Two-and Three-Dimensional Urban Core Determinants of the Urban Heat Island： A Statistical Approach

There is no doubt that the UHI （urban heat island） is a mounting problem in built-up environments, due to the energy retention by surface dense building materials, leading to increased temperatures, air pollution, and energy consumption. Much of the earlier research on the UHI has used two-dimensional （2-D） information, such as land uses and the distribution of vegetation. In the case of homogeneous land uses, it is possible to predict surface temperatures with reasonable accuracy with 2-D information. However, three-dimensional （3-D） information is necessary to analyze more complex sites, including dense building clusters. In this research, 3-D building geometry information is combined with 2-D urban surface information to examine the relationship between urban characteristics and temperature. The research includes the following stages： （1） estimating urban temperature; （2） developing a 3-D city model; （3） generating geometric parameters; and （4） conducting statistical analyses using both linear and non-linear regression models. The implications of the results are discussed, providing guidelines for policies aiming to reduce the UHI.

Mathematical Modeling in Social Network Analysis： Using TOPSIS to Find Node Influences in a Social Network

In a social network analysis the output provided includes many measures and metrics. For each of these measures and metric, the output provides the ability to obtain a rank ordering of the nodes in terms of these measures. We might use this information in decision making concerning disrupting or deceiving a given network. All is fine when all the measures indicate the same node as the key or influential node. What happens when the measures indicate different key nodes？ Our goal in this paper is to explore two methodologies to identify the key players or nodes in a given network. We apply TOPSIS to analyze these outputs to find the most influential nodes as a function of the decision makers＇ inputs as a process to consider both subjective and objectives inputs through pairwise comparison matrices. We illustrate our results using two common networks from the literature： the Kite network and the Information flow network from Knoke and Wood. We discuss some basic sensitivity analysis can may be applied to the methods. We find the use of TOPSIS as a flexible method to weight the criterion based upon the decision makers＇ inputs or the topology of the network.

Students＇ Attitude and Their Level of the ICT Use as Learning English Media

This study aims to reveal the students＇ attitude towards the use of Information and Communication Technology （ICT） as learning English Media, to describe the level of their ability to use ICT, and to portray their difficulties to apply Internet at universities. This study used quantitative and qualitative （mixed） method which consisted of two data collection techniques： questionnaire and interview. Respondents total 153 students who responded to the questionnaire and participants interviewed were four students from two private universities in Malang, East Java, Indonesia. The findings show that students have positive attitude towards ICT use as media for learning English. The data analysis strengthens the results which indicate that Intemet as part oflCT functions helps students to elicit useful information. Of the 99.4% participants respond to the questionnaire which stated strongly agree or agree, its mean score is M = 4.69, and its standard deviation is SD = 0.50. The level of students＇ ability to apply ICT is good. Moreover, interview data indicates that students face two difficulties to apply ICT such as Intemet connection problems and ICT illiteracy. The former is regarding the Intemet facility given by the university. The latter deals with the students＇ incompetence in applying ICT because they have no Intemet use experience.

论“信息所指”“信息所指对象”和“信息能指”的认识论价值

“信息所指”、“信息所指对象”、“信息能指”以及“信息能度”等概念不仅可深化对信息的理论认识,甚至可解决哲学认识论中的重大问题。信息所指即信息自身并不是信息所指对象。生命体的信息能力尤其是信息能度不同,面对同一信息所指对象会形成不同的信息或不形成信息。“信息能指”即“信息能度”的现实表现,它是“可知”与“不可知”之间的理论边界。而且不同生命体的这一边界并不相同。“可知论者”和“不可知论者”的共同错误是漠视了这一边界的存在。

The Degree of Association between Concepts Focusing on the Viewpoint

For a computer to perform intelligent information processing requires functions that can extract concepts from words, as humans do, and then associate those concepts with related concepts. In order to implement this association function, it is necessary to quantify the degree of association between two concepts. In the present paper, we propose a method for quantifying degree of association focusing on the viewpoint that uses a concept base （a knowledge base that expresses concepts as a collection of pairs, each pair consisting of an attribute word used to describe the concept and a weighting that expresses the word＇s importance）. Here, ＂Viewpoint＂ is the perspective from which a concept is viewed; for example, consider the degree of association between ＂airplane＂ and ＂automobile＂, and the degree of association between ＂airplane＂ and ＂bird＂. From the viewpoint of ＂vehicle＂, ＂airplane＂ and ＂automobile＂ are highly related, while from the viewpoint of ＂flight＂, ＂airplane＂ and ＂bird＂ are highly related. We present herein a comparison of two methods for calculating degree of association focusing on the viewpoint, and demonstrate that the method involving modulation of attribute weightings based on viewpoint results in degree of association calculations that are closer to human senses.

Three-step three-party quantum secure direct communication

We propose a three-party quantum secure direct communication(QSDC) protocol with hyperentanglement in both spatial-mode and polarization degrees of freedom. The secret message can be encoded independently with desired unitary operations in two degrees of freedom. In this protocol, a party can synchronously obtain the other two parties' messages. Compared with previous three-party QSDC protocols, our protocol has several advantages. First, the single photons in our protocol are only required to transmit for three times. This advantage makes this protocol simple and useful. Second, Alice and Bob can send different secret messages to Charlie, respectively. Finally, with hyperentanglement, this protocol has a higher information capacity than other protocols.