cometadata/datacite-rtg-text-other-reclassification-records huggingface dataset:
Spatiotemporal Variability of Trends and Anomaly Patterns in the Surface Albedo and Temperature of Glaciers in the Canadian Cordillera and Alaska
Creators: Ali Naeimi Nezamabad
Publisher: name: University of Alberta Library
Year: 2024

The global average surface air temperature experienced an increase of approximately 0.5°C over the course of the 20th century. Consequently, numerous glaciers worldwide have undergone a reduction in size, and this phenomenon is especially prominent among mountain glaciers, such as those found in Western Canada and Alaska. The Canadian Cordillera and Alaska are experiencing rapid mass loss. While glacier changes have historically occurred on a time scale of centuries, recent climate-driven changes in their mass and energy balances mean that changes in glacier area, volume and runoff are now occurring on a timescale of decades.

   This study aims to (i) document the spatio-temporal trends and patterns of glacier surface albedo and temperature in the Canadian Cordillera and Alaska, and (ii) evaluate physical parameters of the glaciers that experienced significant warming and darkening over the past 20 years and determine how BC deposition affects the albedo and surface temperature of snow and glacier ice surfaces across the region during the summer melt season.

   Results of the study indicate that over the last 21 years, significant decreases in albedo and/or significant increases in surface temperature across 83% of the glaciated area in the study region, suggest that most of the region’s glaciers are likely experiencing increasing rates of surface melting. We also found that in years with strongly significant negative surface albedo anomalies, most of the ice-covered areas had significant positive surface temperature anomalies (e.g. 2013-2019). Our findings demonstrate that the majority of the critical glaciers (warming and darkening over 21 years from 2000-2022) in the Canadian Rocky mountain area are small glaciers that are located at high elevation.  Times of anomalous glacier surface albedo and temperature coincide with years of large forest fire activity, when majority of airflow trajectories suggest that they experienced forest fire aerosol deposition, which may influence regional patterns of glacier albedo and temperature change.
Megachile bruneriella Cockerell, new comb.
Creators: name: Raw, Anthony
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2002
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Hymenoptera
Megachilidae
Megachile
Megachile bruneriella

description: bruneriella Cockerell, new comb.
Megachile bruneriella Cockerell 1917: 239. Male. Type locality: Carcaraña, Argentina. Type repository: USNM 22906. Examined.
description: Published as part of Raw, Anthony, 2002, New combinations and synonymies of leafcutter and mason bees of the Americas (Megachile, Hymenoptera, Megachilidae), pp. 1-43 in Zootaxa 71 (1) on page 9, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.71.1.1, http://zenodo.org/record/155887
An Empirical Study to Repair Deep Object Detectors
Creators: Yue, Yuxin
Publisher: name: University of Alberta Library
Year: 2024

Visual object detection predicts the categories of objects in an image and estimates bounding boxes that can wrap those objects accurately, playing a crucial role in many vision-based AI systems like autonomous cars, robotics, and smart monitoring. Although achieving significant progress, even the state-of-the-art (SOTA) detectors could inevitably raise errors when we deploy them in the real-world application scenario due to the potential distribution shift between the training dataset and testing data. For example, the detectors trained on a clean dataset usually yield a significant precision reduction under the corrupted images (e.g., noisy or rainy images). Such an error type is often inevitable in the operational environment where the system is deployed, and cannot be completely solved by modifying the network architecture or optimization algorithm either since the deployed detectors could unavoidably encounter unseen corruptions.

A promising and practical solution is to use the examples captured in the operational environment to guide the updating of the object detector and avoid similar errors. So far, there are few works studying object detection from the repairing perspective, which hinders the deployment of SOTA object detectors and a better understanding of their limitations. To bridge this gap, we conduct an in-depth and extensive empirical study to benchmark the object detection repairing techniques for DetRepair tasks. Our goal is to understand the current status, limitations, and challenges of DetRepair, and to identify future opportunities for the research community.

Specifically, we build a detector repairing benchmark by considering different failure patterns of objects and different error types and by collecting state-of-the-art detectors and various corruptions. The analysis enables us to gain a deep understanding and insight into the failure patterns and the underlying potential causes. Then based on clues from the analysis, we systematically and comprehensively study a series of repairing schemes and conduct extensive experiments on different schemes based on the constructed benchmark. We notice many inspirational facts on repairing schemes for object detectors. With all the above efforts and the evaluation results, we can understand the significance and challenges of this task and the strengths and weaknesses of different solutions. Furthermore, we propose several potential future directions based on our benchmark, opening new doors for developing robust object detectors.
Value Bonuses Using Ensemble Errors For Exploration in Reinforcement Learning
Creators: Wahab, Abdul
Publisher: name: University of Alberta Library
Year: 2024

