On The Lanham Act: The 2 (A) Bar For Immoral, Scandalous, And Disparaging Marks, Megan M. Carpenter, Kathryn T. Murphy

Faculty Scholarship

As the Lanham Act approaches the age of sixty-five, it is a good time to take stock of its application to, and place within, the object and purpose of trademark law. The consumer-search theory of trademarks posits that the purpose of trademark law is to promote fair competition by reducing consumer search costs and preventing confusion in the minds of consumers as to the source of goods and services.' However, section 2(a) of the Lanham Act expands trademark law well beyond its basic goals by preventing registration of marks that are "immoral," "scandalous," or "disparaging."

There are two primary questions …

Much Uncertainty About Uncertain Tax Positions, Robert D. Probasco

Faculty Scholarship

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) announced in January 2010 a new initiative to require certain businesses to report “uncertain tax positions” on a new schedule filed with their annual tax returns. Draft schedules and instructions issued in April 2010 clarified some of the mechanical aspects of the new requirement but left many open issues and questions. The IRS proposal built on requirements by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) in FASB Interpretation No. 48, Accounting for Uncertainty in Income Taxes (“FIN 48”). The standard requires companies, in their financial statements, to reserve some of the benefits from any position taken …

Enforcement, Economics And Estimates, Peter K. Yu

Faculty Scholarship

This article focuses on intellectual property enforcement, a topic that is of great importance to both developed and less developed countries. It begins by refuting the simple, and often politically motivated, claim that many countries fail to provide effective intellectual property enforcement by virtue of their lack of political will. Drawing on the latest economic literature, this article shows that high enforcement standards come with a hefty price tag and difficult trade-offs.

The article then outlines the challenges in measuring the cross-border economic impact of piracy and counterfeiting. As an illustration, the article discusses the ongoing effort by the US …

The Emperor's Clothes: Evaluating Head Of State Immunity Under International Law, Mary Margaret Penrose

Faculty Scholarship

To date, most attempts at prosecuting heads of state have fallen short. At best, such attempts, even the modern attempts stretching from Iraq to Yugoslavia to Sierra Leone, have occurred under less than ideal circumstances, often far, far away from the actual place of alleged crime, or so distant in time to have lost some of its meaning. While academics, international lawyers and human rights advocates all praise the "Pinochet precedent" as paving the way for prosecuting deposed despots and ending the luxurious exiles of former dictators, in the end Pinochet was released from custody and returned home to Chile …

Operational Risk In Trading Platforms, M. Thulasidas

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Operational risk is the risk of loss resulting from inadequate or failed internal processes, people, and systems, or from external events. A trading platform is a system, and therefore comes under the umbrella definition of operational risk.

Budaya Berfikir Kritis: Kajian Di Era Pemerintahan Khalifah ‘Umar Bin ‘Abd-‘Al-Aziz (99-101h)., Norafifah Abd Hamid

Student Works (2010-2019)

The citical thinking culture is not an accustomed method of thinking in fact Islamic teachings do stress in critical thinking aspect. Al-Quran and Al-Sunnah also emphasize on critical thinking. Moreover, the critical thinking culture has been practiced during the Prophet Muhammad s.a.w’s, Khulafa’ al-Rasyidin’s and tabi’in’s era. This research sift through the instilation of critical thinking culture in the Caliph ‘Umar bin Abd al-‘Aziz’s administration era. Generally this research carried out to examine how far Caliph ‘Umar bin ‘Abd al-‘Aziz has been trained to practice this culture before he mastered it. Besides, this research also examine how far this critical …

Universal Authentication Protocols For Anonymous Wireless Communications, Guomin Yang, Qiong Huang, Duncan S. Wong, Xiaotie Deng

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

A secure roaming protocol allows a roaming user U to visit a foreign server V and establish a session key in an authenticated way such that U authenticates V and at the same time convinces V that it is a legitimate subscriber of some server H, called the home server of U. The conventional approach requires the involvement of all the three parties. In this paper, we propose a new approach which requires only two parties, U and V, to get involved. We propose two protocols: one provides better efficiency and supports user anonymity to an extent comparable to that …

Workshop Report From Web2se: First Workshop On Web 2.0 For Software Engineering, Christoph Treude, Margaret-Anne Storey, Kate Ehrlich, Arie Van Deursen

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Web 2.0 technologies such as wikis, blogs, tags and feeds have been adopted and adapted by software engineers. With Web2SE, we provide a venue for pertinent work by highlighting current state-of-the-art research, by identifying research areas, and by discussing implications of Web 2.0 on software engineering. This paper reports on the paper presentations and the discussions among participants at Web2SE 2010 as well as on future directions of the Web2SE community.

Contract Interpretation Redux, Alan Schwartz, Robert E. Scott

Faculty Scholarship

Contract interpretation remains the largest single source of contract litigation between business firms. In part this is because contract interpretation issues are difficult, but it also reflects a deep divide between textualist and contextualist theories of interpretation. While a strong majority of U.S. courts continue to follow the traditional, "formalist" approach to contract interpretation, some courts and most commentators prefer the "contextualist" interpretive principles that are reflected in the Uniform Commercial Code and the Second Restatement. In 2003, we published an article that set out a formalist theory of contract interpretation to govern agreements between business firms. We argued that, …

Corporate Political Speech: Who Decides, Lucian A. Bebchuk, Robert J. Jackson Jr.

