10,256 research outputs found
On Reading and Writing: an Interview with Larissa Lai
No full textCultural activist, author and Creative Writing Professor Larissa Lai is interviewed by Spanish critic Sonia Villegas López
Pseudorandomness Analysis of the Lai-Massey Scheme
No full textAt Asiacrypt’99, Vaudenay modified the structure in the IDEA cipher to a new scheme, which they called as the Lai-Massey scheme. It is proved that 3-round Lai-Massey scheme is sufficient for pseudorandomness and 4-round Lai-Massey scheme is sufficient for strong pseudorandomness. But the author didn’t point out whether three rounds and four rounds are necessary for the pseudorandomness and strong pseudorandomness of the Lai-Massey Scheme. In this paper we find a two round pseudorandomness distinguisher and a three-round strong pseudorandomness distinguisher, thus prove that three rounds is necessary for the pseudorandomness and four rounds is necessary for the strong pseudorandomness
The theory and practice of utopia in our troubled times : a conversation with author Larissa Lai and critic Sherryl Vint
No full textAmid current global crises, the international conference “The Knock at the Door: Utopian Dreams for Post-Covid Times,” jointly organized by the University of Huelva (Spain) and the University of Calgary (Canada) on May 21–24, 2023, at the University of Huelva, provided a forum for reflecting upon the role played by speculative fiction in (re)imagining better futures, while remaining vigilant to possible threats and dangers. The title of the conference, borrowed from philosopher John Rajchman,1 is intentionally ambiguous. Lying behind that door could be total liberation for all—or it could be secret police who lead us toward genocides, deportation, rapes, and mass graves. Taking this dichotomous trope, “the knock at the door,” as a point of departure, professors Larissa Lai (University of Toronto, Canada; recipient of a Maria Zambrano fellowship at the University of Huelva at the time of the interview) and Sherryl Vint (University of California Riverside, USA) engaged...Depto. de Estudios Ingleses: Lingüística y LiteraturaFac. de Ciencias Económicas y EmpresarialesTRUEpu
Optical instruments for measuring leaf area index in low vegetation : application in Arctic ecosystems
No full textAuthor Posting. © Ecological Society of America, 2005. This article is posted here by permission of Ecological Society of America for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Ecological Applications 15 (2005): 1462–1470, doi:10.1890/03-5354.Leaf area index (LAI) is a powerful diagnostic of plant productivity. Despite the fact that many methods have been developed to quantify LAI, both directly and indirectly, leaf area index remains difficult to quantify accurately, owing to large spatial and temporal variability. The gap-fraction technique is widely used to estimate the LAI indirectly. However, for low-stature vegetation, the gap-fraction sensor either cannot get totally underneath the plant canopy, thereby missing part of the leaf area present, or is too close to the individual leaves of the canopy, which leads to a large distortion of the LAI estimate. We set out to develop a methodology for easy and accurate nondestructive assessment of the variability of LAI in low-stature vegetation. We developed and tested the methodology in an arctic landscape close to Abisko, Sweden.
The LAI of arctic vegetation could be estimated accurately and rapidly by combining field measurements of canopy reflectance (NDVI) and light penetration through the canopy (gap-fraction analysis using a LI-COR LAI-2000). By combining the two methodologies, the limitations of each could be circumvented, and a significantly increased accuracy of the LAI estimates was obtained. The combination of an NDVI sensor for sparser vegetation and a LAI-2000 for denser vegetation could explain 81% of the variance of LAI measured by destructive harvest. We used the method to quantify the spatial variability and the associated uncertainty of leaf area index in a small catchment area.This research was funded by U.S. National Science Foundation
grant DEB0087046
A novel feature representation: Aggregating convolution kernels for image retrieval
No full textActivated hidden unites in convolutional neural networks (CNNs), known as feature maps, dominate image representation, which is compact and discriminative. For ultra-large data sets, high dimensional feature maps in float format not only result in high computational complexity, but also occupy massive memory space. To this end, a new image representation by aggregating convolution kernels (ACK) is proposed, where some convolution kernels capturing certain patterns are activated. The top-n index numbers of the convolution kernels are extracted directly as image representation in discrete integer values, which rebuild relationship between convolution kernels and image. Furthermore, a distance measurement is defined from the perspective of ordered sets to calculate position-sensitive similarities between image representations. Extensive experiments conducted on Oxford Buildings, Paris, and Holidays, etc., manifest that the proposed ACK achieves competitive performance on image retrieval with much lower computational cost, outperforming the ones using feature maps for image representation.Acknowledgments
This work is supported by the National Natural Science Foun-dationofChina(No.61703109,No.91748107,No.61902077,No.61675050), Guangdong Basic and Applied Basic Research Foun-dation (No. 2020A1515010616), Guangdong Innovative ResearchTeamProgram(No.2014ZT05G157).ThisstudywassupportedbytheSpecialResearchFundofHasseltUniversity(No.BOF20BL01
Larissa Lai reading for Campus Author 2011 Launch
No full textThe 2011 Campus Author Recognition Program was launched on March 16, 2011 with the help of Larissa Lai, award winning novelist and poet and Winter 2011 College of Arts Writer-in-Residence. She currently holds the position as Assistant Professor of Canadian English at the University of British Columbia.
