Reviewerly/exHarmony huggingface dataset:
CCMB: A Large-scale Chinese Cross-modal Benchmark

Vision-language pre-training (VLP) on large-scale datasets has shown premier performance on various downstream tasks. In contrast to plenty of available benchmarks with English corpus, large-scale pre-training datasets and downstream datasets with Chinese corpus remain largely unexplored. In this work, we build a large-scale high-quality Chinese Cross-Modal Benchmark named CCMB for the research community, which contains the currently largest public pre-training dataset Zero and five human-annotated fine-tuning datasets for downstream tasks. Zero contains 250 million images paired with 750 million text descriptions, plus two of the five fine-tuning datasets are also currently the largest ones for Chinese cross-modal downstream tasks. Along with the CCMB, we also develop a VLP framework named R2D2, applying a pre-Ranking + Ranking strategy to learn powerful vision-language representations and a two-way distillation method (i.e., target-guided Distillation and feature-guided Distillation) to further enhance the learning capability. With the Zero and the R2D2 VLP framework, we achieve state-of-the-art performance on twelve downstream datasets from five broad categories of tasks including image-text retrieval, image-text matching, image caption, text-to-image generation, and zero-shot image classification. The datasets, models, and codes are available at https://github.com/yuxie11/R2D2
SHIP: Securing Hashed Timelock Contracts in Payment Channel Networks

Off-chain solutions in blockchain address the scalability issue by moving and executing transactions off the main chain, speeding up processing, and reducing fees. However, they introduce unique cybersecurity challenges, specific to each protocol’s implementation. Payment Channel Networks (PCNs), one of the prominent off-chain solutions, suffer from such a cyber attack (called FAKEY) that throttles its transaction throughput. The attacker manipulates hashed keys to deprive the victims of receiving the allotted fees and gains monetary benefits through targeted attacks. This paper proposes SHIP, a novel approach to address the FAKEY attack, utilizing symmetric cryptography and secret sharing mechanisms. In this work, we outline the theoretical foundations of SHIP, and plan for empirical validation.
IEEE ComSoc Staff - Enabling Volunteers!

IEEE Communications Society (ComSoc) owes its success to the partnership between passionate volunteers and the dedicated staff who support them. ComSoc volunteers are made up of engineers, scientists, practitioners, academics, and thought leaders in communications technology dedicated to the betterment of humanity. The efforts of the volunteers in this community impact the sharing of information globally as well as establishing connections and collaborations among the network of members and volunteers. By establishing a talented and dedicated staff team, ComSoc provides more resources to help reduce the workload on the volunteers. Volunteers and staff work as a team to make ComSoc a success in our efforts to transform communications technology.
Homing in on an answer

Rob Eastaway and Brian Hobbs take over our maths column to reveal that spiral search patterns were key to cracking their puzzle
Design Of Web-Based Library Information System With Framework For The Application System Thinking (FAST) Method

To develop interest in reading in school students, schools and libraries must work together to attract students ' interest in reading. One of them is by providing a library at the school. Currently, many school libraries for management are still manual, such as from recording member data, data bookkeeping to storing other data related to transaction processing to report generation, so it is possible that when the process takes place there are errors in recording, lack of accurate reports made and delays in finding the required data. In addition, the library has operating hours so that few students come. Designing a web-based library information system with a fast method is the best solution to solve the problems that exist in this library. Fast methods make system design easier and more targeted. And the existence of a site-based Library Information System increases students ' reading interest because they can access it anywhere and anytime without being limited in time, and also makes it easier for officers to Manage Library data.
How noise impacts on trained echo-state neural network

In this paper we analyse the impact of additive and multiplicative uncorrelated white Gaussian noise on trained echo-state neural network. The network was trained to predict chaotic time series of Mackey-Glass equation. Here we show that mean squared error and dispersion of the output signal produced by trained echo-state network, grows with dispersion of noise sources linearly. Moreover, we show how these two types of noise impact on the statistics of the output signal on the example of dependency of dispersion of the output signal on its mean value.
Thermodynamic quantities of two-dimensional Ising models obtained by noisy mean-field annealing and a coherent Ising machine

Noisy mean-field annealing (NMFA) is an algorithm that mimics a coherent Ising machine (CIM), which is an optical system for solving Ising problems. The NMFA has reproduced the solver performance of the CIM for systems of limited size even though it simplifies the interaction between spins with a mean-field approximation. However, recent experiments observing various thermodynamic quantities have revealed that the CIM can capture the phase transitions of the two-dimensional Ising models that the mean field cannot capture. This situation leads to a fundamental question as to how well the NMFA can capture the features of the thermodynamic quantities around the phase transition. This paper answers that the NMFA reproduces the thermodynamic features of the mean field, but cannot reproduce the CIM results. This suggests that, in terms of sampling, the level of performance of the CIM is beyond that of the NMFA.
Practical Approaches In Coordinating Registration for the Cis-Gender Female Musical Theatre Singer

