Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
M4426-MITLETON-KELLY-text (4-colour).indd

Phase 1 of complexity science began back in the 1950s when Ilia Prigogine started writing about phase transitions just beyond the ‘edge of order’ (the 1st critical value) in physical systems resulting from the reduction of imposed tensions (Prigogine 1955, 1962, 1997; Prigogine and Stengers 1984; Nicolis and Prigogine 1989). Starting in the late 1980s, scientists at the Santa Fe Institute of Complexity Sciences shifted complexity science to the study of emergent behaviour in living biological and social systems (Anderson 1972; Gell-Mann 1988, 2002; Holland 1988, 2002; Kauffman 1993; Arthur 1994). Phase 2’s focus was on heterogeneous agents interacting just before the ‘edge of chaos’ (the 2nd critical value) of imposed tensions. In between the ‘edges’ of order and chaos is the Region of Emergent Complexity, what Kauffman terms the ‘melting’ zone (1993, p. 109). Bak (1996) argued that to survive, organisms have to have a capability of staying within the melting zone, maintaining themselves in a state of ‘self-organized criticality,’ that is, adaptive efficacy. Holland (2002) defined emergent phenomena as multi-level hierarchies, intraand inter-level causal processes, and nonlinearities. Phase 3 focuses on nonlinearity, scalability, power laws (PLs), the ‘butterfly effect’,1 scalability and fractals. Though beginning many decades ago with Pareto (1897), Auerbach (1913) and Zipf (1949), Phase 3 re-focused attention to PL phenomena (Newman 2005; Andriani and McKelvey 2007, 2009), and eventually includes econophysics (West and Deering 1995, Mantegna and Stanley 2000). Econophysics began with Benoit Mandelbrot’s focus on stock market crashes (1963). While crashes are negative extreme events, their showing of the PL signature indicates that the markets were free to go up or down without restraint. PLs often appear as indicators of self-organization, emergencein-action, self-organizing economies (Krugman 1996), and the growth of firms, cities and economies (Stanley et al. 1996; Axtell 2001). Various descriptions of how complexity science has been applied to organizations appear in Maguire et al. (2006) Hazy et al. (2007), Allen et al. (2011), Strathern and McGlade (2014). These existing views and theories about how complexity science thinking and concepts apply to organizations and management are more explicitly tested and elaborated in the chapters comprising this Section.
Inter-subject transfer learning with an end-to-end deep convolutional neural network for EEG-based BCI

Objective. Despite the effective application of deep learning (DL) in brain–computer interface (BCI) systems, the successful execution of this technique, especially for inter-subject classification, in cognitive BCI has not been accomplished yet. In this paper, we propose a framework based on the deep convolutional neural network (CNN) to detect the attentive mental state from single-channel raw electroencephalography (EEG) data. Approach. We develop an end-to-end deep CNN to decode the attentional information from an EEG time series. We also explore the consequences of input representations on the performance of deep CNN by feeding three different EEG representations into the network. To ensure the practical application of the proposed framework and avoid time-consuming re-training, we perform inter-subject transfer learning techniques as a classification strategy. Eventually, to interpret the learned attentional patterns, we visualize and analyse the network perception of the attention and non-attention classes. Main results. The average classification accuracy is 79.26%, with only 15.83% of 120 subjects having an accuracy below 70% (a generally accepted threshold for BCI). This is while with the inter-subject approach, it is literally difficult to output high classification accuracy. This end-to-end classification framework surpasses conventional classification methods for attention detection. The visualization results demonstrate that the learned patterns from the raw data are meaningful. Significance. This framework significantly improves attention detection accuracy with inter-subject classification. Moreover, this study sheds light on the research on end-to-end learning; the proposed network is capable of learning from raw data with the least amount of pre-processing, which in turn eliminates the extensive computational load of time-consuming data preparation and feature extraction.
Corporate governance mechanisms and the cost of capital: evidence from Canadian firms

This paper investigates the effects of corporate governance mechanisms on the cost of capital of Canadian firms listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange after the 2008 financial crisis. Since the end of the crisis, the cost of capital has fallen for Canadian firms. Insider ownership, board size, and CEO duality are found to be negatively related to the cost of capital. In contrast, institutional ownership is shown to be positively related to the cost of capital. Most examined governance mechanisms have differential impacts on firms across industries and regions in Canada. In Canadian mining firms, which have a higher cost of capital than firms in other industries, insider ownership is negatively associated with the cost of capital. In the transportation industry, both institutional ownership and insider ownership are positively related to the cost of capital. Firms domiciled in Quebec have a lower cost of capital that reflects its industrial structure.
A modified boundary treatment in the Incompressible SPH for accurate pressure calculation on the solid boundary *