Optimistic value estimates provide one mechanism for directed exploration in reinforcement learning (RL). The agent acts greedily with respect to an estimate of the value plus what can be seen as a value bonus. The value bonus can be learned by estimating a value function on reward bonuses, propagating local uncertainties around rewards. This approach, however, only increases the value bonus for an action retroactively, after seeing a higher reward bonus from that state and action. Such an approach does not encourage the agent to visit a state and action for the first time. In this work, we introduce an algorithm for exploration called Value Bonuses with Ensemble errors (VBE), that maintains an ensemble of random action-value functions (RQFs). VBE uses the errors in the estimation of these RQFs for designing value bonuses that provide first-visit optimism and deep exploration. The key idea is to design the rewards for these RQFs in such a way that the value bonus can decrease to zero. We show that VBE outperforms Bootstrap DQN and two reward bonus approaches (RND and ACB) on several classic environments used to test exploration and provide demonstrative experiments that it learns faster in several Atari environments.
The structure of the f_0(980) from system size dependent hadronic resonance ratios in p+p, p+Pb, and Pb+Pb collisions at the LHC
Creators: name: Reichert, Tom
name: Steinheimer, Jan
name: Vovchenko, Volodymyr
name: Herold, Christoph
name: Limphirat, Ayut
name: Bleicher, Marcus
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2024
Subjects: subject: High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph)
subject: Nuclear Theory (nucl-th)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: It is shown that the hadronic phase in ultra-relativistic heavy ion collisions can be used to understand the properties of the $f_0(980)$ resonance. In particular it is shown that the centrality dependence of the $f_0(980)/π$ and $f_0(980)/ϕ$ ratios depends strongly on the $f_0(980)\rightarrow \overline{K}+K$ branching ratio and whether the $f_0(980)$ is produced as a $\left | \overline{q}q \right \rangle$ or $\left | \overline{s}s \right \rangle$ state. These conclusions are drawn from calculations within the partial chemical equilibrium of the HRG model within Thermal-FIST as well as with the fully non-equilibrium hybrid-transport approach UrQMD. Our findings show how the hadronic phase in heavy ion collisions can be used for studies of exotic hadron properties otherwise possible only in dedicated experiments such as PANDA.
description: 10 pages, 6 figures, version accepted for publication
title: On the challenges and practices of reinforcement learning from real human feedback
Creators: name: Kaufmann, Timo
name: Ball, Sarah
name: Beck, Jakob
name: Hüllermeier, Eyke
name: Kreuter, Frauke
Publisher: name: Springer Cham
Year: 2023

description: . Reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF) is a variant of reinforcement learning (RL) that does not require an engineered reward function but instead learns from human feedback. Due to its increasing popularity, various authors have studied how to learn an
accurate reward model from only few samples, making optimal use of this feedback. Because of the cost and complexity of user studies, however, this research is often conducted with synthetic human feedback. Such feedback can be generated by evaluating behavior based on ground-truth rewards which are available for some benchmark tasks. While this setting can help evaluate some aspects of RLHF, it differs from practical settings in which synthetic feedback is not available. Working with real human feedback brings additional challenges that cannot be observed with synthetic feedback, including fatigue, inter-rater inconsistencies, delay, misunderstandings, and modality-dependent difficulties. We describe and discuss some of these challenges together with current practices and opportunities for further research in this paper.
Mean-field derivation of Landau-like equations
Creators: name: Carrillo, José Antonio
name: Guo, Shuchen
name: Jabin, Pierre-Emmanuel
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2024
Subjects: subject: Analysis of PDEs (math.AP)
subject: FOS: Mathematics

description: We derive a class of space homogeneous Landau-like equations from stochastic interacting particles. Through the use of relative entropy, we obtain quantitative bounds on the distance between the solution of the N-particle Liouville equation and the tensorised solution of the limiting Landau-like equation.
description: 7 pages
Background-Induced Forces from Dark Relics
Creators: name: Barbosa, Sergio
name: Fichet, Sylvain
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2024
Subjects: subject: High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: Light particles quadratically coupled to nucleons induce macroscopic forces in matter. While a quantum effect always exists, an additional force occurs in the presence of a finite density of the light particles. We compute and classify such background-induced forces for particles of spin $0,\frac{1}{2},1$ in the framework of effective field theory. We show that, at short distance, the background-induced forces exhibit a universal behavior that depends solely on the moments of the phase space distribution function of the light particles. We compute the forces in the case of dark particles densities that may realistically occur in cosmology, assuming either cosmically homogeneous or virialized phase space distributions. For homogeneous distributions -- analogous to cosmic neutrinos, all the background-induced forces remain, unlike the quantum ones, exponentially unsuppressed at large distance, implying that large scale fifth force experiments are highly sensitive to dark relics. Moreover at zero mass the forces from dark bosons are generically enhanced with respect to their quantum counterpart due to Bose-Einstein distribution. Overall, we find that the resulting fifth force bounds can compete with those from quantum forces. For virialized distributions -- identifiable as cold dark matter, the reach is also enhanced beyond the dark matter Compton wavelength. We obtain significant bounds on sub-keV scalar cold dark matter, that can appear in certain cosmological scenarios. A thorough adaptation of the results from the Eöt-Wash experiment may produce powerful additional bounds.
description: 44 pages, 7 figures. v2: Includes extra results on cold dark matter and anisotropy. Matches journal version
Heritage Language Media Consumption in Multilingual Families: A Closer Look
Creators: Khepar, Anusha
Publisher: name: University of Alberta Library
Year: 2024

