Challenge

The INTERSPEECH 2015 Computational Paralinguistics Challenge addresses three different problems for the first time in research competition under well-defined conditions: the estimation of the degree of nativeness, the neurological state of patients with Parkinson’s condition, and the eating conditions of speakers, i. e., whether and which food type they are eating in a seven-class problem. In this paper, we describe these sub-challenges, their conditions, and the baseline feature extraction and classifiers, as provided to the participants.

The third world has shrunk. For forty years the development challenge has been a rich world of one billion people facing a poor world of five billion people. The Millennium Development Goals established by the United Nations, which are designed to track development progress through 2015, encapsulate this thinking. By 2015, however, it will be apparent that this way of conceptualizing development has become outdated. Most of the five billion, about 80 percent, live in countries that are indeed developing, often at amazing speed. The real challenge of development is that there is a group of countries at the bottom that are falling behind, and often falling apart. The countries at the bottom coexist with the twenty-first century, but their reality is the fourteenth century: civil war, plague, ignorance. They are concentrated in Africa and Central Asia, with a scattering elsewhere. Even during the 1990s, in retrospect the golden decade between the end of the Cold War and 9/11, incomes in this group declined by 5 percent. We must learn to turn the familiar numbers upside down: a total of five billion people who are already prosperous, or at least are on track to be so, and one billion who are stuck at the bottom. This problem matters, and not just to the billion people who are living and dying in fourteenth-century conditions. It matters to us. The twentyfirst-century world of material comfort, global travel, and economic interdependence will become increasingly vulnerable to these large islands of

This paper provides a critical appraisal of continental peace and development in Africa. Since the formation of Organization of African Unity (O.A.U) in early 1960s, African states agreed to strengthen their relalationship at continental and regional levels. The primary aim was a drive for liberty. With most of African countries attaining independence, there was a shift to regional economic cooperation, trade and conflict issues. Organizations such as the African Union (AU), the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) emerged in order to address security issues and economic development. This is as a result of the cooperation of countries in specific regions. With growing leadership crises, conflicts have developed in various regions leading to political unrest in most countries. This has led to security issues being focal points of concern. As a result, peace agreements were signed and developmental activities being initiated. The paper examines Global and African peace and security architecture. The paper further assesses prospects that have arisen because of peace. It also analyzes challenges that arise due to peace initiatives and how they affect development in Africa. Particular attention is given to the crises in the Central African Republic,

China's rapid economic growth has presented numerous opportunities and challenges for foreign firms there. Many large corporations have established a China centre to coordinate and control their operations in the country. As firms have increased their presence in China, their concerns are increasingly focused on implementing successful management practices and strategies. This article describes the challenges and difficulties that multinational companies faced in Chinese market. It analyses roles played by the human resource function in these China, culture differences, social environment and other factors.

Professional five year Bachelor of Architecture program initiated in Bangladesh with the inception of Architecture Department at BUET in 1962. At present the number of Architecture schools offering B.Arch degree has risen to seventeen and nine has produced graduates so far. Six of these nine architecture schools are picked on random selection for the research. The study focuses to identify the challenges of architecture education here in maintaining and improving its quality, responsiveness and competitiveness in a global standard, while it will also illustrate a picture of hope and prospects that is rising on the horizon. Investigating the problems and identifying the prospects while comparing the different crucial factors simultaneously with reference to widely accepted local and international standards would be the first step in suggesting guidelines and strategies to ensure standard for Architecture education in future. The paper finally draws a critical, comparative overview of the existing system to help seek the process which needs to be undertaken in order to ensure a bright future for architecture education scenario of Bangladesh.

Why is caring for children not a more central part of economic models? Indeed, caring in general is undervalued and underpaid. Why is that, when it is so vital to both economic and social health? The author calls for a different model of sustainable growth and development.

The linguistic situations and conditions in Indonesia are quite complex by their own natures as more than seven hundred vernaculars with their various dialects from a great number of ethnic groups have been used as media of communication in the country. Accordingly, the success of English teaching in Indonesia cannot be freed from the students cultural backgrounds, values, customs, and beliefs as well as the political standpoint of the government regarding this foreign language. English language teaching has then undergone more than four changes in its curriculum since the country s independence and brought no significant impact upon the learning outcomes. This study reveals the substantial unconstructive influence of the students cultures and the non-conducive language environment affecting their language acquisition. Other aspects related to the teachers performance and class preparations equally contribute to the ineffective classroom interactions. This study offers some practical suggestions to cope with those problems.

