Robust Modeling of Epistemic Mental States

This work identifies and advances some research challenges in the analysis of facial features and their temporal dynamics with epistemic mental states in dyadic conversations. Epistemic states are: Agreement, Concentration, Thoughtful, Certain, and Interest. In this paper, we perform a number of statistical analyses and simulations to identify the relationship between facial features and epistemic states. Non-linear relations are found to be more prevalent, while temporal features derived from original facial features have demonstrated a strong correlation with intensity changes. Then, we propose a novel prediction framework that takes facial features and their nonlinear relation scores as input and predict different epistemic states in videos. The prediction of epistemic states is boosted when the classification of emotion changing regions such as rising, falling, or steady-state are incorporated with the temporal features. The proposed predictive models can predict the epistemic states with significantly improved accuracy: correlation coefficient (CoERR) for Agreement is 0.827, for Concentration 0.901, for Thoughtful 0.794, for Certain 0.854, and for Interest 0.913.Comment: Accepted for Publication in Multimedia Tools and Application, Special Issue: Socio-Affective Technologie

Sorption and Transport Behaviour of Hydrophobic Organic Compounds in Soils and Sediments of Bangladesh and Their Impact on Groundwater Pollution : Laboratory Investigations and Model Simulations

*** Zugleich als Dissertation an der Univ. Tübingen erschienen, 2002 *** This thesis focuses on the elucidation of the sorption and related transport processes controlling the fate of hydrophobic organic compounds (HOCs) (contaminants and pesticide) in the subsurface environment. For a variety of organic compounds (phenanthrene, 1,2-DCB, TCE and carbofuran) batch and column experiments were carried out with different geosorbents (deltaic, floodplain and residuum soils, aquifer sediments and peat) to simulate the effect in Bangladesh top soils and sediments and the ultimate impact on groundwater. Overall, the results reported here so far indicate that sorption in these samples for the chemicals investigated is dominated by the partitioning processes. A nonlinear type sorption isotherm is described by the combination of the partitioning and pore-filling mechanisms. The solubility normalized Freundlich model predicts an inverse linear relationship between the sorption coefficient measured at a given relative concentration vs. S which facilitate the prediction of sorption of a variety of pollutants based on measured data of one probe compound. An effect of preferential solute transport coupled with diffusion into the surrounding matrix region has been examined by conducting macropore flow column experiments. A new analytical solution was developed to model the breakthrough curves. The model accounts for advection in the macropore region, diffusion into the matrix region and linear sorption in both regions. From the experimental results and the model assumptions it was concluded that sorption equilibrium was not achieved during matrix diffusion at the time scale of the macropore flow experiment. The combination of batch and column experimental results together with materials (solids) and environmental properties and a use of solute transport model, can provide tools for cost-effective soil and groundwater risk assessment.*** Published as printed thesis at Tuebingen University, 2002 **

Impact of land tenure and other socioeconomic factors on mountain terrace maintenance in Yemen:

This paper describes the land property rights and tenure systems in the western escarpments of the Yemeni Highlands, and analyses the impact of land tenure arrangements and other socioeconomic factors on terrace maintenance. Owner-cultivated land is dominant in the terraced area, but more than one-third of the land is sharecropped. Terraces cultivated by landowners have a lower number of broken walls per hectare than those cultivated by tenants under sharecropping arrangements. This is more significant on sharecropped public (state and waqf) than private lands the reason being the lack of clearly defined responsibilities between tenants and landowners for maintenance and cost sharing. These responsibilities are defined in the customary rules of land use, but uneven power distribution, which favors landlords, results in lack of clear rules and enforcement mechanisms. The study recommends government action in strengthening existing local institutions in documenting sharecropping contracts, improving and targeting agricultural credit services, instituting better price policies, and improving technologies for farmers. These measures will likely increase land users' expected returns to investment, particularly for food crops, and increase landowners' willingness to invest in terrace maintenance.