The Incompressible Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamic (ISPH) is one of the particle methods and commonly used to solve some complicated physical problems including free surface flow problems. The study regarding the boundary treatment has become an active research area in the mesh-free or particle method recently for measuring the accurate and robust pressure near the boundary. The penetrations of fluid particles may be happened if the adequate pressure boundary condition on the solid boundary cannot be satisfied. In this paper, a simple boundary treatment, which can be satisfied the non-homogenous Neumann boundary condition on the solid boundary and Dirichlet condition on the water surface, is proposed. The key point of our proposed treatment is that these boundary conditions are automatically satisfied by solving a modified pressure Poisson equation. Although the application of a similar ideas proposed by Mayrhofer (2014) is limited to a simple solid boundary shape, our technique can be applied to arbitrary shape with concave-convex boundary. Lastly, the effectiveness and accuracy of boundary treatment proposed are then authenticated with couples of numerical analysis and compared with the experimental tests.
Performance Simulation of a System's Parallelization

A new approach to simulate the parallelization of a software function is presented in this paper. The parallelization’s effects onto the system’s performance prior to a costly realization of the parallelization are evaluated, leading to a more gain-oriented performance optimization. The presented approach defines a methodology to transform a single-threaded software function into a multi-threaded simulation. CPU stubs, simulating both, the performance and functional behavior, are applied to simulate the expected time slices. The proposed technique can estimate the expected performance gain for the whole system. A proof of concept is used to evaluate the proposed methodology and the simulation results are compared to a known parallel implementation of the algorithm. Initial results show our approach can be used to simulate the performance behavior of a parallelized system with high accuracy. In addition, the number of threads that result in the highest performance gain of the system is determined. Keywords-software performance optimization; performance simulation; parallelization; dynamic performance stubs
Generation of large-scale maps of science and associated indicators.

Over the past several years, techniques have been developed for clustering very large segments of the technical literature using sources such as Thomson ISI's Science Citation Index. The primary objective of this work has been to develop indicators of potential impact at the paper level to enhance planning and evaluation of research. These indicators can also be aggregated at different levels to enable profiling of departments, institutions, agencies, etc. Results of this work are presented as maps of science and technology with various overlays corresponding to the indicators associated with a particular search or question.
Posterior Sublaminar Wiring and/or Transarticular Screw Fixation for Reducible Atlantoaxial Instability Secondary to Symptomatic Os Odontoideum: A Neglected Technique?

Study Design Retrospective case analysis. Purpose We retrospectively evaluated the clinical and radiological outcomes of posterior sublaminar wiring (PSLW) and/or transarticular screw fixation (TASF) for reducible atlantoaxial instability (AAI) secondary to os odontoideum. Overview of Literature Limited information is available about the surgical outcomes of symptomatic os odontoideum with AAI. Methods We examined 23 patients (12 women and 11 men) with os odontoideum and reducible AAI. The average age of the patients at the time of the operation was 44.2 years. The average follow-up duration was 4.5 years. Thirteen patients with anterior AAI underwent PSLW alone, while 10 patients with combined (anterior+posterior) AAI underwent PSLW and TASF. An autogenous iliac bone graft was used for all patients. Nine patients complained of neck or suboccipital pain, and 14 complained of myelopathy. Results Angulational instability (preoperative 18.7°±8.9° vs. postoperative 2.1°±4.6°, p<0.001), translational instability (16.3±4.9 mm vs. 1.8±2.2 mm, p<0.001), and segmental angle of the C1–C2 joint (23.7°±7.2° vs. 28.4°±3.8°, p<0.05) showed significant improvement postoperatively. Neck Visual Analog Scale score (6.2±2.4 vs. 2.5±1.8, p<0.05) and the modified Japanese Orthopedic Association (9.1±3.1 vs. 13.2±2.6, p<0.05) score also improved, with a recovery rate of 51.8%. Among the three patients who developed nonunion and/or wire breakage, one underwent revision surgery with repeat PSLW and was finally able to achieve fusion. The final fusion rate was 91.3%. Conclusions PSLW and/or TASF provided satisfactory clinical and radiological outcomes in reducible AAI secondary to os odontoideum without significant neurological complications. Our results suggest that PSLW and/or TASF can be considered a viable surgical option over segmental fixation in highly selected cases of os odontoideum with reducible AAI.
Characterisation of the Delphi Electronically Scanning Radar for robotics applications

