Can the internet promote democracy? A cross-country study based on dynamic panel data models

ABSTRACT

In the age of information revolution, information and communication technologies are penetrating all levels of societies and are also influencing the political aspect of each country by providing some facilities such as the Internet and web technologies. Democracy, as a universal value and a political system, is also well known and has an important role in the sublimation of the human societies. This study attempts to examine the effect of Internet extension on democracy promotion by using a panel consisting of 122 countries covering the period from the year 2000 to 2014. In order to estimate the effect, and also to deal with the endogeneity and autocorrelation problems, the dynamic panel data models are employed in the study. The results of estimation models indicate that Internet extension has a significantly positive effect on democracy promotion during the period. In the end, some ideas for further research are presented.     

What do developers search for on the web?

Developers commonly make use of a web search engine such as Google to locate online resources to improve their productivity. A better understanding of what developers search for could help us understand their behaviors and the problems that they meet during the software development process. Unfortunately, we have a limited understanding of what developers frequently search for and of the search tasks that they often find challenging. To address this gap, we collected search queries from 60 developers, surveyed 235 software engineers from more than 21 countries across five continents. In particular, we asked our survey participants to rate the frequency and difficulty of 34 search tasks which are grouped along the following seven dimensions: general search, debugging and bug fixing, programming, third party code reuse, tools, database, and testing. We find that searching for explanations for unknown terminologies, explanations for exceptions/error messages (e.g., HTTP 404), reusable code snippets, solutions to common programming bugs, and suitable third-party libraries/services are the most frequent search tasks that developers perform, while searching for solutions to performance bugs, solutions to multi-threading bugs, public datasets to test newly developed algorithms or systems, reusable code snippets, best industrial practices, database optimization solutions, solutions to security bugs, and solutions to software configuration bugs are the most difficult search tasks that developers consider. Our study sheds light as to why practitioners often perform some of these tasks and why they find some of them to be challenging. We also discuss the implications of our findings to future research in several research areas, e.g., code search engines, domain-specific search engines, and automated generation and refinement of search queries.     

What kind of #conversation is Twitter? Mining #psycholinguistic cues for emergency coordination

The information overload created by social media messages in emergency situations challenges response organizations to find targeted content and users. We aim to select useful messages by detecting the presence of conversation as an indicator of coordinated citizen action. Using simple linguistic indicators drawn from conversation analysis in social science, we model the presence of coordination in the communication landscape of Twitter¹ using a corpus of 1.5 million tweets for various disaster and non-disaster events spanning different periods, lengths of time, and varied social significance. Within replies, retweets and tweets that mention other Twitter users, we found that domain-independent, linguistic cues distinguish likely conversation from non-conversation in this online form of mediated communication. We demonstrate that these likely conversation subsets potentially contain more information than non-conversation subsets, whether or not the tweets are replies, retweets, or mention other Twitter users, as long as they reflect conversational properties. From a practical perspective, we have developed a model for trimming the candidate tweet corpus to identify a much smaller subset of data for submission to deeper, domain-dependent semantic analyses for the identification of actionable information nuggets for coordinated emergency response.     

Sensor‐independent analysis method for hyperspectral data based on the pattern decomposition method

This paper describes a modified pattern decomposition method with a supplementary pattern. The proposed approach can be regarded either as a type of spectral mixing analysis or as a kind of multivariate analysis; the later explanation is more suitable considering the presence of the additional supplementary patterns. The sensor‐independent method developed herein uses the same normalized spectral patterns for any sensor: fixed multi‐band (1260 bands) spectra serve as the universal standard spectral patterns. The resulting pattern decomposition coefficients showed sensor independence. That is, regardless of sensor, the three coefficients had nearly the same values for the same samples. The estimation errors for pattern decomposition coefficients depended on the sensor used. The estimation errors for Landsat/MSS and ALOS/AVNIR‐2 were larger than those of Landsat/TM (ETM+), Terra/MODIS and ADEOS‐II/GLI. The latter three sensors had negligibly small errors.     

Free speech or hate speech? A legal analysis of the discourse about Roma on Twitter

This article draws on material gathered from Swedish tweets about the Roma population, in order to map different discourses. Based on this material, a legal analysis was made focusing on how the legal protection under the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and Swedish law for such types of expression may vary depending on the wider discursive context. This article concludes that the legal protection for hateful expressions against for instance Roma, will vary depending on the discursive context. When the expression is a direct part of a political discussion, the protection of freedom of expression will be higher. However, emphasis must also be placed on the aim, value, and accuracy of the statement, even in a political context. This will increase the possibilities to legally intervene against speech that may perhaps be triggered by an ongoing political debate, but is hateful and without value to that debate.     