Media, such as television, music, and books, are integral to most modern households. Hence, it can significantly influence children’s home learning environment. For multilingual migrant parents interested in passing on their heritage language and culture to their children, media can be a powerful medium. This research study explored whether heritage language media use is facilitated by the following factors: family language background, family structure, and family heritage language perceptions. We retrospectively executed a causal-comparative quantitative analysis on interviews with parents of multilingual kindergarteners in Montréal, Canada. The results determined that family valuation of the heritage language had a statistically significant relationship with heritage language media use in the household. These results contribute to understanding multilingual family language policy, heritage language development and maintenance.
QURILISHNING TASHKILIY SHAKLLARI
Creators: name: Rasulova, Sharifa
name: Abdusalomov, Ziyodulla
name: Shojalolov, Kamron
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2024

description: Maqolada, qurulishning tashkiliy shakillari haqida tushunchalar boladi.  Kapital qurilishini amalga oshirishda ilmiy-tadqiqot, loyihaviy-qidiruv va sanoat korxonalarining loyihaviy konstruktorlik tashkiloti, uskuna, qurilish ashyolari, inahsulotlari va qurilmalari bilan ta'minlovchilar, qurilish-yig‘ma tashkilotlari hamda konstruktorlik, loyihaviy-qidiruv va ilmiy-tadqiqot tashkilotlari, buyurtmachilar ishtirok etadilar
Performing (Ab)normal: Reframing Ageing, Dementia, and Temporality
Creators: Lee, Heunjung
Publisher: name: University of Alberta Library
Year: 2024

In response to the broader discourse that scrutinises cultural constructions of dementia, this thesis investigates how performance theories and theatrical practices can disrupt, reshape, and transform the stigmatised cultural imaginary of persons living with dementia. By bridging Performance Studies, Age Studies, and Critical Disability Studies, this dissertation engages in activism and advocacy to rethink living with dementia as an alternative way of being and living.

          More specifically, by focusing on alternative perception of time and reality experienced by people with dementia, this thesis engages in a sharp critique of discourses and representations that contrast normal versus abnormal experiences of consciousness. This study provides critiques of ableist assumptions in medical terms and cultural rhetoric framing the temporality of dementia, including notions of disorientation, asynchrony, and atemporality. Furthermore, by analysing theatrical representations of alternative temporal and reality experience of people living with dementia, this thesis demonstrates how theatre and performance can offer embodied

and affective understanding of the experience of a syncopated time and an inter(in)animation between different times, memories, multiple age-selves, and realities. It suggests that theatre and performance can challenge the dominant, normative, and ableist perspective imposed on people with dementia and promote a more inclusive approach.

          Additionally, this research problematises the ideas of normative ageing which cast out older adults with illnesses and disabilities from desirable ageing futures. By analysing three case

studies of age-critical performance, this thesis demonstrates how theatre can disrupt normative cultural scripts of ageing and old age and expand and reshape our consciousness and imaginations of old age. Specifically, by showcasing the performative strength of older community performers in the analysed productions who convey intricate realities of ageing, this research considers the implications of dementia futurity in theatre and performance, advocating for a reimagining of theatre to include people with dementia as creators and performers. This dissertation concludes by introducing my own artwork that encapsulates my activist point of view regarding persons living with dementia. By examining the performance of dementia in both aesthetic and everyday contexts, this study highlights the unique contribution of Theatre and Performance Studies to the rethinking and reimagining of ageing and living with dementia.
Megachile compacta Smith, new comb.
Creators: name: Raw, Anthony
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2002
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Hymenoptera
Megachilidae
Megachile
Megachile compacta

description: compacta Smith, new comb.
Megachile compacta Smith 1879: 72. Female. Type locality: Santarem [Brazil]. Type repository: BNHM 17a2442. Examined.
description: Published as part of Raw, Anthony, 2002, New combinations and synonymies of leafcutter and mason bees of the Americas (Megachile, Hymenoptera, Megachilidae), pp. 1-43 in Zootaxa 71 (1) on page 9, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.71.1.1, http://zenodo.org/record/155887
Fluid Evolution and Mineralization of Two Distinct High-Sulfidation Epithermal Occurrences in the Toodoggone District, British Columbia, Canada
Creators: Canbulat, Sinan
Publisher: name: University of Alberta Library
Year: 2024

