5916 research outputs found
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Logistification and hyper-precarity at the intersection of migration and pandemic governance: Refugees in the Turkish labour market
No full textThis article analyses the governance of migration and the Covid-19 pandemic on precarious Syrian refugees in Istanbul. Drawing from a review of state policies and interviews with refugees before and after the pandemic, we argue that the intersecting governance of migration and the pandemic compounded inequalities. While refugees initially lost their employment without notice in lockdown periods, their partial lifting revealed unequal expectations towards their labour, as they were reincorporated within even more hyper-precarious labour relations. Unlike citizens who were somewhat protected by the state, refugees were under the limited care of international funders and subject to the whims of the market. Pandemic governance resulted in increased hyper-precarity and the need to rely on individual coping mechanisms for refugees. This research shows how shifting inclusion and exclusion shapes refugees' hyper-precarity related to Covid-19 governance, transforming Syrians into 'market buffers' to prevent or delay bankruptcies
An evaluation of airport service experience: An identification of service improvement opportunities based on topic modeling and sentiment analysis
No full textWith the increase in airport alternatives and airport service variation, passengers' perception of the airport experience has changed. By working with consumer experience through customer reviews, this study aims to define customer experiences and expectations. Topic modeling and sentiment analysis are applied to 1224 passengers' comments on the top 10 airports collected from Skytrax. Ten topics consisting of baggage claim, immigration process, access gates, procedures at the airport, leisure activities, employee service, transfer/transit amenities, terminal facilities, passport control, ambient conditions are identified. With a few exceptions, positive sentiments have been obtained for these topics. Finally, managerial implications and limitations are shared
YOLODrone+: IHA görüntülerinde nesne tanıma için geliştirilmiş YOLO mimarisi
No full textThe performance of object detection algorithms running on images taken from Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) remains limited when compared to the object detection algorithms running on ground taken images. Due to its various features, YOLO based models, as a part of one-stage object detectors, are preferred in many UAV based applications. In this paper, we are proposing novel architectural improvements to the YO-LOv5 architecture. Our improvements include: (i) increasing the number of detection layers and (ii) use of transformers in the model. In order to train and test the performance of our proposed model, we used VisDrone and SkyData datasets in our paper. Our test results suggest that our proposed solutions can improve the detection accuracy
Search for long-lived heavy neutral leptons with displaced vertices in proton-proton collisions at s√ =13 TeV
No full textA search for heavy neutral leptons (HNLs), the right-handed Dirac or Majorana neutrinos, is performed in final states with three charged leptons (electrons or muons) using proton-proton collision data collected by the CMS experiment at s = 13 TeV at the CERN LHC. The data correspond to an integrated luminosity of 138 fb−1. The HNLs could be produced through mixing with standard model neutrinos ν. For small values of the HNL mass (<20 GeV) and the square of the HNL-ν mixing parameter (10−7–10−2), the decay length of these particles can be large enough so that the secondary vertex of the HNL decay can be resolved with the CMS silicon tracker. The selected final state consists of one lepton emerging from the primary proton-proton collision vertex, and two leptons forming a displaced, secondary vertex. No significant deviations from the standard model expectations are observed, and constraints are obtained on the HNL mass and coupling strength parameters, excluding previously unexplored regions of parameter space in the mass range 1–20 GeV and squared mixing parameter values as low as 10−7.BMBWF and FWF (Austria); FNRS and FWO (Belgium); CNPq, CAPES, FAPERJ, FAPERGS, and FAPESP (Brazil); MES and BNSF (Bulgaria); CERN; CAS, MoST, and NSFC (China); MINCIENCIAS (Colombia); MSES and CSF (Croatia); RIF (Cyprus); SENESCYT (Ecuador); MoER, ERC PUT and ERDF (Estonia); Academy of Finland, MEC, and HIP (Finland); CEA and CNRS/IN2P3 (France); BMBF, DFG, and HGF (Germany); GSRI (Greece); NKFIA (Hungary); DAE and DST (India); IPM (Iran); SFI (Ireland); INFN (Italy); MSIP and NRF (Republic of Korea); MES (Latvia); LAS (Lithuania); MOE and UM (Malaysia); BUAP, CINVESTAV, CONACYT, LNS, SEP, and UASLP-FAI (Mexico); MOS (Montenegro); MBIE (New Zealand); PAEC (Pakistan); MSHE and NSC (Poland); FCT (Portugal); JINR (Dubna); MON, RosAtom, RAS, RFBR, and NRC KI (Russia); MESTD (Serbia); MCIN/AEI and PCTI (Spain); MOSTR (Sri Lanka); Swiss Funding Agencies (Switzerland); MST (Taipei); ThEPCenter, IPST, STAR, and NSTDA (Thailand); TUBITAK and TAEK (Turkey); NASU (Ukraine); STFC (U.K.); DOE and NSF (U.S.A.).