Faculty Scholarship

The Supreme Court spoke clearly this Term on the issue of corporate political speech, concluding in Citizens United v. FEC' that the First Amendment protects corporations' freedom to spend corporate funds on indirect support of political candidates. 2 Constitutional law scholars will long debate the wisdom of that holding, as do the authors of the two other Comments in this issue.3 In contrast, this Comment accepts as given that corporations may not be limited from spending money on politics should they decide to speak. We focus instead on an important question left unanswered by Citizens United: who should have the …

Guns, Originalism, And Cultural Cognition, Jamal Greene

Faculty Scholarship

In a legal regime whose canonical text is Marbury v. Madison, it should be unremarkable that the Supreme Court's actions are bounded rather severely by public opinion. What makes the proposition remarkable – enough to be well worth Barry Friedman's time – is also what makes Marbury remarkable: namely, that judges so often go out of their way to deny it. Though not unheard of, it is rare for a judge to advertise that the content of a constitutional rule she is announcing is motivated by public opinion. Such an admission would be self-defeating, since it invites the charge …

The So-Called Right To Privacy, Jamal Greene

Faculty Scholarship

The constitutional right to privacy has been a conservative bugaboo ever since Justice Douglas introduced it into the United States Reports in Griswold v. Connecticut. Reference to the "so-called" right to privacy has become code for the view that the right is doctrinally recognized but not in fact constitutionally enshrined. This Article argues that the constitutional right to privacy is no more. The two rights most associated historically with the right to privacy are abortion and intimate sexual conduct, yet Gonzales v. Carhart and Lawrence v. Texas made clear that neither of these rights is presently justified by its …

The U.S. Experience With Mandatory Copyright Formalities: A Love/Hate Relationship, Jane C. Ginsburg

Faculty Scholarship

Copyright formalities – conditions precedent to the existence or enforcement of copyright, such as provision of information about works of authorship that will put the public on notice as to a work’s protected status and its copyright ownership, or deposit of copies of the work for the national library or other central authority, or local manufacture of copies of works of foreign origin – have performed a variety of functions in US copyright history. Perhaps of most practical importance today, formalities predicate to the existence or enforcement of copyright can serve to shield large copyright owners who routinely comply with …

Adsorption Of Lead (Ii) By A Non-Living Algal Biomass., Mudher A. Hussein

Student Works (2010-2019)

Conventional techniques for removing dissolved heavy metals are only practical and cost-effective when applied to high strength wastes with heavy metal ion concentrations greater than 100 ppm. The possibility of using a non-living algal biomass to solve this problem was studied. Lead(II) was used in this study because it has been reported to cause several disorders in human. The non-living algal biomass was obtained from the filamentous green alga Spirogyra neglecta. The effects of initial concentration and contact time, pH, and temperature on the adsorption of lead(II) by the non-living algal biomass were studied. The equilibrium isotherms and kinetics were …

Rethinking Summary Judgment: Revamp Required?., Mak Mun Luan

Student Works (2010-2019)

Summary judgment has been touted as an effective tool for disposing of litigations in timely and cost effective manners, as disputes between litigants may be resolved without the need of full trials and the usual pre-trial processes associated with civil litigation. However, the tension between the potential for this procedure to produce a final judgment versus the litigants' entitlements to full trials, illustrates how reform in this procedure may be crucial. This paper sought to outline the current laws with regards to summary judgment in Malaysia and explore ways in which it may be revamped. For comparison, summary judgment procedures …

Realist Painting And Its Relationship To My Creative Practice, Xuning Wang

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This thesis examines the realist art movement from its origins in France in the 1840s to its development in China in the 20th century and its impact on the author as an artist. The thesis reviews the development of realism in France, and traces its impact on Chinese conceptions of realism in the 20th century. The contemporary debates surrounding realism in China are examined and contextualised within the recent history of realism in China. Finally the thesis looks at the impact of realism on the author’s creative practice and a case is argued for the development of realist ideas in …

An Econometric Analysis Of Australian Domestic Tourism Demand, Ghialy C. Yap

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

In 2007, the total spending by domestic visitors was AUD 43 billion, which was 1.5 times higher than the aggregate expenditure by international tourists in Australia. Moreover, domestic visitors consumed 73.7% of the Australian produced tourism goods and services whereas international tourists consumed 26.3%. Hence, this shows that domestic tourism is an important sector for the overall tourism industry in Australia. This present research determines the factors that influence domestic tourism demand in Australia and examines how changes in the economic environment in Australia could influence this demand. The main aim of this research is to achieve sustainability of domestic …

Trophic Implications Of Light Reductions For Amphibolis Griffithii Seagrass Fauna, Adam Gartner

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

The ongoing threat of seagrass loss from reduced light availability, coupled with our lack of knowledge of associated trophic responses has motivated this characterization of the flow-on effects of light reductions to Amphibolis griffithii seagrass fauna. Recently, field manipulations of varying light reductions, induced disturbances in a A. griffithii seagrass meadow that have been shown to effect potential food resources and the structural complexity of seagrass habitats for macroinvertebrates. This offered the opportunity to assess the flow-on effects to seagrass for fauna, a topic that has seldom been examined. This study investigated the effects of different light reduction intensity (high: …

Analysis Avoidance Techniques Of Malicious Software, Murray Brand

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Anti Virus (AV) software generally employs signature matching and heuristics to detect the presence of malicious software (malware). The generation of signatures and determination of heuristics is dependent upon an AV analyst having successfully determined the nature of the malware, not only for recognition purposes, but also for the determination of infected files and startup mechanisms that need to be removed as part of the disinfection process. If a specimen of malware has not been previously extensively analyzed, it is unlikely to be detected by AV software. In addition, malware is becoming increasingly profit driven and more likely to incorporate …