The currently consumption-driven society produces an enormous volume of waste every day. Continuous depletion of natural finite resources by urban populations is leading the globe to an uncertain future. Therefore, to prevent further depletion of global resources, sustainable consumption and a strategic waste management system would be required. It is evident that a significant number of global non-renewable resources such as cadmium, mercury and tellurium will experience permanent shortfall in global supply within the next two to three decades. Astonishingly, the current recycling rate of these very scarce metals is significantly low in all cities around the globe. The concept of the zero waste city includes a 100% recycling of municipal solid waste and a 100% recovery of all resources from waste materials. However, transforming currently over-consuming cities into zero waste cities is challenging. Therefore, this study aims to understand the key factors waste management systems in cities such as consumption, resource depletion and possible decoupling opportunity through implementing the "zero waste city" concept. The study proposes five significant principles for transforming current cities into zero waste cities in the context of long-term sustainability. A simultaneous and harmonized application of sustainable behaviour and consumption, product stewardship, a 100% recycling and recovery of resources, legislated zero landfill and incineration are required to transform current city into a zero waste city.

Virtualization has become a widely and attractive employed technology in cloud computing environments. Sharing of a single physical machine between multiple isolated virtual machines leading to a more optimized hardware usage, as well as make the migration and management of a virtual system more efficiently than its physical counterpart. Virtualization is a fundamental technology in a cloud environment. However, the presence of an additional abstraction layer among software and hardware causes new security issues. Security issues related to virtualization technology have become a significant concern for organizations due to arising some new security challenges. This paper aims to identify the main challenges and risks of virtualization in cloud computing environments. Furthermore, it focuses on some common virtual-related threats and attacks affect the security of cloud computing. The survey was conducted to obtain the views of the cloud stakeholders on virtualization vulnerabilities, threats, and approaches that can be used to overcome them. Finally, we propose recommendations for improving security, and mitigating risks encounter virtualization that necessary to adopt secure cloud computing.

Security), papers in this series focus on the implications of the new security practices being implemented throughout Europe for civil liberties, human rights and social cohesion in an enlarged EU. Unless otherwise indicated, the views expressed are attributable only to the authors in a personal capacity and not to any institution with which they are associated.

When everything goes disorderly, it`s good to take a step
back and analyze.
This study aims at a theoretical analysis of the way and
the degree to which the use of music technologies in
music education activities during the pandemic improves
(or not) this process and creates (or not) the premises for
both a paradigm shift, and a change in perspective, a
restructuring, a remodeling of music education.
The paper is structured into three parts, followed by
some final considerations. The first part briefly presents
the basic model of music education, the second part
brings to attention the elements of novelty as
determinants of change, and the third part summarizes
the challenges and questions generated by the facelift
model of music education.

Globalization created quick interactions among the world economies. Globalization is a great opportunity, but the weaker players can become genuine players and seize the opportunities it offers only if there is a new mindset and a fresh approach that is universal and pluralistic, and is operationalized in the context of global frame work that establishes justice, mutual cooperation and supremacy of law and ensure equality of opportunities for all. Globalization is marked by liberalization, free trade, deregulation of tariff barriers, capital movement, latest IT etc. Most importantly, globalization has come to signify ‘deterrotorialization ' and geography which has become less relevant to how people live in and interact. Bangladesh opened for world and the process of privatization started after 1975. The central thrust of this paper is inextricably connected with the process of globalization and its multi-dimensional positive and negative impacts on the garments sector of Bangla...

This paper presents the first steps towards a new type of pedagogical agent-a Challenger Teachable Agent, CTA. The overall aim of introducing a CTA is to increase engagement and motivation and challenge students into deeper learning and metacognitive reasoning. The paper discusses desired design features of such an agent on the basis of related work and results from a study where 11-year old students interacted with a first version of a CTA in the framework of an educational software for history. The focus is on how students respond when the CTA disagrees and questions their suggestions, and how groups of students, differing in response behavior and in self-efficacy, experience the CTA.

As economic austerity threatens to sweep Europe, the highly unrealistic expectations about the benefits of government spending cuts are not fully appreciated by the public. It is unlikely that they will result in substantial expansion; to the contrary, potentially they are extremely contractionary. The strong analysis in this piece, using the British budget proposals as a key example, starkly shows that the required changes in investment, savings, and other variables by the private sector to produce growth are utterly implausible. Slow growth, or even recession, is the likely outcome.