Individuals have received support from the Marie-Curie program and the European Research Council and Horizon 2020 Grant, contract Nos. 675440, 724704, 752730, 758316, 765710, 824093, 884104, and COST Action CA16108 (European Union); the Leventis Foundation; the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation; the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation; the Belgian Federal Science Policy Office; the Fonds pour la Formation a la Recherche dans l'Industrie et dans l'Agriculture (FRIA-Belgium); the Agentschap voor Innovatie door Wetenschap en Technologie (IWT-Belgium); the F.R.S.-FNRS and FWO (Belgium) under the "Excellence of Science -EOS" - be.h project n. 30820817; the Beijing Municipal Science & Technology Commission, No. Z191100007219010; the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports (MEYS) of the Czech Republic; the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), under Germany's Excellence Strategy -EXC 2121 "Quantum Universe" -390833306,and under project number 400140256 - GRK2497; the Lendulet ("Momentum") Program and the Janos Bolyai Research Scholarship of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, the New National Excellence Program UNKP, the NKFIA research grants 123842, 123959, 124845, 124850, 125105, 128713, 128786, and 129058 (Hungary); the Council of Science and Industrial Research, India; the Latvian Council of Science; the Ministry of Science and Higher Education and the National Science Center, contracts Opus 2014/15/B/ST2/03998 and 2015/19/B/ST2/02861 (Poland); the Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia, grant CEECIND/01334/2018 (Portugal); the National Priorities Research Program by Qatar National Research Fund; the Ministry of Science and Higher Education, projects no. 07232020-0041 and no. FSWW-2020-0008, and the Russian Foundation for Basic Research, project No. 19-42-703014 (Russia); MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033, ERDF "a way of making Europe", and the Programa Estatal de Fomento de la Investigacion Cientifica y Tecnica de Excelencia Maria de Maeztu, grant MDM-2017-0765 and Programa Severo Ochoa del Principado de Asturias (Spain); the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (Greece); the Rachadapisek Sompot Fund for Postdoctoral Fellowship, Chulalongkorn University and the Chulalongkorn Academic into Its 2nd Century Project Advancement Project (Thailand); the Kavli Foundation; the Nvidia Corporation; the SuperMicro Corporation; the Welch Foundation, contract C-1845; and the Weston Havens Foundation (U.S.A.).Publisher versio
Human-thing relations in design: A framework based on postphenomenology and material engagement theory
No full textStarting with the earlier work of Don Ihde, postphenomenological studies in philosophy of technology have been documenting the many ways in which technologies shape human beings’ relationship to the world. More recently, Material Engagement Theory (MET), originating from cognitive archaeology, ofers descriptions of how human thinking and capacities have been shaped through creative material engagements with the world. Based on a recent collaboration by Ihde and Malafouris (2018), this study applies the joint framework of postphenomenology and MET to design research in light of the rising interest in design literature into relational ontologies and embodied practices. The study is built on data from seven case studies of practices in creative engagement with materials and tools, three out of which are reviewed in depth, namely: felt making, make-up, studio camera operation. The cases are analyzed through the joint theoretical lens to identify and describe the human-thing relations as observed in design. We describe such relations as creative and exploratory, materially and socially relational, reciprocally mediated, situated, embodied, and skilled. Our emphasis is on the first three of these six characteristics, emphasizing relationality, reciprocal mediation, and creativity in engagement, as signifcant contributions of the joint framework to understanding design, making and use in design research. Our conclusion includes a discussion of future research opportunities for studies based on the joint framework
On approximate Nash equilibria of the two-source connection game
No full textThe arbitrary-sharing connection game is prominent in the network formation game literature [1]. An undirected graph with positive edge weights is given, where the weight of an edge is the cost of building it. An edge is built if agents contribute a sufficient amount for its construction. For agent i, the goal is to contribute the least possible amount while assuring that the source node si is connected to the terminal node ti. In this paper, we study the special case of this game in which there are only two source nodes. In this setting, we prove that there exists a 2-approximate Nash equilibrium that is socially optimal. We also consider the further special case in which there are no auxiliary nodes (i.e., every node is a terminal or source node). In this further special case, we show that there exists a 3/2 -approximate Nash equilibrium that is socially optimal. Moreover, we show that it is computable in polynomial time.Publisher versio