At the Toodoggone District of northern British Columbia, the Ranch area and the Silver Pond zone within the Lawyers area represent two distinct high-sulfidation epithermal occurrences that show some broad similarities but many significant differences. Similarities include some overlaps in terms of gangue mineralogy and alteration style, but pronounced differences include ore mineralogy (relatively simple, comprising few common sulfides at Silver Pond, versus more complex, comprising an array of sulfides and sulfosalts at Ranch) and especially textural styles of mineralization (with common open-space filling textures of veins and breccias at Silver Pond, versus mostly disseminated/replacement style at Ranch with the only open space being sparse vugs). Here, we explore the mineralogy, paragenesis, and fluid evolution of these two nearby yet disparate occurrences to deduce factors that influenced their different styles. Fluid inclusion results clearly indicate persistent boiling throughout the whole paragenesis of both systems. However, microthermometric analyses reveal distinct trends, with evidence of progressive cooling and dilution at Silver Pond, versus apparently isothermal mixing between saline and dilute fluids at Ranch. Specifically, the well-constrained paragenetic sequence of open-space vein minerals at Silver Pond shows a clear and monotonic progression from an early, ~325 °C fluid of ~15 wt.% NaCl eq., towards a later fluid of ~100 °C and nearly zero salinity, consistent with progressive incursion of cold meteoric water. In contrast, the fluids at Ranch show little cooling but span an array of salinities from ~25 wt.% NaCl eq. down to nearly zero, suggesting mixing between a saline magmatic fluid and hot, deeply-circulated groundwater. Hence, these two occurrences seem to represent interesting case studies that document different hydrothermal processes and fluid evolutions, leading to distinct mineralization styles in the epithermal environment.
Finding reliable resources and Chatting with Mira while considering emotions when the scenario is unscripted
Creators: Gharaat, Mohamad Ali
Publisher: name: University of Alberta Library
Year: 2024

The primary wellspring of information, the Internet, abounds with misinfor-

mation, particularly in the domains of mental health and psychology. This also

affects the reliability and truth of responses of chatbots counting on unverified

data.

To address this concern, the MIRA project started to create a reliable

source of information and develop a chatbot that can deliver these verified

resources of information. By respecting privacy, anonymity of user data, MIRA

seeks to support individuals looking for a safe environment to find information

and assistance in their mental health journey.

The MIRA Project consists of the MIRA resource library and the MIRA

chatbot. In this thesis we develop the MIRA resource library in which our

domain experts define, edit, and evaluate resources. This also includes a re-

source search functionality that allows the MIRA chatbot to search efficiently

among the verified resources.

The MIRA chatbot employs scripted questions to detect user intents and

entities. In this thesis we add Chatty MIRA for producing empathetic replies

for scenarios in which the user is looking for just a conversation with the MIRA

chatbot. Chatty MIRA facilitates a rule-based text generator and an emotion

detection component, proficient in identifying emotions and producing em-

pathetic replies. As users engage in casual conversations with Chatty MIRA,

Chatty MIRA can simultaneously attempt to search for related resources based

on detected intents and entities. This allows for a more engaging experience

for the end-user, where MIRA can provide empathetic responses while also

offering relevant resources to support the users with relevant resources it can

find.

We conduct a human evaluation to assess the superiority of Chatty MIRA

over its rule-based and Large Language Model (LLM) competitors. As well as

determine the gap between Chatty MIRA and advanced LLMs (i.e. GPT-3.5).
Membrane Type 1-Matrix Metalloproteinase Mediates Degradation of the Low-density Lipoprotein Receptor Family Members
Creators: Zhang, Ziyang
Publisher: name: University of Alberta Library
Year: 2024

The low-density lipoprotein receptor (LDLR) family includes 13 transmembrane protein members sharing a conserved structure and common repeats. Their importance has been shown in a variety of physiological and pathophysiological events including lipid metabolism, nervous system development and maintenance, bone homeostasis and cancer progression. Cell surface LDLR family members are regulated by metalloproteinases-mediated ectodomain shedding. Membrane type 1-matrix metalloproteinase (MT1-MMP) is a key player in extracellular matrix remodelling and has been reported to cleave LDLR, low-density lipoprotein receptor-related protein 1 (LRP1) and LRP4. To study the effect of MT1-MMP on other LDLR family members, MT1-MMP and LDLR family members were co-overexpressed by transient transfection in the human hepatoma-derived Huh7 cell line. Herein, we found that MT1-MMP is able to mediate the shedding of all screened LDLR family members, including LRP3, LRP4, LRP5, LRP6, LRP8, LRP10, LRP11, and LRP12. The proteolytic activity of MT1-MMP is required for the shedding except for LRP10. In the cases of LRP3 and LRP11, the C-terminal fragments of the receptors were detected in cells after the MT1-MMP-mediated cleavage. The biological importance of MT1-MMP-mediated shedding of LDLR family members is unknown, which requires further investigation.

In addition, we investigated the combinative effect of targeting MT1-MMP with statin treatment in raising LDLR levels. Statin monotherapy can only achieve a ~50% cholesterol-lowering effect and is accompanied by dose-dependent adverse effects such as increased onset risk of type 2 diabetes. Thus, combination therapy with statin and a nonstatin cholesterol-lowering medication is recommended to enhance cholesterol-lowering outcomes and reduce statin-associated adverse effects. In HepG2 cells, MT1-MMP knockdown can additionally increase LDLR expression levels in the presence of statin treatment. We also studied hepatic MT1-MMP depletion combined with statin treatment in mice.
Magnonic Superconductivity
Creators: name: Nazaryan, Khachatur G.
name: Fu, Liang
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2024
Subjects: subject: Superconductivity (cond-mat.supr-con)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: We uncover a new superconducting state with partial spin polarization induced by a magnetic field. This state, which we call "magnonic superconductor", lacks a conventional pairing order parameter, but is characterized instead by a composite order parameter that represents the binding of electron pairs and magnons. We rigorously demonstrate the existence of magnonic superconductivity with high transition temperature in one- and two-dimensional Hubbard models with repulsive interaction. We further show that magnonic Cooper pairs can attract to form higher-charge bound states, which can give rise to charge-$6e$ superconductivity.
description: 17 pages, 13 figures. Version note: In the updated version we added new results
Megachile conferta Mitchell, new comb.
Creators: name: Raw, Anthony
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2002
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Hymenoptera
Megachilidae
Megachile
Megachile conferta