This paper analyses Nigeria progress towards achieving each of the Millennium Development Goals, using the most recently updated data. In all, this study report that, the poverty prevalence is on the increase, while hunger level has drastically reduced. Nigeria does not have concrete evidence that the MDG-2 (universal primary education) will be achieved, it also failed to meet gender equality target on primary and secondary school enrolment in 2005 and yet to achieve it in 2010. Gender equality at all levels is not likely to be achieved either. Though progress is made on the MDG-4 & 5, but Nigeria is not likely to achieve the target. Nigeria has achieved MDG-6 of halting the trend of HIV/AIDS and other diseases and begins to reverse it; however much attention is needed in the North than is needed in the South. Progress has been made on MDG-7 to achieve the improved access to water, but it is unlikely 2015 target will be achieved. Access to improved sanitation has degenerated over the years. Overall, the little achievement on development is through increased life expectancy, adult literacy rate and gender equality while human development is still far below the average in Africa and sub-Sahara African countries

The ACM Recommender Systems Challenge 2017 focused on the problem of job recommendations: given a new job advertisement, the goal was to identify those users who are both (a) interested in getting notified about the job advertisement, and (b) appropriate candidates for the given job. Participating teams had to balance between user interests and requirements for the given job as well as dealing with the cold-start situation. For the first time in the history of the conference, the RecSys challenge offered an online evaluation: teams first had to compete as part of a traditional offline evaluation and the top 25 teams were then invited to evaluate their algorithms in an online setting, where they could submit recommendations to real users. Overall, 262 teams registered for the challenge, 103 teams actively participated and submitted together more than 6100 solutions as part of the offline evaluation. Finally, 18 teams participated and rolled out recommendations to more than 900,000 users on XING.

Questioning and challenge, openness and candour, diversity, collaboration, and engaging and learning from the creative arts are all conducive of creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship. Creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship are inter-related. Creative ideas need to be adopted, implemented and commercialised for innovation to occur which can require entrepreneurial flair. Business leaders need to discuss, consult and consider where creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship are most needed, what they should be applied to and for what purpose, and what their relevance, significance and value might be for customers and prospects. They should also consider whether they should take a wider range of interests into account when deciding when, where and for whom to be creative, innovative and entrepreneurial. 

Published as: Coulson-Thomas, Colin (2017), Stimulating Creativity, Enabling Innovation and Supporting Entrepreneurship, Management Services, Summer, pp 26-29

The world's rich nations have long preached the advantage of free trade for the world's developing nations. But it simply has not been a level playing field. This in-depth piece shows how and why. The authors argue that the free trade regime is often rigged against the developing nations, and they propose mechanisms to make trade not merely freer but

 Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) is an emerging technology that shows great promise for various futuristic applications both for mass public and military. The sensing technology combined with processing power and wireless communication makes it lucrative for being exploited in abundance in future. The inclusion of wireless communication technology also incurs various types of security threats. The intent of this paper is to investigate the security related issues and challenges in wireless sensor networks. We identify the security threats, review proposed security mechanisms for wireless sensor networks. We also discuss the holistic view of security for ensuring layered and robust security in wireless sensor networks.

The participation of Albania in Bologna process is attended with positive development in the field of securing quality, which is reflected in the composition law and in the system of national quality of security. But, on the other hand the organization and the quality of university education is in the centre of analysis and critical discourses. The goal of this proceeding is evidenting and analyzing the challenges of Albanian universities to the European space as: a) to emphasize and analyze the challenges of Bologna process as the society sees it. b) to show some possible scenarios of education in the Centre and West Europe. c) to clearly state the aim of public and private universities to the European space and the problems they may have. The exertion of this proceeding is connected to some conclusions and recommendation that are considered as an essential part of it. In this great time of globalization, the fragile economy of Albania, except the different reforms that are impleme...

Anthropological, sociological, and psychological theories suggest that religious symbols should influence motivational processes during performance of goal-relevant tasks. In two experiments, positive and negative religious (Christian) symbols were presented outside of participants' conscious awareness. These symbols influenced cardiovascular responses consistent with challenge and threat states during a subsequent speech task, particularly when the speech topic concerned participants' mortality, and only for Christian participants; similar images lacking Christian meaning were not influential. Results suggested that these effects were due to the learned meaning of the symbols and point to the importance of religion as a coping resource.