For successful navigation of the five sub-genres of musical theatre: legit, contemporary legit, standard belt, contemporary belt, and pop/rock, the cisgender female must possess flexible registration strategies. Singers must cultivate technical awareness to negotiate between these styles with aesthetic and artistic integrity while maintaining functional efficiency. To achieve this, singers must explore and condition their voices with various adjustments to the breathing, phonation, articulation, and resonance systems. This article offers a toolbox of exercises to help singers with registration exploration, coordination, breath flow and resistance balance, articulator shaping, and variable aesthetic resonance qualities. The author suggests diagnostic and habilitative tools for using three distinct voice concepts: the Neutral Voice, the Binary Voice, and the Flexible Voice. In addition, the author suggests emotional simulation play to help students discover a wide variety of sounds and the effect of emotion on the subsystems of the singing voice. These suggested tools help cultivate a highly flexible voice ideal for a wide variety of musical theatre opportunities.
THE USAGE OF AUGMENTEDCLASS APPLICATION FOR GRAPHIC COMPETENCE DEVELOPMENT OF STUDENTS OF THE 5th-7th GRADES IN THE PROCESS OF CREATING AUGMENTED REALITY PROJECTS

The article examines the usage of the AugmentedClass application for graphic competence development of students of the 5th-7th grades while creating augmented reality projects. The application’s main functions and interface are described. Methods and techniques that contribute to students’ graphic skills development are presented as well. The advantages of using augmented reality technology in the educational process are considered, in particular, increasing students’ interest in learning and stimulating their creativity. The need to integrate the AugmentedClass application into the educational process is emphasized, which will improve the quality of education and provide active and exciting educational activities for students of the 5th-7th grades. Attention is focused on the fact that the main aspects of graphic competence development are interest, creativity, and skills in using graphic tools, which can be successfully developed with the help of the AugmentedClass application.&#x0D; It has been found that the usage of augmented reality in the field of education provides students with a significant number of advantages: augmented reality stimulates students’ interest in educational material thanks to interactive content and expands the educational process by providing new competencies and innovative forms of working with the audience, gamification, competitive elements, and cognitive stimuli used in augmented reality activate and motivate students to more independent educational and cognitive activities. Also, the usage of innovative educational tasks, including augmented reality, helps to stimulate students’ educational activity and makes the learning process more exciting and attractive, as well as the usage of augmented reality promotes students’ personal quality development, which is of particular importance for Ukrainian general secondary education institutions, helping to increase their self-esteem and positive attitude to learning.
ELEMENTARY SCHOOL STUDENTS’ GRAPHIC COMPETENCE FORMATION USING COMPUTER-ORIENTED TEACHING TOOLS

The article deals with the topical issue of elementary school students’ graphic competence formation using computer-oriented teaching tools. In today’s digital world, where information is presented in various graphic formats, graphic competence is an essential skill for elementary school students. Graphic competence involves the ability to understand, create, and analyze graphics using computer technology. The main aspects of elementary school students’ graphic competence formation through the usage of computer-oriented teaching tools have been determined. Modern approaches to teaching graphic skills and their influence on the educational process are considered. The practical aspects of the implementation of computer-oriented teaching tools for improving students’ graphic competence are highlighted. It is noted that graphic training during primary school education is crucial for students’ future education, as it lays the foundations for the basics of graphic literacy. However, one of the main shortcomings in the educational process related to the study of graphic disciplines is the lack of unity in teaching methods between secondary and higher schools.&#x0D; It is considered that computer-based teaching tools represent a wide range of technological tools and programs designed to facilitate and facilitate learning through the usage of computers. These tools can be successfully implemented in the educational process at all levels, from primary school to higher education. They cover a wide range of technologies and methodologies, including learning software, interactive exercises, video tutorials, virtual reality, and more. It is determined that augmented reality technology opens up new opportunities for improving elementary school students’ graphic competence. It facilitates the visualization of educational material, ensures the active participation of students in learning, and promotes the graphic content creation. The usage of AR can be a significant step in improving the quality of education and developing the graphic skills of a new generation.
Data management plans as a tool for making data fair