description: conferta Mitchell, new comb.
Megachile conferta Mitchell 1930: 292. Male. Type locality: Pano/ Puno, Peru. Type repository: MCZ 16207. Examined.
description: Published as part of Raw, Anthony, 2002, New combinations and synonymies of leafcutter and mason bees of the Americas (Megachile, Hymenoptera, Megachilidae), pp. 1-43 in Zootaxa 71 (1) on page 10, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.71.1.1, http://zenodo.org/record/155887
Leadership and identity disruption: The role of social identity discontinuity in producing self-uncertainty
Creators: Syfers, Lily
Publisher: name: University of Alberta Library
Year: 2024

A leader's rhetoric can have profound impacts on the groups that they lead. Leaders use their words to evoke  uncertainty, define group boundaries, and articulate their vision to the group. Leaders’ can use rhetoric that constructs the group as facing or undergoing a rupture (i.e., social identity discontinuity) in the progression of the group’s culture, values, customs, and ideals over time. Doing so may heighten uncertainty about the group’s future, and thus, the part of the self-concept that is derived from group membership (Ritchie et al., 2010; van Knippenberg, 2011; Venus et al., 2019). I proposed that leader social identity discontinuity rhetoric produces heightened self-conceptual uncertainty when the leader is a non-prototypical representation of the group identity, and when group members perceive that they do not have the ability to exit their group and join a new group. The findings of the three experiments did not support my hypotheses. Instead, the results indicate that leader prototypicality and group permeability may independently moderate the relationship between discontinuity rhetoric and self-conceptual uncertainty. Moreover, that future work may examine whether leader discontinuity rhetoric produces more self-uncertainty amongst members of low permeability groups than continuity rhetoric only when the group identity is clearly defined and differentiated from outgroups. I discuss the contribution of the findings to the social identity approach to leadership.
Bacteriocins: Identification, structural elucidation, and mechanisms of resistance
Creators: Ibarra Romero, Cherry
Publisher: name: University of Alberta Library
Year: 2024

Bacteria employ various antimicrobial compounds to establish themselves within bacterial communities. Bacteriocins, which are ribosomally synthesized antimicrobial compounds, play a crucial role in this dynamic. This thesis focuses on strategies for purifying and identifying diverse bacteriocins and delves into the examination of resistance developed in Listeria monocytogenes strains against two distinct types of bacteriocins.

A strain called Enterococcus canintestini 49 (EC49), isolated from dog feces, displayed noteworthy antimicrobial activity against Clostridium perfringens, vancomycin-resistant enterococci, and Listeria monocytogenes. The research on EC49 centered on its bacteriocin production, revealing the identification of two bacteriocins through protein purification and analysis utilizing bacteriocin mining databases. Furthermore, the absence of genes related to virulence factors suggests the potential use of EC49 as a probiotic agent.

Antimicrobial resistance against leucocin A, a type IIa bacteriocin produced by Leuconostoc gelidum and against carnocyclin A, a circular bacteriocin produced by Carnobacterium maltaromaticum UAL 307, was identified in L. monocytogenes strains. The study aimed to determine if genetic changes in the mannose phosphotransferase system (Man-PTS), a docking molecule for type IIa bacteriocins, was responsible for the resistance.
Cultural Variations in Self-assessments in Athletes: Towards the Development of a Culturally Grounded Approach in Sports Psychology
Creators: Yasuda, Yuto
Publisher: name: University of Alberta Library
Year: 2024

To achieve success in sports, athletes must motivate themselves by positively viewing themselves (self-enhancement) and objectively analyzing their weaknesses to improve their performance (self-improvement). Sports psychologists have assumed that this process is universal. However, cultural psychologists have revealed that prevalent motivations differ across cultures. North Americans tend to view themselves positively, whereas East Asians are likely to see themselves more objectively. These tendencies are bolstered by culturally shared implicit theories of one’s abilities and self-construals: North Americans tend to believe that their abilities are fixed and stable and have an independent self-construal, whereas East Asians tend to think that their abilities are changeable and improvable and have an interdependent self-construal. If these cultural variations are applicable to athletes, this line of research will contribute to applied settings in sports by encouraging sports psychologists to create culturally fit interventions. As such, the current studies examined cultural variations in the motivations of athletes by selectively focusing on team and open-skill sports. Overall, the current studies revealed cultural variations in athletes’ motivation regarding their attention to positive and negative information about the self, the implicit theories of their abilities, and self-construals. As such, we suggest culturally fine-tuned interventions for athletes.
Explaining Natural Language Inference with Factual and Template Memory Networks
Creators: Zhang, Zi Xuan
Publisher: name: University of Alberta Library
Year: 2024

In the era of artificial intelligence, neural models have emerged as a powerful tool for tackling a wide range of tasks. However, these models are commonly regarded as black-box systems, making it difficult to understand their internal workings. The natural language explanation task seeks to elucidate the decisions of a black-box system by generating human-understandable explanations. The task is important for natural language understanding systems in many domains such as in the medical and legal domains. While numerous existing studies are capable of performing the task, they rely on training in an end-to-end fashion, which still limits them to being black-box machinery.

