21793 research outputs found
Sort by
Improving Blockchain's Throughput via Small but Highly Fault-Tolerant Shards
Get PDFSharding increases concurrency in a blockchain system by splitting validators into groups (shards), thus allowing the system to increase throughput in proportion to the number of shards. Contemporary sharded systems assume that shards are ‘perfect’. Therefore, shards need to be formed in such a way that they have very low (negligible) probability of failure to be considered ‘perfect’. However, such an assumption has several limitations: 1) contemporary systems tend to use conservative parameters to satisfy the ‘perfect’ shard constraint. These include the use of large shard sizes or synchronous networks, which negatively affect throughput and performance; 2) in reality, shards can be faulty, and an invalid block validated by a faulty shard cannot be detected until after the block has been appended to the blockchain since there is no fault detection mechanism during transaction processing. We first present FlexiShard: a sharding protocol that uses a hybrid fault model (i.e., Byzantine and alive-but-corrupt faults) and Flexible Byzantine Fault Tolerance as its consensus algorithm, to allow for more practical parameters and create smaller shards that are responsive, more fault tolerant and more performant than contemporary bigger shards. Next, we present SecurShard: a hierarchical fault detection model that proposes mechanisms of combining shards into groups, one-to-all mapping of a transaction block to all shards in a group, and 100% consensus requirement to validate a block with finality; all these to ensure that a potentially invalid block is detected with high probability during transaction processing. This leads to the relaxation of the ‘perfect’ shard constraint and the possible usage of smaller shards, while still maintaining the collective fault tolerance of a system. Theoretical analyzes are presented for both models which demonstrate their advantages in terms of throughput, fault tolerance and performance over contemporary sharding systems
Health and law-making: collectively re-creating narratives
Get PDFTwo perspectives on recreating the narrative on heath regulation: 1) the medical regulation challenge for open-source hardware communities ; 2) the legitimacy of medical regulation in the hierarchy of laws
Executive wealth and options trading around litigation
Get PDFIn this paper, we examine informed stock options transactions in firms that have been sued for security law violations via shareholder class action lawsuits. We explore whether there is an increase in possibly informed stock option transactions prior to a lawsuit – which may be suggestive of informed insider trading in the options market. In addition, we examine whether the wealth performance sensitivity (WPS) of insiders affects the abnormal trading volume in stock options around litigation announcements. Finally, we examine whether company-specific fundamentals have a significant effect on the abnormal trading volume in stock options surrounding litigation. We calculate abnormal options volume using an event study constant mean approach and use a matched firm analysis to compare the options trading in sued versus non-sued firms. We then estimate a series of regressions to examine the effect of WPS and firm specific fundamentals on the abnormal trading volume of stock options trading around litigation dates in a multivariate setting. We find that the volume of options traded during the event window preceding a litigation announcement is abnormally high relative to the estimation period and also abnormally high compared to matched firms. Moreover, financial statement variables collected during the financial quarter encompassing the date of the litigation announcement have a substantially more noticeable and prominent effect when corporations are litigated for financial reasons or whose lawsuits pass the defendants’ motions to dismiss. Our study is the first to present evidence of unusually high options trading volume prior to impending legal action. In addition, we contribute to the body of knowledge that explores the impact of wealth performance sensitivity on suspicious trading behavior
Tête-à-tête With the Exhibition Le monde en tête
Get PDFThe display of anthropomorphic objects such as headdresses in museum exhibition blurs the boundaries of objecthood and personhood. The Musée des Confluences’ (Lyon, France) 2019 exhibition, Le monde en tête: la donation des coiffes Antoine de Galbert, stages a slippage between subject and so-called “primitive” art objects. Le monde en tête showcased over 500 headdresses mainly from Asia, Africa, South America, and Oceania, donated from the private art collection of Antoine de Galbert (1955-). The exhibition’s curators elided the headdresses’ historical contexts and provenances, instead concentrating on their aesthetic qualities and the collector. Their curatorial strategies foreground de Galbert’s collecting psychology, which provocatively sets up a binary between Western “self” and cultural “other.” Through a close analysis of the exhibition, this thesis analyzes a fantasy of personhood as inextricably linked to objecthood. Relying on a multidisciplinary methodology, I focus on the emergence of two figures: the European collector