Background The main objective of medical education development centers is to improve the quality of medical education. However, after more than two decades since the formation of these centers, they are still facing numerous challenges. Objectives Given the importance of these centers, this study was conducted to identify their challenges. Methods A qualitative study was carried out in 2013 on 40 managers of Iranian medical education development centers. Data was collected during a national conference held in Tehran in the form of a questionnaire and analyzed using content analysis. Results Key challenges of the centers were identified to be resource shortage, continuous modifications in policies, weak management, structural problems, lack of communication, regulatory problems and centralization in decision making. The key challenges were divided into 17 sub-challenges. Conclusions Although decades have passed since the formation of medical education development centers, they are still facing serious challenges. To unveil the true potential of these centers in improving the quality of education, integrated interventions were addressed in this study to help reduce identified challenges.

Virtualization has become a widely and attractive employed technology in cloud computing environments. Sharing of a single physical machine between multiple isolated virtual machines leading to a more optimized hardware usage, as well as make the migration and management of a virtual system more efficiently than its physical counterpart. Virtualization is a fundamental technology in a cloud environment. However, the presence of an additional abstraction layer among software and hardware causes new security issues. Security issues related to virtualization technology have become a significant concern for organizations due to arising some new security challenges. This paper aims to identify the main challenges and risks of virtualization in cloud computing environments. Furthermore, it focuses on some common virtual-related threats and attacks affect the security of cloud computing. The survey was conducted to obtain the views of the cloud stakeholders on virtualization vulnerabilities, threats, and approaches that can be used to overcome them. Finally, we propose recommendations for improving security, and mitigating risks encounter virtualization that necessary to adopt secure cloud computing.

The study uses published date to estimate 1)  the external social and environmental costs of driving, 2) the level of a gasoline tax needed to signal drivers about the true costs of driving, and c) the estimate responses to such a tax in terms of vehicle miles traveled, car-pooling, use of public transit, and so on.

A few years ago, some proclaimed that the business cycle was dead. But risk has returned. Technology and globalization can reduce risk, we have learned, but it can also increase risk. Both economies and markets will remain volatile, this author asserts.

The main intent of the Voluntary Villagization Scheme (VVS) is to collect a scattered settlement pattern of rural populations onto a nucleated form of villages to sustainably supply rural communities with social and economic infrastructures so that they can improve agricultural production and productivity. This helps the villagized communities overthrow rural poverty and Chronic Food Insecurity (CFI) and ensure the sustainability of the livelihood and food security in rural areas. However, this goal is achieved if and only if the scheme is appropriately implemented according to the guideline of villagization action plan. Thus, this study was aimed at assessing the extent of implementation, challenges, consequences and development indicators of VVS in Benishangul-gumuz Region (BGR) during the past two years. To achieve this objective, the data were collected from the annual report on the overall implementation of the scheme from the regional government, case studies, key informants and field observations. The result shows that the scheme was under-implemented at 56.4% with regard to clustering of the households, forces were applied to some extent during relocation of resettlers and major principles of VVS were only partly respected. Moreover, people in some villages refused the scheme and still remained there. While some basic infrastructures were only partly supplied, others were incomplete and others such as road infrastructures were totally nonexistent. The under-implementation, low capacity of implementers, attitude and lack of will of villagers, inappropriate site selection, gaps in promise and practice, and continued poverty and CFI were found to be major challenges to VVS in the region. The environmental consequences such as deforestation and intensive grazing are also added to these. Despite those challenges and consequences, the vehicles to development-i.e. socioeconomic service and road infrastructure developments indicate that there is an opportunity for future sustainable development that will be reflected in sustainable livelihood systems and food security in the new villagization sites. Therefore, it is recommended that the scheme should be further planned and implemented in those areas that haven't been considered. However, there is a need for careful and critical follow-up of the implementation process of scheme.

This distinguished Argentine economist analyzes his country's path to crisis. He acknowledges that there were several factors contributing to the current situation, but he presents a brief history of events to demonstrate his view that the convertibility regime was the chief cause—and that the International Monetary Fund, not only the Argentine government, should shoulder some of the blame.

One of the most essential needs of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is using rehabilitation services. However, these services are associated with numerous challenges. The present study aimed to identify the perceptions of the parents of children with ASD and rehabilitation service providers about the challenges of using rehabilitation services in Iran. Methods: This was a qualitative study. In total, 27 participants were selected from the parents of children with ASD and rehabilitation service providers to these children, based on purposive sampling method; we considered maximum variation and sampling continued until data saturation. The necessary data were collected by semi-structured and in-depth interviews. The interviews lasted from July to December 2020 and MAXQDA was used for data analysis. Results: The challenges of children with ASD in accessing and using rehabilitation services were identified and categorized into 6 main classes, as follows: the lack of a systematic support system; the lack of commitment to observing professional ethics; neglecting the structure and policy of rehabilitation; the lack of comprehensive ASD diagnostic and rehabilitation protocols; inadequate knowledge and attitude, and the lack of feasible access to services. Discussion: Policymakers, service providers, and managers must be aware of the challenges of rehabilitation services for ASD; subsequently, they are expected to pay special attention to this issue. This study provided evidence for the above-mentioned groups for accessing and using rehabilitation services among ASD. Besides, the obtained data could help to improve the services they receive and their living conditions; ultimately, they help improve their quality of life.