In this work, we focus on the natural language explanation task for natural lan- guage inference. The task aims to explain the relationship between two sentences with text, namely in the tone of entailment, contradiction, or neutral. We propose a memory network that utilizes factual knowledge given by weakly supervised rea- soning and template knowledge extracted by rules and heuristics. Experiments show that our approach achieves state-of-the-art performance on the e-SNLI dataset. Our analyses further verify the roles of both factual and template memories.
Developing Models for a Sustainable Transition to Green Hydrogen in Western Canada
Creators: Gupta, Saahil
Publisher: name: University of Alberta Library
Year: 2024

This work aims to conduct a techno-economic feasibility analysis of adopting a hybrid approach to hydrogen generation. This includes grey hydrogen sourced from natural gas using Steam Methane Reforming (SMR) and green hydrogen from renewable energy. The key focus is on assessing the environmental impacts of such a transition over the next decade in Western Canada

while ensuring a clean and stable supply of hydrogen for various industrial processes. A life cycle assessment (LCA) is performed to ascertain greenhouse gas emissions per kg of hydrogen

produced. The system boundaries extend from the set up and generation of renewable electricity at standalone and integrated renewable power plants (solar and wind) to the production of

hydrogen using water electrolysis. The viability of a site for hydrogen generation from renewables is based on a study of the photovoltaic (PV) and wind potential of various locations in Western Canada. Additionally, an analysis considering the expected improvements in efficiency and scale of upcoming electrolyzer technologies is incorporated into the model. Most of the life cycle CO2 emissions of solar and wind sourced hydrogen are from the initial setting up of the power plants. In comparison with SMR sourced hydrogen, total life cycle emissions show a reduction of approximately 90%. As electrolyzer technology is improved, hydrogen produced using dedicated renewable sources will achieve price parity over the longer term with the model proposed. An analysis is performed to ascertain the relative viability and cost of utilizing low-cost electricity for hydrogen generation. This includes the development of models based on various electricity price thresholds. It is expected that up to 15% of the annual hydrogen demand could be met by using this clean electricity, depending on the model adopted. It also helps predict the rate at which a hybrid supply of hydrogen can be converted to a primarily green hydrogen supply. These results will serve as a reliable way to transition from grey hydrogen that is currently being produced to green hydrogen, without increasing costs exponentially and with no change in availability. The analysis provides a roadmap for a phased decarbonization of various industries, including the oil and gas industry, where hydrogen is used as a feedstock. Further, it acts as a technical guide to effectuating various hydrogen strategies and achieving emission reduction targets that have been envisaged by provinces in Western Canada.
Cross-layer Modeling and Design of Content Addressable Memories in Advanced Technology Nodes for Similarity Search
Creators: name: Narla, Siri
name: Kumar, Piyush
name: Adnaan, Mohammad
name: Naeemi, Azad
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2024
Subjects: subject: Emerging Technologies (cs.ET)
subject: Hardware Architecture (cs.AR)
subject: FOS: Computer and information sciences

description: In this paper we present a comprehensive design and benchmarking study of Content Addressable Memory (CAM) at the 7nm technology node in the context of similarity search applications. We design CAM cells based on SRAM, spin-orbit torque, and ferroelectric field effect transistor devices and from their layouts extract cell parasitics using state of the art EDA tools. These parasitics are used to develop SPICE netlists to model search operations. We use a CAM-based dataset search and a sequential recommendation system to highlight the application-level performance degradation due to interconnect parasitics. We propose and evaluate two solutions to mitigate interconnect effects.
description: 7 pages, 5 figures
Megachile conjugalis Mitchell, new comb.
Creators: name: Raw, Anthony
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2002
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Hymenoptera
Megachilidae
Megachile
Megachile conjugalis

description: conjugalis Mitchell, new comb.
Megachile conjugalis Mitchell 1930: 258. Female. Type locality: San Alberto, Rio Branco, Amazonas [Brazil]. Based on the description the species is tentatively placed in this subgenus.
description: Published as part of Raw, Anthony, 2002, New combinations and synonymies of leafcutter and mason bees of the Americas (Megachile, Hymenoptera, Megachilidae), pp. 1-43 in Zootaxa 71 (1) on page 10, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.71.1.1, http://zenodo.org/record/155887
Technical Efficiency of Wildfire Detection and Machine Learning Predictions in Alberta, Canada
Creators: Manawat, Vaibhav N
Publisher: name: University of Alberta Library
Year: 2024