as “self” and the Asiatic female as “Other.” I begin my two-part investigation by using critical whiteness studies and museology to expose how racialization becomes structured through the collector’s fabrication as a mythic figure. In Part II, I draw from the conceptual framework of ornamentalism to examine the exhibition layout, which emphasizes the porosity of things and people. Additionally, I use ornamentalism as an object-based approach to analyze a Timorese headdress created by the Tetum-speaking Indigenous community from East Timor Island, Indonesia, and the female figure who haunts its surface. At once present and absent, material and abstract, embodied and disembodied, these figures invite us to rethink the hybrid conditions of objecthood and personhood. My project weaves together art historical analysis, curatorial critiques, and theoretical perspectives that inquire into the very object conditions through which personhood is realized
The Marketing of Comic Books: The Power Behind Visual Narratives
Get PDFThis research investigates the psychology behind the marketing of comic books by discovering how individuals experience reading comics, and how comics engage their readers. This qualitative study sheds light on an underexplored area in marketing through a netnography, four case studies, 15 interviews (with comic book readers and professionals in the industry), and attendance at a comic book convention. Despite being part of an extremely lucrative industry across the globe, academic studies on comic books are practically uncharted in marketing. Yet comics possess a unique storytelling method that is a powerful tool for communicating: visual narratives. Artistically immersing into these narratives causes readers to become narratively transported, which allows them to experience positive emotions and transmedia comics. Comic books also offer identification through the limitlessness, diversity, and inclusivity of their visual narratives, which often leads to self-discovery. The outcome of reading comics can feel so positive that it often turns into therapeutic re-experiences. The implications of this research are just as much practical as they are theoretical. Aside from being captivating and entertaining, comics are educational, can delicately present sensitive matters, and are a great medium to use for advertising and displaying a company’s mission. Besides the creation of new opportunities for marketing experts and academics, this study determines three reading stages and three life stages within the context of comics, builds upon previous literature and theories from different fields, and expands the current knowledge available for scholars
Critical Online Resource Evaluation in Secondary Schools: A Descriptive, Multiple-case Study of Teachers in Quebec
Get PDFLittle is known about the circumstances surrounding how teachers guide their students to understand the credibility and relevance of information they research on the Internet. This two-part qualitative, multiple-case study examined how 11 secondary teachers in Quebec approached instructing their students in critical online resource evaluation (CORE). In Strand 1, an environmental scan of the Quebec landscape was done focusing on materials available to teachers for CORE. This included a systematic review through an extensive search of the website of every English school board, as well as informal discussions with subject matter experts (SMEs) such as a professor of journalism and a professor specializing on information literacy. In Strand 2, teachers shared their varied approaches to teaching CORE in semi-structured interviews. Participants from both public and private schools were selected based on their interest in the study, the grade level they taught, and the subject matter. Within-case and cross-case analysis revealed an overall understanding and acceptance of the importance of CORE in its basic definition. Further, several patterns were observed across cases such as common approaches to teaching CORE. Some obstacles hindering teachers were uncovered including gaps in government curriculum documents such as the Quebec Education Program (QEP) and a lack of time for teachers to adequately prepare and plan to teach materials that they are generally self-creating. A strength, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analysis completes the discussion. Implications for the future include more targeted professional development options for teachers and clearer direction from government-mandated curriculum. More research is necessary to expand the scope of understanding of CORE past this limited sample
After Nanette: Hannah Gadsby’s Comedic Accountability
Get PDFEthics in comedy is a topic that is particularly fraught with tension in contemporary discourse, which often revolves around questions of what is “off-limits” or whether a joke “punches up” or “punches down.” Hannah Gadsby’s comedy specials, Nanette and Douglas deal directly with this tension and, rather than offering neat resolution, Gadsby suspends this tension and, I argue, transforms it into a productive form of uncertainty. While several authors in feminist humour studies have already explored Gadsby’s contributions to feminist comedy, my contribution to this body of work pays particular attention to the formal qualities of her stand-up through examining her metanarrative technique. By introducing a metanarrative, self-critiquing element to her stand-up specials, Gadsby’s work points toward an ethic of storytelling which pushes up against the limits of representation and embraces the ambiguous territory of misunderstanding and misrepresentation. My analysis borrows critical frameworks from Butler’s Giving an Account of Oneself, Ahmed’s work on the circulation of affect and the feminist killjoy, and