Statistical mediation and moderation analysis are well-known throughout the behavioral studies. Gradually, these techniques are being incorporated in the contour of the study of mediated moderation or moderated mediation. An entire child approach towards education focuses awareness on the community, emotional, psychological, corporal as well as cognitive progress of students. At its central part such a arrival to observe the principle of schooling as developing future citizens and providing the foundation for every child to carry out their future. It has five creed based upon child growth, which emphasizes the approach and affirms that all child in both school and in society earns to be healthy, safe, engaged, supported and challenged. This structure has been worn as the gallows in the expansion of a choice of school upgrading processes that make certain that the approach is incorporated and classified into the progression and strategy of the school, locality, and society. The outline does not seek out to dissociate itself from intellectual increase but it does seek out to enlarge what comprise academic advance in the 21st century and intends to relocate concentration on all traits essential for enlightening and communal accomplishment. Parallel mediation and moderation model is applied for the study.

The aim of this paper is to present a new educational challenge to readers, namely teaching English for Specific Purposes in an academic environment where the aim is not only the formation of future specialists in economics or fine arts, but also the desire to make students enjoy English classes for the way teaching takes place, for the manner of delivering pieces of information and for the passion for this language transmitted during classes. Moreover, we consider that teaching ESP leaves room for creativity, opening gates towards multiculturalism, general knowledge, towards a universe where there are no limits regarding the power of information conveyed in English.

Canadian Literature, both in English and French, has developed enormously during the Second World War. Since then, with its dual cultural heritage, it has reflected the stages in the narrative of national identity. Canadian fiction, like other creative forms, has flourished from the late 1960s and 1970s and began to take off with Robertson Davies, Mordecai Richler, Shila Watson, Maris Gallant and others. But the form rose and achieved success with the solid contribution made by women writers such as Margaret Laurence, Alice Munro, and Margaret Atwood. Among the Canadian women novelists Margaret Laurence occupies a unique position in the Canadian fiction. She was born in the prairie town of Neepawa, Manitoba (model for the fictional Manawaka). She probably understands women better than men and has certain things which she gets only through women. She examines the dilemma of the question for identity and attempts to discover in fictional terms modes to reckon with the women's problems. So, her novels are usually preoccupied with the woman's / nation's identity. They also reflect the increased concern for the status of women in society and the concurrent increase in the desire to evolve and assert a distinctive quest for Canadian identity. Her popularity rests on. The series of four books based on her home town, renamed Manawaka, for which she is now best known: The Stone Angel (1964), A Jest of God (1966), retitled Now I Lay Me Down for British publication, The Fire Dwellers (1969), and The Diviners (1974).1 Each of the Manawaka novels may be described, in one way or another, 'a fictional autobiographies' and has given unforgettable portraits of women wrestling with their personal demons, striving through self-examination to find meaningful patterns in their lives. Her protagonists, in the beginning of the novels, might be victims but by the end they refuse to become victimized. Their state of wilderness is transformed into a state of wholeness by their journey, which is often seen as a means of escape from the clastrophobia. The actual journey becomes a metaphor for the journey towards self-hood and an acceptance of their heritage. Thus, Laurence's characters hold a mirror to the lives of several generations settled in and around the town of Manitoba. As Clara Thomas puts it: _________________________________________________________________________

Activists often encounter double standards: powerful groups make a huge outcry about a problem, meanwhile ignoring their own greater role in exactly the same problem. For example, governments with major nuclear arsenals raise the alarm about the possibility that others might acquire nuclear weapons. Powerful groups use a variety of tactics to reduce awareness and concern about their own actions while raising the alarm about others; activists can try to counter these tactics. As a general rule, it is better for campaigners to choose methods that highlight and accentuate double standards and make it more difficult for opponents to adopt the high ground. Introduction Many campaigners encounter a perplexing and frustrating phenomenon. Your opponents accuse you of doing something terrible — but actually your opponents do the same thing just as much or even a great deal more. For example, your opponents are engaged in massive censorship, but accuse you of censorship, or your opponents are...