Mm-wave radars have an important role to play in field robotics for applications that require reliable perception in challenging environmental conditions. This paper presents an experimental characterisation of the Delphi Electronically Scanning Radar (ESR) for mobile robotics applications. The performance of the sensor is evaluated in terms of detection ability and accuracy, for varying factors including: sensor temperature, time, target’s position, speed, shape and material. We also evaluate the sensor’s target separability performance.
Self-organising Modelling for Decision Support

Developed in 1968 by A.G. Ivakhnenko, the self-organising modelling approach introduces the idea of external information into modelling and a class of algorithms, which inductively, systematically and autonomously evolve an optimal complex model from noisy observation data by employing parameter and structure identification. Later, many important analytical results were obtained forming the theory of noise immunity modelling. It was shown that inductively self-organised "non-physical" models of optimal complexity that match the unknown noise-to-signal ratio are usually more accurate for interpolation and forecasting purposes than "physical" models obtained deductively. Recent research and development resulted in Networks of Active Neurons, parallel implementations of diverse algorithms, and in multi-level self-organisation for modelling high-dimensional data sets. Current efforts are targeting at self-organising modelling for decision support of complex real-world problems. We think that integration of soft systems approaches, learning from data, and inductive modelling paradigms will lead to a new framework of inductive modelling for modelling, predicting and controlling complex systems and processes in near real-time.
GoSoapBox in public health tertiary education: A student response system for improving learning experiences and outcomes

Most pedagogical literature has generated “how to” approaches regarding the use of student response systems (SRS). There are currently no systematic reviews on the effectiveness of SRS, for its capacity to enhance critical thinking, and achieve sustained learning outcomes. This paper addresses this current gap in knowledge. Our teaching team introduced GoSoapBox (an interactive online SRS) in an undergraduate sociology and public health subject, as a mechanism for discussing controversial topics, such as sexuality, gender, economics, religion, and politics, to allow students to interact with each other and to generate discussions and debates during lectures. Bandura’s Social Learning Theory (SLT) was applied to investigate the effectiveness of GoSoapBox for improving learning experiences. We produced a theoretical model via an iterative analytical process between SLT and our data. This model has implications for all academics considering the use of SRS to improve the learning experiences of their students.
Time-Matching Random Finite Set-Based Filter for Radar Multi-Target Tracking

The random finite set (RFS) approach provides an elegant Bayesian formulation of the multi-target tracking (MTT) problem without the requirement of explicit data association. In order to improve the performance of the RFS-based filter in radar MTT applications, this paper proposes a time-matching Bayesian filtering framework to deal with the problem caused by the diversity of target sampling times. Based on this framework, we develop a time-matching joint generalized labeled multi-Bernoulli filter and a time-matching probability hypothesis density filter. Simulations are performed by their Gaussian mixture implementations. The results show that the proposed approach can improve the accuracy of target state estimation, as well as the robustness.
Causal link between military expenditure and GDP - A study of selected countries

There has been a great debate for long among the economists and political scientists on the issue of whether there has been any link or causations between GDP and military expenditure of a country. Professor Keynes does not believe on spending on military activities as it is wastage of resources, particularly when there is deficiency of aggregate consumption and investment demands in the economy. The present paper tries to examine whether there are causal link between GDP and military expenditure of randomly selected 20 countries in the world for the period 1988-2013. Applying the concerned time series econometric tools the study reveals that GDP causes military expenditure for seven countries including France, Germany and Italy and military expenditure causes GDP for five countries including USA, Canada, China and India. Bidirectional causalities are observed for Italy and Australia with no way causality observed in six countries including UK and Japan.
A sequential vector selection algorithm for controllable bandwidth motion description encoding

The paper presents a method for controlling the bandwidth given to the motion description in motion-compensated video coding by restricting the number of motion vectors used. A new algorithm, called the metric method, for selecting the vectors is presented. This approach produces predicted images that are a close approximation of the optimal that can be achieved for a fixed number of vectors with relatively little additional computational cost. Results show that, in a video codec, the metric method produces lower overall errors than the standard approach of sending one vector per block, and is better than the histogram method previously used to select the vectors.
Confidential Policy for Protecting User Images Uploaded on Shared Web Sites

Along with the increase in the number of people using internet, the number of people sharing images across various web sites. One of the major issues with the sharing of images on public web sites is the unauthorized access of the content of the image. We propose a two-level framework which according to the user’s available history on the site, determines the best available privacy policy for the user’s images being uploaded. We propose in this project non-recommended user can search and send the request of image to the administrator can accept the response and approve the access permissions. A hierarchical image classification that classifies pictures initially based on their contents then refine every class into subcategories based mostly on their metadata. Such a hierarchical classification provides a higher priority to image content.
Ontogeny and covariation in the Toarcian genus Osperleioceras (Ammonoidea)