Fully coupled algorithm for heat and water transport – Estimation of non-linear parameters based on the experimental data

We solve the problem of coupled heat conduction and water transport in bentonite with water present in vapour and adsorbed form in a non-equilibrium state. The problem is governed by a system of two parabolic PDE and one ODE. Most of the coefficients are non-linear functions, defined either by underlying physical phenomena or empirically. We present a numerical scheme using FEM with linear base functions, implicit time discretization, and simple iterations for the non-linear terms. The model is verified against experiments (one 1D and one 3D) and we demonstrate the use of optimization algorithm for parameter calibration. Some of the parameters could be estimated successfully while others with limited confidence, which is explained by the particular character of the non-linear parameter dependence and resulting small sensitivity of the model on some parameters.     

Are our homes ready for services? A domotic infrastructure based on the Web service stack

The increase in computational power and the networking abilities of home appliances are revolutionizing the way we interact with our homes. This trend is growing stronger and opening a number of technological challenges. From the point of view of distributed systems, there is a need to design architectures for enhancing the comfort and safety of the home, which deals with issues of heterogeneity, scalability and openness. By considering the evolution of domotic research and projects, we advocate a role for Web services in the domestic network. We ground our claim by proposing a concrete architecture for a home in which the health of an elder is monitored. The architecture is implemented on a heterogeneous set of devices, which allows us to evaluate it and draw conclusions on the feasibility of using service-oriented approaches in ubiquitous computing.     

A hybrid genetic algorithm–fuzzy c-means approach for incomplete data clustering based on nearest-neighbor intervals

Incomplete data are often encountered in data sets used in clustering problems, and inappropriate treatment of incomplete data can significantly degrade the clustering performance. In view of the uncertainty of missing attributes, we put forward an interval representation of missing attributes based on nearest-neighbor information, named nearest-neighbor interval, and a hybrid approach utilizing genetic algorithm and fuzzy c-means is presented for incomplete data clustering. The overall algorithm is within the genetic algorithm framework, which searches for appropriate imputations of missing attributes in corresponding nearest-neighbor intervals to recover the incomplete data set, and hybridizes fuzzy c-means to perform clustering analysis and provide fitness metric for genetic optimization simultaneously. Several experimental results on a set of real-life data sets are presented to demonstrate the better clustering performance of our hybrid approach over the compared methods.     

Definition of sizes for the design of school furniture for Bogotá schools based on anthropometric criteria

The current paper deals with the definition of sizes for the design of school furniture for schools in Bogotá, Colombia, based on an analysis of available anthropometric data on Latin American children. State-of-the-art anthropometric, national and international standards were considered, in order to define the anthropometric variables that were to be used for defining the furniture. Matrices relating age and specific anthropometric dimensions were constructed, as a visualization method for establishing the dimensional differences between children of the same age and the ranges that should be covered by the items of furniture. Dimensional data were grouped by establishing the minimum sizes and general dimensions of furniture needed to cover the 5-95th percentile of school children between the ages of 5 and 18 years. The distribution of the furniture in the different school grades was also indicated. Apart from the need for an adequate match between child anthropometry and school furniture dimensions, this study shows the importance of a proper distribution of furniture sizes in the different school grades, as a complementary and decisive aspect to be considered in order to meet the heterogenic, anthropometrical requirements of children of the same age and school grade.     

A scheduling algorithm for maximum throughput based on the link condition in heterogeneous network

Nowadays, a lot of wireless interfaces can be used by mobile users to access the Internet, such as WLAN, WiMAX, WlFI and even 3G. If a mobile terminal is equipped with multiple interfaces, it can use them simultaneously to improve the performance at the hot point where different RANs （Radio Access Networks） overlap. This paper proposes a scheduling algorithm based on the link condition that ensures the whole network has the maximum throughput. Simulation is also done to show the improvement of throughput with this scheduling algorithm.     

Rainfall monitoring based on Meteosat data— a comparison of techniques applied to the Western Sahel

Abstract

This study was undertaken to evaluate a number of techniques to monitor rainfall over West Africa using automated processing of full-resolution digital data from the Meteosat satellite, using techniques developed by the Universities of Reading and Bristol in the U.K. and the consulting firm EARS bv in the Netherlands. This study was intended to determine an appropriate technique for the monitoring of rainfall over Africa and the Near-East for application to operational rangeland and crop production monitoring. The results indicate that all the estimates are a considerable improvement compared to estimates made by interactive man-machine processing of data from a Meteosat Secondary Data Users Station. Overall, none of the techniques yielded better results than the others, but there were distinct differences in performance. The techniques developed by the University of Reading and EARS bv performed best at the higher latitudes of the study area, while the Bristol methods performed best at the lower latitudes. The use of Meteosat visible data to complement the thermal-infrared data, as performed by one of the Bristol methods, did not improve the estimates very much.     