Halberstam’s work on failure and refusal, among other sources, to put Gadsby in conversation with a canon of contemporary feminist philosophy and ultimately elevate humour as a mode of storytelling that can allow for the ambiguities and anxieties that are inherent to a relational mode of ethics
From “Fighting for the Truth” to “Defending Freedom of Speech”: Shifting Rhetorical Emphases among Holocaust Deniers Migrating from Paper and Ink to Podcasts and Electronic Media
Get PDFThe creation of podcasts in 2004 created a new world of Internet audio entertainment. With easy distribution and relatively cheap cost, Holocaust deniers transitioned from the traditional medium of ink and print in the form of books and pamphlets into modern Internet mediums like podcasts. This thesis argues that spearheaded by Ernst Zündel and his 1990s “Another Voice of Freedom” radio broadcasts series, Holocaust denialist podcasters framed the Holocaust as a freedom of speech issue instead of disputing the actuality of the Holocaust, as was maintained by denialist book authors such as Richard Verrall, Arthur Butz, Carlo Mattogno, Nicholas Kollerstrom, and Thomas Dalton. Through his dislike of anti-hate laws, reverence of the American First Amendment as the bulwark of freedom of expression, and his characterization of deniers as martyrs for the battle for freedom to express denialism, Ernst Zündel spearheaded a trend by Holocaust denialist podcasters to accentuate the importance of freedom of speech in their denialist rhetoric instead of solely distorting the Holocaust. The shift in Holocaust denialist discourse results in a version of anti-Semitism that caters to free-speech absolutists who would not support Holocaust denial otherwise. This problem requires striking a nuanced balance between the fundamental rights of freedom of expression and freedom from hatred. Instead of censoring Holocaust deniers, Shoah education needs to refute Holocaust denialist claims as part of an effort to confront anti-Semitism
Does Motivating Language Matter? The Effect of Leader Communication and Characteristics on Employee Motivation and Commitment
Get PDFEffective communication is the foundation of successful organizations. Motivating Language Theory proposes that leaders can strategically use direction-giving, empathetic, and meaning-making language types to positively influence employees. This research examined the effects of motivating language on employee work motivation and organizational commitment, and also examined whether leader behavioural integrity and credibility strengthens these relationships. A sample of 228 full-time employees completed an online questionnaire at 2 time points. Results showed that direction-giving, empathetic and meaning-making language have a positive effect on employee autonomous motivation and affective commitment. Direction-giving language had a positive effect on employee controlled motivation. In addition, empathetic language had a positive effect on employee normative commitment. The results also showed partial support for the strengthening effect of a leader’s behavioral integrity and credibility on the relationship between motivation language types and employee motivation and commitment. The theoretical implications of this research include an examination of the unique contribution of different motivating language types, an extension of Motivating Language Theory’s application on lesser understood employee outcomes, and establishes the moderating role of leader characteristics. For practitioners, motivating language offers an opportunity to train leaders on how to use language strategically to optimize employee outcomes
Dancing my way home: Cultural Reclamation Through the Embodiment of the Michif Language
Get PDFWe danced for those that can’t dance, those that are no longer with us, and for those to come.
We danced to show that we are still here, we are the unbroken link that the colonial project attempted to break and failed to do.
This thesis proposal describes a research-creation process focusing on Michif language embodiment through dance. This blended research-creation approach is grounded in Keeoukaywin, the Visiting Way methodology (Gaudet, 2018), and Nêhiyaw Kiskêyihtamowin (Plains Cree Knowledges) of relational ethics involving an Indigenous research paradigm of truth-telling, holism, reciprocity, relational accountability, conversational method, and storywork. The process of cultural reclamation offers possibilities to the many generations responding to colonial violence and resisting by going underground (Richardson, 2004), a period referred to as the “Michif underground years.” It is one of many projects happening inside and outside the homeland that will help repair the fragmentation brought on by historical and ongoing colonial violence on our Michif peoples