Qualitative investigation of digital divide in Indonesia : toward a comprehensive framework

The issue of digital divide has attracted many researchers for over a decade, yet the understanding of digital divide is not comprehensive. This research examines three commonly recognised orders of the digital divide, which are: economic divide, the inequality of access to ICT associated with economic conditions; access divide, the disparity of access to ICT; and capability divide, the inequality of ability in using ICT, while conceptualising a fourth divide, innovativeness divide, which is defined as the disparity of individual&rsquo;s willingness to try out any new information technology. The paper presents a tentative model based on extensive literature review which was explored using qualitative method. The findings generate new insights into the relationships among those four orders of digital divide which contribute to the theoretical framework to understand the digital divide more comprehensively and provide evidence on the impact of digital divide on e-government use. Implications for theory and practice are also discussed in this paper.<br /

Interference coordination for LTE-advanced and FM broadcasting interoperability

The surest way to guarantee that multiple wireless systems can concurrently exist harmlessly, when operating in the same or adjacent channel, is by analyzing spectrum overlapping. This paper proposes a more accurate model to evaluate the interference power from co-channel and adjacent channel of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing-based long term evolution-advanced (LTE-Advanced) towards broadcasting frequency modulation systems at 800 MHz. Power spectral density overlapping factor is employed, and closed form of the interference power loss is derived. Numerical results demonstrate that the proposed method evaluates more exact interference power than the advanced minimum coupling loss (A-MCL) method, where the co-channel and adjacent channel interference powers are reduced by 1.3 and 3 dB, correspondingly, compared to that obtained using the AMCL method. This decreases the minimum separation distance between the two systems, which can eventually lead to efficient radio spectrum resources utilization

The molecular and phenotypic basis of the glioma invasive perivascular niche

Gliomas are devastating brain cancers that have poor prognostic outcomes for their patients. Short overall patient survival is due to a lack of durable, efficacious treatment options. Such therapeutic difficulties exist, in part, due to several glioma survival adaptations and mechanisms, which allow glioma cells to repurpose paracrine signalling pathways and ion channels within discreet microenvironments. These Darwinian adaptations facilitate invasion into brain parenchyma and perivascular space or promote evasion from anti-cancer defence mechanisms. Ultimately, this culminates in glioma repopulation and migration at distances beyond the original tumour site, which is a considerable obstacle for effective treatment. After an era of failed phase II trials targeting individual signalling pathways, coupled to our increasing knowledge of glioma sub-clonal divergence, combinatorial therapeutic approaches which target multiple molecular pathways and mechanisms will be necessary for better treatment outcomes in treating malignant gliomas. Furthermore, next-generation therapy which focuses on infiltrative tumour phenotypes and disruption of the vascular and perivascular microenvironments harbouring residual disease cells offers optimism for the localised control of malignant gliomas

Behaviour of polymer grouted splices under increasing tensile load

This paper presents the behavior and performance of polymer grouted splices under increasing direct tensile load. A spiral is utilized to confine the splicing of two discontinued bars which are interlocked within the spiral through the utilization of high strength polymer grout. The bar embedded lengths and the spiral diameters of the grouted splices were varied in order to investigate their effects on the performance of the polymer grouted splices. The performance was evaluated based on the load-displacement relationship, ultimate loading capacity and failure mode. The best performance of polymer grouted splices was obtained with the spiral diameter of 23mm and embedment length of 125mm in which with these parameters the grouted spiral is able to develop the full tensile strength of the spliced bars

Survival Probability for Open Spherical Billiards

We study the survival probability for long times in an open spherical billiard, extending previous work on the circular billiard. We provide details of calculations regarding two billiard configurations, specifically a sphere with a circular hole and a sphere with a square hole. The constant terms of the long-term survival probability expansions have been derived analytically. Terms that vanish in the long time limit are investigated analytically and numerically, leading to connections with the Riemann hypothesis