Wildfire management agencies must continue to evolve and adjust to the dynamic nature of their industry. They face pressures that include a changing climate with the prospect of intense future fire seasons, tighter government budgets for wildfire detection and suppression, and the fast-pace of development of wildfire detection technologies such as remote-sensing devices, satellites, and drones. Alberta Wildfire, to fulfil its mandate of managing wildfire in the Forest Protection Area of Alberta, must adapt to these conditions by making cost-effective strategic decisions. As such, there is an increasing need for studies that examine the performance of Alberta’s wildfire detection system. This study offers two main contributions. First, we provide insights on the contribution of lookout towers in detecting wildfires and their role in the entire detection system. A production economics approach is employed to develop robust non-parametric Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) models that estimate production frontiers that serve as a technical benchmark for lookout towers in Alberta’s detection system. Results from this analysis reveal a high-performing detection system and most lookout towers have high technical efficiency. Lookout towers operate close to the “state-of-the-art” technology frontier such that further productivity gains may require a new technology. Second, we explore the relationship between technical efficiency of lookout towers and local weather. We develop machine learning models that use local weather to classify lookout towers as technically (or productively) efficient or not. We find that weather can successfully predict a tower’s technical efficiency class, which suggests that there is a strong association between local weather and technical efficiency of wildfire detection.
On machine learning analysis of atomic force microscopy images for image classification, sample surface recognition
Creators: name: Sokolov, Igor
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2024
Subjects: subject: Biological Physics (physics.bio-ph)
subject: Artificial Intelligence (cs.AI)
subject: Instrumentation and Detectors (physics.ins-det)
subject: Medical Physics (physics.med-ph)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences
subject: FOS: Computer and information sciences
subject: J.2; J.3; I.2; I.5
subject: 92C05, 92C55, 92C10, 92C50

description: Atomic force microscopy (AFM or SPM) imaging is one of the best matches with machine learning (ML) analysis among microscopy techniques. The digital format of AFM images allows for direct utilization in ML algorithms without the need for additional processing. Additionally, AFM enables the simultaneous imaging of distributions of over a dozen different physicochemical properties of sample surfaces, a process known as multidimensional imaging. While this wealth of information can be challenging to analyze using traditional methods, ML provides a seamless approach to this task. However, the relatively slow speed of AFM imaging poses a challenge in applying deep learning methods broadly used in image recognition. This Prospective is focused on ML recognition/classification when using a relatively small number of AFM images, small database. We discuss ML methods other than popular deep-learning neural networks. The described approach has already been successfully used to analyze and classify the surfaces of biological cells. It can be applied to recognize medical images, specific material processing, in forensic studies, even to identify the authenticity of arts. A general template for ML analysis specific to AFM is suggested, with a specific example of the identification of cell phenotype. Special attention is given to the analysis of the statistical significance of the obtained results, an important feature that is often overlooked in papers dealing with machine learning. A simple method for finding statistical significance is also described.
description: perspective; mini-review; method description; Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics (PCCP) in press, 2024
Megachile ctenophora Holmberg, new comb.
Creators: name: Raw, Anthony
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2002
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Hymenoptera
Megachilidae
Megachile
Megachile ctenophora

description: ctenophora Holmberg, new comb.
Megachile ctenophora Holmberg 1886: 144. Male. Type locality: Tandil, Prov. Buenos Aires, Argentina. Type repository? Specimens at USNM which T.B. Mitchell determined as M. ctenophora Holmberg belong to this subgenus.
description: Published as part of Raw, Anthony, 2002, New combinations and synonymies of leafcutter and mason bees of the Americas (Megachile, Hymenoptera, Megachilidae), pp. 1-43 in Zootaxa 71 (1) on page 10, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.71.1.1, http://zenodo.org/record/155887
Du camouflage à l'affirmation identitaire: Le cas des Métis de St. Laurent et St. Lazare au Manitoba
Creators: Digba, Katcha Rene
Publisher: name: University of Alberta Library
Year: 2024

This research work, from a qualitative research perspective, through individual and collective interviews, coupled with long field practice for professional reasons, takes two horizons: On the one hand, it revisits the historical, sociopolitical and socio-economic aspects of the identity dispossession of the Métis of Saint-Laurent and Saint-Lazare, and, on the other hand, it puts forward the supports for identity renewal, for the identity affirmation of these Métis. From this study, it emerges that the Métis of St. Laurent and St. Lazare were perceived by non-Métis as a withdrawn, hesitant, and suspicious people. Many of them, overtly or subtly, hid or denied their Métis identity in reaction to the negative stereotypes and discrimination of which they were victims (Séraphin, 2015). But for several decades there has been a surge of affirmation of their identity, a sort of identity renewal among these Métis of Manitoba. The expression of their collective identity and their cultural identity has become increasingly evident in everyday life in St. Laurent and St. Lazare since 1982. The affirmation of Métis identity, with diverse foundations, seems to be a perpetual battle on several fronts (Teillet, 2019). In this, today’s Métis seem determined to go as far as asserting their identity, maintaining and preserving it. Essentially, the affirmation of identity is read through:

Their mention among the Indigenous Peoples of Canada in the 1982 Constitution; the Powley decision of 2003 which gives them back their right to harvest for domestic use. Added to this is the legal victory of the Manitoba Métis Federation (MMF) in 2013 over the federal government for the promise of land to the Métis that was not kept in 1870; the Daniels Decision of 2016 which makes Métis “Indians”; the rehabilitation of Louis Riel in 1992 and culture (education, festivals, dances, Michif, etc.). As for the factors of the identity dispossession of the Métis in our study, they were based on:

Their non-official recognition in the Constitution of 1867, the hanging of Louis Riel in 1885; the loss of their land and policies of discrimination (Sealey, 1975; Carter 1999; Nicole St Onge, 2004; Goulet, 2011).
Megachile expleta Mitchell, new comb.
Creators: name: Raw, Anthony
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2002
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Hymenoptera
Megachilidae
Megachile
Megachile expleta

description: expleta Mitchell, new comb.
Megachile expleta Mitchell 1930: 252. Male. Type locality: Tapyta, Paraguay. Mitchell's description suggests the species is a member of this subgenus.
description: Published as part of Raw, Anthony, 2002, New combinations and synonymies of leafcutter and mason bees of the Americas (Megachile, Hymenoptera, Megachilidae), pp. 1-43 in Zootaxa 71 (1) on page 10, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.71.1.1, http://zenodo.org/record/155887
Harnessing Narrow and Stable Luminescence from Silicon Quantum Dots
Creators: Cheong, I Teng
Publisher: name: University of Alberta Library
Year: 2024

Luminescent silicon quantum dots (SiQDs) are attractive nanoparticles due to the utilization of non-toxic and earth-abundant silicon. Despite these advantages, challenges in optimizing their optical properties, particularly broad luminescence bandwidths and photostability, persist. This thesis embarks on a comprehensive exploration employing a multidisciplinary approach to overcome these obstacles and unlock the full potential of SiQDs for optical applications.

SiQD-based Fabry-Pérot (FP) optical cavities were first explored to narrow the emission bandwidths. Chapter 2 introduces optically driven FP resonators of SiQD-polymer hybrids. This strategy remarkably reduced the photoluminescence (PL) linewidths and demonstrated tunability through variations in nanoparticle size, polymer matrix, and active layer thickness. Furthermore, a significant milestone has been reached with the fabrication of a flexible device. Building on this foundation, Chapter 3 expands the exploration into electrically driven systems and presents SiQD-based cavity light-emitting diodes (SiQD-cLEDs). Beyond developing external structure, Chapter 4 explored the impact of materials' internal structure. The study employed a combination of techniques to investigate the influence of an amorphous silicon (a-Si) layer on SiQD PL under prolonged UV irradiation. A comparison between SiQDs with thick a-Si shells, and those without, reveals nuanced differences in photoluminescence quantum yield (PLQY) after extended exposure.

In conclusion, this thesis represents a significant multidisciplinary effort to address challenges in harnessing the SiQDs luminescence. Through the exploration of external and internal structures, these contributions push the boundaries of SiQDs and pave the way for future advancements in light-emitting technologies.
Megachile fastidiosa Mitchell, new comb.
Creators: name: Raw, Anthony
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2002
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Hymenoptera
Megachilidae
Megachile
Megachile fastidiosa

description: fastidiosa Mitchell, new comb.
Megachile fastidiosa Mitchell 1930: 179. Female. Type locality: Buenavista, Bolivia. Mitchell's description suggests the species is a member of this subgenus.
description: Published as part of Raw, Anthony, 2002, New combinations and synonymies of leafcutter and mason bees of the Americas (Megachile, Hymenoptera, Megachilidae), pp. 1-43 in Zootaxa 71 (1) on page 10, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.71.1.1, http://zenodo.org/record/155887
Learning Traffic Signal Control via Genetic Programming
Creators: name: Liao, Xiao-Cheng
name: Mei, Yi
name: Zhang, Mengjie
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2024
Subjects: subject: Artificial Intelligence (cs.AI)
subject: Neural and Evolutionary Computing (cs.NE)
subject: FOS: Computer and information sciences

description: The control of traffic signals is crucial for improving transportation efficiency. Recently, learning-based methods, especially Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL), garnered substantial success in the quest for more efficient traffic signal control strategies. However, the design of rewards in DRL highly demands domain knowledge to converge to an effective policy, and the final policy also presents difficulties in terms of explainability. In this work, a new learning-based method for signal control in complex intersections is proposed. In our approach, we design a concept of phase urgency for each signal phase. During signal transitions, the traffic light control strategy selects the next phase to be activated based on the phase urgency. We then proposed to represent the urgency function as an explainable tree structure. The urgency function can calculate the phase urgency for a specific phase based on the current road conditions. Genetic programming is adopted to perform gradient-free optimization of the urgency function. We test our algorithm on multiple public traffic signal control datasets. The experimental results indicate that the tree-shaped urgency function evolved by genetic programming outperforms the baselines, including a state-of-the-art method in the transportation field and a well-known DRL-based method.