Analysis on the variations of atmospheric CO2 concentrations along the urban–rural gradients of Chinese cities based on the OCO-2 XCO2 data

Anthropogenic CO₂ emissions contribute the most to the growth of atmospheric CO₂ concentrations. These emissions are largely concentrated in urban areas where human activities are intense. Studies have been conducted to explore the urban and rural difference in CO₂ concentrations based on ground-based measurements. The launch of NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2) satellite provides a new opportunity to monitor CO₂ concentrations and their spatial and temporal variations at city scale. The objective of this study is to analyse the spatial and temporal distributions of CO₂ concentrations along the urban–rural gradients of Chinese cities, using the column averaged CO₂ dry air mole fraction (XCO₂) data derived from OCO-2. We used both conceptual and physical urban–rural gradients to analyse variations in CO₂ concentrations over space. The results show that the urban and rural difference in CO₂ concentrations of these cities can be monitored. And, the seasonal variations of CO₂ concentrations in these cities can also be detected using the XCO₂ data. Moreover, the variations in CO₂ concentrations along the urban–rural gradients have four main types with significant enhancements of CO₂ concentrations were observed in urban areas, urban–rural transitional areas, rural areas, and without regular patterns, respectively. The results are generally different from the common assumption that CO₂ concentrations peak in central urban areas and decline in rural areas. In conclusion, the XCO₂ data can be used to analyse the spatial-temporal variations of CO₂ concentrations along the urban–rural gradients of Chinese cities, and the results have important policy implications for mitigating CO₂ emissions.     

Good for learning,bad for motivation? A meta-analysis on the effects of computer-supported collaboration scripts

International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning - Scripting computer-supported collaborative learning has been shown to greatly enhance learning, but is often criticized for...     

Study on the characteristics of the Indonesian seas using satellite remote-sensing data for 1998–2007

This study analyses the characteristics of the Indonesian seas using satellite remote-sensing data for the 10-year period from 1998 to 2007. Statistical properties and monthly average data or climatological data of sea surface temperature (SST), wind speed (WS), wind direction (WD), chlorophyll (CH) and sea surface height anomaly (SSHA) for the Indonesian seas are investigated. The results indicate negative dependence between SST and WS. The correlation between SST and WS has a 1-month phase difference. CH and SSHA are considered local data and reveal no apparent characteristics for the Indonesian seas as a whole. Seasonal changes of the indices, coupled with a north–south change, are observed. This analysis confirms several characteristics of the Indonesian seas.     

Methodologies for supervision of Hybrid Energy Sources based on Storage Systems – A survey

Hybrid Energy Sources based on Storage Systems (HES) are increasingly used to improve the grid integration of renewable energy generators, or to improve the energy efficiency and the reliability of transport systems. This paper proposes a survey on the methodologies to design fuzzy logic based supervision strategies of this new kind of energy generating systems. Different ways to manage energy storage system are particularly discussed.A graphical modeling tool is used to facilitate the analysis and the determination of fuzzy control algorithms adapted to complex hybrid systems. The methodology is divided in different steps covering the design of a supervisor from the system work specifications to an optimized implementation of the control.An Experimental Design Methodology (EDM) combined with optimization algorithms is used to tune a set of parameters suitable for a fuzzy supervisor in order to optimize power, energy, efficiency, voltage quality, economic or environmental indicators.The application of this methodology to the supervision of different topologies of HES, based on renewable energy in a grid or in building applications or dedicated to transport systems, illustrates the performance and the systematic dimension of the approach.     

A new method of classification for Landsat data using the ‘watershed’ algorithm

Many methods of classifying satellite imagery have been suggested. Most of the accepted methods, either supervised or unsupervised, are founded on the assumption that the radiance values of a particular ground cover type can be characterized by some probability distribution having a central value(s) and a range parameter(s). This assumption is rarely, if ever, tenable and hence the methods must produce unnecessarily high rates of misclassification. Thus there is a need for an approach which avoids this type of assumption. Pattern recognition techniques, e.g. the ‘watershed’ algorithm, can be used to divide up the radiance-frequency domain, provided the radiance values can be reduced to 2 dimensions. These methods do not presuppose any ‘shape’ for the radiance-frequency distributions and therefore provide an unbiased aid to the interpretation of satellite imagery.     

Adaptive sliding-mode controller based on the “Super-Twist” state observer for control of the Stewart platform

To provide a highly efficient control of nonlinear systems in the presence of nonmodeled dynamics and external perturbations, a new control law with feedback based on the sliding modes with an observer of the “Super-Twist” kind was proposed. For acceptable use of the continuous observer signal in the controller, presented were adaptive laws for adjustment of the control system parameters. Using the methods of Lyapunov function, system stability (convergence to a zone) was proved. This technique was proposed as an example of control and stabilization of the position of a parallel manipulator (Gough–Stewart platform). The presented mechanism with six degrees of freedom is used to control the secondary mirror of the “Large Millimeter Telescope Alfonso Serrano” situated in the state of Puebla, Mexico.     

Development of dense models of the Earth’s surface based on the semiglobal matching method for the case of multiple overlapping images

A method is developed for constructing a three-dimensional digital surface model based on the use of aerial images with multiple overlapping. The specific feature of this study is the use of the multiview matching method instead of stereo matching. The method is based on adapting the energy aggregation algorithm, which was proposed in the semiglobal matching (SGM) method, to the object space, as well as using the one-to-many scheme of cost calculation. The reconstructed scene is represented as a voxel grid. A high-performance implementation of the digital surface model construction at all stages is proposed based on the massive parallelization of computations on a graphics processing unit.