Larissa read from her novel "Salt Fish Girl".
Introductions performed by Michael Ridley
Author Kiese Laymon: A Reading and a Conversation (LAI)
No full textAuthor Kiese Laymon read from his memoir Heavy, followed by a conversation and audience Q&A moderated by LAI director, Matt Harkins.
Kiese Laymon is a Black southern writer from Jackson, Mississippi, who is the author of the genre-bending novel, Long Division, the essay collection, How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America, and the bestselling memoir, Heavy. In Heavy, Laymon “fearlessly explores what the weight of a lifetime of secrets, lies, and deception does to a black body, a black family, and a nation teetering on the brink of moral collapse.
Author Heid E. Erdrich: A Reading and a Conversation (LAI)
No full textThe Literary Arts Institute presents author and interdisciplinary artist, Heid Erdrich, a week-long writer-in-residence. Heid will read from her work, followed by a Q&A with the audience moderated by LAI associate director, Rachel Marston.Heid E. Erdrich is the author of seven collections of poetry. Her writing has won fellowships and awards from the National Poetry Series, Native Arts and Cultures Foundation, McKnight Foundation, Minnesota State Arts Board, Bush Foundation, Loft Literary Center, First People’s Fund, and other honors. She has twice won a Minnesota Book Award for poetry. Heid edited the 2018 anthology New Poets of Native Nations from Graywolf Press which won an American Book Award. Her most recent poetry collection, Little Big Bully, won the Balcones Prize. Heid grew up in Wahpeton, North Dakota and is Ojibwe enrolled at Turtle Mountain
People - 40 years of social work, life-long service to the community : Mr. Chi-tong LAI, BBS, MH
No full textMr. Chi-tong Lai is veteran social worker who worked in the field for over 40 years before retirement. Having been Head of AKA (formerly Aberdeen Kai-fong Welfare Association) for over 3 decades and overseen over 20 service units, involving youth and elderly services, community development and social enterprises, he is particularly expert in organizing regional and territory-wide functions. For nearly half a century, Mr. Lai has not stopped his contribution to the society via voluntary work, that he continued to take up responsibilities of consultancy and other public services, including Honorary Financial Secretary of CIFA as well as Member of the Steering Committee on Promotion of Volunteer Service, etc. Lai is also the Senior Consultant of Asia Pacific Institute of Ageing Studies. Knowledge transfer is also one of his many areas of attention, that he has been the author and editor of dozens of publications on social welfare services
Morphological modelling of Lai Giang Inlet, Vietnam.
No full textThe Lai Giang inlet located in Binh Dinh province incorporates various features of the estuaries in the Central part of Vietnam. Belonging to the micro-tidal and wave-dominant coast and influenced by the monsoon regime, the inlet has a seasonal character. During the dry season, as the river flow diminishes, the wave action causes high level of sedimentation and closes up the inlet eventually. In flood season, as the river discharge is high, the channel is scoured and the inlet begins to migrate. The high sedimentation level and migration of the Lai Giang inlet has been a serious problem of Binh Dinh province for a long time, because it is the only exit for the floodway. It is an anchorage and also the connection between the sea and the aquaculture area of Hoai Nhon district. The high level of sedimentation at the entrance of the inlet prevents river flood from flowing smoothly, thus leading to overflow in lowlands and navigation issues. In recent decades, the exploitation and protection of Lai Giang area have been studied in various forms of scientific researches and projects by different scientists and local professional agencies. However, the studies have only focused on hydraulics, hydrology and on adjusting the flow of Lai Giang river. There are only general and basic studies on the entrance of the inlet. The main objective of this research is to understand the morphological behaviour of Lai Giang inlet. The specific interest is focused on the main factors which are the tidal characteristic, the wave climate and the river flow during the flood season, and the interaction between all these factors that influence the morphological changes. The study starts with the collecting and analysing all the documentations to come up with a conceptual model of the Lai Giang inlet to explain how the sedimentation and the migration processes happen. Then, the Delft3D modelling software, which can model (tidal) flow, waves and sediment transport, has been applied to confirm the hypothesis and gain further knowledge. According to the data analysis, the conceptual model as well as the descriptive and quantitative result of the model, we can make the following main conclusions: 1. The wave climate in this area has seasonal characteristic and is dominated by two main directions; Northeast and Southeast in winter and summer monsoon, respectively. 2. During the summer monsoon, the longshore sediment transport moves towards the north, bypasses the entrance of the inlet and gradually builds up on the down-drift spit due to the Southeast Wave. 3. During winter monsoon, the Northeast wave intensifies the southward longshore sediment transport leading to the large amount of sedimentation in front of the inlet. At the same time, the significant river flow flushes away the sediment deposits at the main ebb channel located nearer to the up-drift spit. Thus the sedimentation could not take place at the up-drift spit. The sediment displacement at the up-drift and down-drift spit made the inlet migrate to the north gradually. Finally, the possibility to stabilize the inlet is discussed to give the optimum solution for this area.CoMEM - Coastal and Marine Engineering and ManagementHydraulic EngineeringCivil Engineering and Geoscience
- …