Exploring perceived openness and spaciousness: the effects of semantic and physical aspects
No full textThis study focuses on the effects of the independent spatial variables of volumetric visibility, natural light,
and the infinity index value on both perceived openness and spaciousness, and on the concept of familiarity,
using computer-generated images of sixteen nodes of a university building. Ninety participants in
three groups from two universities were selected to examine the effects of familiarity on the dependent
variables of openness and spaciousness. These dependent variables of perception were explored through
a semantic evaluation test, where the participants experienced the sixteen spatial nodes in a virtual environment
derived from fixed vantage points on two floors of the case study campus building. The results
revealed that the perceived spaciousness is significantly correlated to the independent physical aspects of
space, such as the volumetric visibility, the natural light, and the infinity value, while familiarity with space
indicated a higher ratio of perceived openness.Publisher versio
Benchmarking the second edition of the omnidirectional media format standard
No full textOmnidirectional MediA Format (OMAF) is the first worldwide virtual reality (VR) standard to store and distribute immersive media, completed in 2019. Later, in 2021, the second edition of this standard (OMAF v2) was published. The second edition kept all the features defined in the first OMAF edition while introducing some new ones, such as overlays and multi-viewpoints. OMAF v2's Tile Index Segments that contain metadata to track fragment data per segment and quality levels create a bandwidth overhead. During the OMAF v2 standardization, multiple methods for the track fragment run representation were studied to deal with this overhead. This paper presents the implementation of one of these methods, the compressed box method using the DEFLATE algorithm (OMAF v2*). It also provides comprehensive test results of OMAF v1, OMAF v2 and OMAF v2∗ with various combinations of three tile grids (6x4, 8x6 and 12x8), three segment durations (300 ms, 900 ms and 3 s), two videos (RollerCoaster and Timelapse), two bitrate groups (each group with four different bitrates) and two HTTP versions (HTTP/1.1 and H2)
Trustworthiness assessment in multimodal human-robot interaction based on cognitive load
No full textIn this study, we extend our robot trust model into a multimodal setting in which the Nao robot leverages audio-visual data to perform a sequential multimodal pattern recalling task while interacting with a human partner who has different guiding strategies: reliable, unreliable, and random. Here, the humanoid robot is equipped with a multimodal auto-associative memory module to process audio-visual patterns to extract cognitive load (i.e., computational cost) and an internal reward module to perform cost-guided reinforcement learning. After interactive experiments, the robot associates a low cognitive load (i.e., high cumulative reward) yielded during the interaction with high trustworthiness of the guiding strategy of the partner. At the end of the experiment, we provide a free choice to the robot to select a trustworthy instructor. We show that the robot forms trust in a reliable partner. In the second setting of the same experiment, we endow the robot with an additional simple theory of mind module to assess the efficacy of the instructor in helping the robot perform the task. Our results show that the performance of the robot is improved when the robot bases its action decisions on factoring in the instructor assessment.Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaf
Waste marble powder
No full textEvery manufacturing process generates waste. The amount of generated wastes increases as total production in every sector increases around the world. These wastes need to be managed somehow. Some byproducts and wastes can be utilized for using in construction sector and construction materials offer great potential about recycling wastes. For instance, 70% of marble block is wasted after quarrying and cutting and 40% of this waste becomes sludge. Recycling the generated wastes of marble industry in concrete production is an important aspect of both waste management and cleaner concrete production. The usability of waste marble dust in concrete and its effects on fresh concrete properties, hardened concrete properties and durability of concrete has been researched by various researchers. As a summary, it can be interpreted that waste marble dust usage with 5-20% replacement ratio in concrete can enhance the mechanical properties of concrete. Also, reuse of waste marble dust in concrete has environmental and economic benefits. Waste marble dust in concrete leads a reduction in cost and in carbon footprint of concrete. This chapter mainly focuses on the effects of waste marble dust in concrete on fresh concrete properties, hardened concrete properties, durability properties, environmental, and economic benefits