Data management plans as a tool for making data fair Andy Götz (ESRF Data Manager and PaNOSC Coordinator), explores if and how Data Management Plans (DMPs) are essential for making data FAIR. In the previous articles in this series on FAIR data, we explained how the scientific world is undergoing a major change with the widespread adoption of the so-called FAIR principles for research data. FAIR stands for Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable and was first published in a paper in Nature during 2016. (1) The FAIR principles were proposed to ensure research data are made available to the scientific community so that they can be found, downloaded, understood and reused. The goal is to make data used in scientific publications available to the community so they can verify the results, reproduce them and eventually derive new results from them. Applying the FAIR principles systematically to research data will address the reproducibility, also known as the replicability crisis (2) in science. It will make scientific data available for verifying results and use beyond their original purpose.
VoteBlock: Blockchain Based E-Voting System

In the contemporary digital landscape, where the ease of hacking and system breaches prevails, the potential for data tampering looms, resulting in unfavourable circumstances. To mitigate this rick, blockchain technology emerges as steadfast solution, characterised by its near- impenetrable security features, rendering data alteration virally impossible. The act of voting, integral to any nation’s democratic process, stands as a cornerstone of societal decision making. The consequences of vote miscalculation or manipulation by external forces are dire, emphasising the need for a secure and reliable system. It is in this context that blockchain technology plays a cubical role, offering an avenue to enhance the integrity and accessibility of the voting process. This paper presents a comprehensive proposal for decentralised national e-voting system build upon blockchain technology. The system incorporates an administrative panel designed to facilitate the scheduling of elections, candidate management, and the declaration of election results. Concurrently, a user-friendly web application empowers citizens with an interface for inputting their personal details, including their name, mobile number, and a live photo captured during the voting process. To maintain the integrity of the voting system, voter eligibility is rigorously verified at the point of User ID entry. A crucial layer of security is added by confirming eligible voters through their registers phone numbers using One Time Passwords (OTPs). Subsequently, individual voters gain the privilege to cast their votes, with their actions monitored through a webcam or front cameras. Votes are securely recorded within a blockchain ledger, immune to tapering, while the system checks the voter’s addressed corresponding constituency in the backend. The voting results are diligently declared on a predefined date and managed by the administrator, with graphical representations available to provide clarity and transparency. This holistic system not only upholds the sanctity of the voting process but also offers citizens a technologically advanced and secure means to exercise their democratic rights
DIGITAL CITIZENSHIP IN GEORGIAN’S TEACHERS, STUDENTS AND PARENTS

The Council of Europe’s (CoE) model on Digital Citizenship Education (DCE) has at its basis the ‘Competencies of Democratic Culture’ model, which considers being an active and responsible citizen and implies the development of a set of lifelong competencies both online and offline at various levels, as well. Taking the ‘Competencies of Democratic Culture’ the CoE experts elaborated on the DCE domains, which are the appropriate way to develop democratic culture competences in the digital environment. Georgia, as a member country, signed the agreement on DCE to be applied at the K-12 curriculum level and joined the DCE project of the CoE in July 2020. Thus, as an educational concept, DCE is relatively new to the education system of Georgia. The aim of the study was to describe the current situation concerning DCE in Georgia, namely on awareness of the concept and its foundations, as well as identifying self-reported DCE competences by teachers, students and parents, in the light of the Ribble’s and the CoE’s models. Data was collected in five schools in 2020. The issue was studied using the quantitative method, an online survey, 1954 respondents were involved in the research. It was demonstrated that most of the respondents had a lack of awareness about information-communication technologies. It can be concluded that communication among school teachers, students and parents about the issues of digital security has not started yet. The correlation between the geographic location of a school and teachers’ digital competences is not confirmed. Keywords: digital citizenship education, digital domains, digital competences, digital school culture, exploratory sequential design
THE INFLUENCE OF SELECTED FACTORS ON THE LOWER SECONDARY SCHOOL TEACHERS' PERCEPTION OF MEDIA EDUCATION

Media education is an educational subject whose parent fields are not firmly defined. It is located at the intersection of subjects like pedagogy, media studies, film science, aesthetics, sociology, psychology and other humanities and social disciplines. The aim of the research was to determine the influence of various factors on the perception of media education among teachers. 600 teachers participated in the research, and the research tool was a self-designed questionnaire. It was divided into several parts, with the media part containing 12 items focused on the perception of education. The multiple regression model was used as the statistical method for the identification of significant factors. Also, Pearson’s correlation coefficient and a student t-test were used for the identification of a significant relationship and whether the use of different methods and forms had a significant effect on media education perception. The length of teaching experience, the benefits of media education in the areas of knowledge, abilities and skills, as well as the last variable – receptive circles, were shown to be significant factors. Higher implementation of media education into the school subjects would be beneficial for every participant of the teaching process. Keywords: teachers’ perception, media education, multiple regression model, quantitative approach
Brief Technical History and Audiovisual Parameters of Electromechanical Television