Starting from embryonic (protoconch-ammonitella) and early juvenile shells, which are indistinguishable at the species level, growth curves of Osperleioceras from the Reynesi Subzone (Upper Toarcian) of the Causses Basin (Aveyron, France) show a continuous radiating range of correlated variation in dimensional and ornamental characters, such as involution, whorl compression, rib strength and rib density. This covariation pattern can be observed among single-horizon assemblages, as well as during individual ontogenetic development. The existence of a continuous intergradational series of shells, ranging from stout coarsely ribbed to smooth suboxycone morphologies, rules out functional or ecological selectivity to explain this non-random variability pattern. The complex interdependence of shape and sculpture can be simulated by a model in which sculpture intensity depends on mantle curvature [Guex, 1999]. The expression of covariation in subadult specimens since the base of Upper Toarcian reveals a rise in variability, concomitant with a size decrease, both contemporaneous with environmental instability. It developed in successive bursts from a fairly long low variability period spanning the whole Middle Toarcian.
Smartphone and Our Students: Is It Being Good for Their Study?

The objectives of this study are to: (I) find out the discriminations or variations (if any) between the attentive and inattentive university students in terms of their purposes of using smartphones, (II) analyze the cause-effect relationship between “the purposes considered to have good or bad impact on study” and “the smartphone usage behavior of the attentive students”, and (III) analyze the cause-effect relationship between “the purposes considered to have good or bad impact on study” and “the smartphone usage behavior of the inattentive students”. 400 students (200 attentive and 200 inattentive) students are surveyed. Based survey and statistical analysis results, it is found that attentive and inattentive student are differentiating from each other in terms of their purposes of using smartphones for learning and study, social networking and entertainment. Moreover, the reasons of using smartphones believed to be in favor of their learning activities have positive impact on the attentive students’ smartphones usage behavior, whereas inattentive students are not acting likewise. Corrective actions by the interested parties should be undertaken to reform this unexpected scenario. Keywords: Smartphone, Students, Education, Bangladesh.
Wiki design for student assignments: Should it be prescribed or emergent?

In this paper we examine how to approach the question of information and site design in the use of wikis for student group assignments. The popular literature about Wikis proposes that they allow for “emergent, user-driven design”. We develop a model in order to analyse what approach to design might be appropriate in student group work. We gave one class of students a prescribed assignment layout with clear instructions regarding navigation menus and another group the same assignment with little or no guidance about how to design their site. Initial results show that prescribing the design increases perceptions of self-efficacy. Whilst self-efficacy is correlated with higher perceived quality of the site and with use of a greater range of wiki functions, there is no correlation with perceived usefulness of the wiki as a tool.
Frequency support among asynchronous AC systems through VSCs emulating power plants

This paper proposes a new control scheme for the Voltage Source Converters (VSCs) of a High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) grid connecting asynchronous AC systems, so that the latter can mutually support their frequencies after a disturbance. The scheme involves no communication between VSCs. It is activated upon detection of a significant frequency deviation, with the possibility to limit the support requested from other AC systems. It relies on an integral control enforcing the frequency droop characteristics (of classical speed governors), in addition to the voltage-droop control of VSCs. The controller is tuned to emulate the response of a power plant, while avoiding excessive transients in the HVDC system, and limiting the impact on the other AC systems.
Economic Consequences of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002

This paper investigates the economic consequences of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) by examining market reactions to related legislative events. Using concurrent stock returns of non-U.S.-traded foreign firms to estimate normal U.S. returns, I find that U.S. firms experienced a statistically significant negative cumulative abnormal return around key SOX events. I then examine the cross-sectional variation of U.S. firms' returns around these events. Regression results are consistent with the nonaudit services and governance provisions imposing net costs. Additional tests show that deferring the compliance of Section 404, which mandates an internal control test, resulted in significant cost savings for nonaccelerated filers.
Non-Markovian disentanglement dynamics of a two-qubit system

We investigate the disentanglement dynamics of a two-qubit system in the non-Markovian approach. It is shown that only for weak coupling between the system and environment does an exponential decay of entanglement appear, for certain classes of two-qubit entangled states. When the coupling between qubit and the environment becomes stronger, entanglement sudden death always appears even if the dissipation environment is at zero temperature.