The purpose of the research is to characterize the most important milestones in the technical history and audiovisual parameters of electromechanical (mechanical) television of the 1840s–1930s as an audiovisual ecosystem. Research methodology. The study uses, firstly, an ecosystem approach, which made it possible to qualify television as a networked audiovisual ecosystem with internal dynamics and external interactions, and secondly, media archaeology as a field that attempts to understand the early stage and electromechanical practices of television through the prism of technical history, and, thirdly, general scientific methods of analysis and synthesis, induction and deduction, generalization and abstraction when working with theoretical material. Scientific novelty. For the first time, the article comprehensively and at the appropriate theoretical level considers the most significant milestones in the development of electromechanical (mechanical) television of the period and its audiovisual parameters. Conclusions. It is proved that during the 40 years since the patent for the “Nipkow disc” was granted in 1885 to the first public demonstration of television moving images by the Scottish inventor John Logie Baird in 1925, electromechanical TV has gone through a rapid and very significant path from broadcasting a static image (analogue of photography) to transmitting a moving image (analogue of cinema). It has been substantiated that despite numerous experiments aimed at “collaborating” the means of preserving and transmitting sound and image (telegraph, radio, telephone), early mechanical television broadcasts remained silent and black and white. It is emphasized that further technical development and improvement of audiovisual parameters of mechanical television led to the deepening of audiovisual synthesis in the industry and its transformation, which first resulted in the emergence of electromechanical and electronic systems with the ability to preserve colour images and later regular and cable television broadcasting systems.
On the Possibilities of Equipment of the Pedagogical Technology Park “Quantorium” for the Formation of Practical Skills of Students when Studying the Section of Biology “Genetics”

The article considers the pedagogical problem of forming practical skills and abilities of 9th grade students when studying the biology section “Genetics” with the help of high-tech equipment of the pedagogical tech-nopark “Quantorium” at Glazov State Pedagogical Institute named after V.G. Korolenko. Primary diagnostics showed low results of schoolchildren in all parameters of the study, including the level of academic perfor-mance. A set of tasks was developed and introduced into the educational process using special equipment of the pedagogical technopark “Quantorium”, focused on the development of practical skills and cognitive activity skills among students of the experimental group for 5 months. After the classes, secondary diagnostics of schoolchildren was carried out, the level of their academic performance in the discipline “Biology”, the section “Genetics”, including the control group, was revealed. Statistically reliable improvements in the level of skills and practical skills of ninth-graders participating in the experiment, as well as an increase in their performance in the subject compared to the control group were revealed.
Gamification in Additional Professional Education

The article presents results of research of gamification potential using for training in additional professional education. As an example, it’s considered an advanced training program for the economists from the enter-prises of the military-industrial complex, which is approved for applying at one of such enterprise. It is empha-sized that gamification, using the simulation of professional situations, blurs the line between training and real activities, shifts the emphasis from direct memorization of theoretical material to game elements in the form of gaining points, achieving leadership positions in the standings, which motivates students to more active inde-pendent activity and facilitates the process of perception of the material to be mastered, allows you to test the skills and abilities developed during training, test the student’s decision-making abilities, and identify weak-nesses that require additional elaboration.
Classroom Facial Expression Recognition Method Based on Conv3D-ConvLSTM-SEnet in Online Education Environment

A Facial Expression Recognition (FER) method based on Conv3D-ConvLSTM-SEnet in an online education environment is proposed to address the issue of low accuracy in current classroom expression recognition (FER) methods. Firstly, ConvLSTM is used to integrate the local feature extraction ability of CNN and the temporal modeling ability of LSTM, and based on this, the rich spatial features of the image are characterized. Then, by introducing Depth Separated Convolution (DSC) to change the number of output channels and separate each channel, the Feature Maps (F-M) are sequentially concatenated to obtain a multi-channel output F-M. Finally, based on ConvLSTM and SEnet modules, a Conv3D ConvLSTM-based FER model was proposed by redistributing the extracted abstract features and basic texture features, achieving high accuracy classroom FER. The proposed classroom FER method and the other five methods were compared and analyzed through simulation experiments using the CK[Formula: see text], FER2013 and JAFFE datasets, respectively. The results indicate that the proposed method achieves the highest accuracy, precision, recall, and F1 score, with improvements of at least 1.85%, 2.41%, 1.18% and 2.05%, respectively, compared to the other five methods on the FER2013 dataset. The proposed method can perform FER on students in online classroom teaching, detect their emotions in real-time, and help teachers make better course teaching adjustments based on this.