Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age. Clay Shirky. New York, NY: Penguin, 2010. 242 pages, $25.95 pbk. It sometimes seems that the hardest thing to do in the Information Age is to communicate. In the rush of easily accessible data and the maelstrom of conflicting viewpoints, two otherwise intelligent people can talk past one another as they stake out territory with the tenacity of computer viruses. NYU professor Clay Shirky and media critic Nicholas Carr have been squaring off now for two years over what impact the Internet is having on our society. Shirky takes the more optimistic viewpoint, Carr the more pessimistic. Carr threw down the gauntlet with his 2008 Atlantic cover article "Is Google Making Us Stoopid?" and has continued the debate with his recent book The Shallows. Shirky provides a response in Cognitive Surplus, but criticizes skeptics like Carr only obliquely. Shirky says their main frustration is with the profusion of choice: "Scarcity," he says, "is easier to deal with than abundance." But this book doesn't dwell much on the naysayers. Instead, it frames the subject of the Internet with a bold and startling vision about its potential. "Imagine," he says, "treating the free time of the world's educated citizenry as an aggregate, a kind of cognitive surplus." We've not always used that surplus wisely. Shirky's case in point is television, and how it has come to dominate our culture. Over much of the planet, Shirky writes, "the three most common activities are . . . work, sleep, and watching TV." Like gin in early-eighteenth-century London, twentieth-century television is one of those social habits that critics have denounced and tried hard to minimize, but without success. There are signs now, however, that TV viewing - still thoroughly popular - isn't quite the juggernaut it used to be. Young people are increasingly turning to the Internet; and the Web, it turns out, allows humans to do things they can't do with other media - namely, create, produce, and connect. Instead of devoting twenty passive hours a week to the tube (the international average), people now use a medium that lets them make and share things. That may seem trivial, considering the amount of silly, offensive, or deceptive fare on the Web, but think of it this way: Which do you think contains more enduring cultural, intellectual, and societal value - posting comments on a blog or watching Gitligan's Island! The Internet is no utopia, but neither are older media. In fact, some of them may be a good deal less salutary. Take, for example, the online fantasy game World of Warcraft. As Shirky puts it in a tart retort: "However pathetic you may think it is to sit in your basement pretending to be an elf, I can tell you from personal experience: it's worse to sit in your basement trying to decide whether Ginger or Mary Ann is cuter." There's a wide variety of content on the Internet, of course - the widest in any medium - and the largest number of producers of content: a colossal and revolutionary force. The "hundred million hours of cumulative thought" it took to produce Wikipedia is one example of Shirky's "cognitive surplus," and while it still pales before the "two hundred billion hours of TV every year," you can readily see the potential. …

Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age

Internet of Things (IoT) is a system that integrates different devices and technologies, removing the necessity of human intervention. This enables the capacity of having smart (or smarter) cities around the world. By hosting different technologies and allowing interactions between them, the internet of things has spearheaded the development of smart city systems for sustainable living, increased comfort and productivity for citizens. The IoT for Smart Cities has many different domains and draws upon various underlying systems for its operation. In this paper, we provide a holistic coverage of the Internet of Things in Smart Cities. We start by discussing the fundamental components that make up the IoT based Smart City landscape followed by the technologies that enable these domains to exist in terms of architectures utilized, networking technologies used as well as the Artificial Algorithms deployed in IoT based Smart City systems. This is then followed up by a review of the most prevalent practices and applications in various Smart City domains. Lastly, the challenges that deployment of IoT systems for smart cities encounter along with mitigation measures.

IoT in Smart Cities: A Survey of Technologies, Practices and Challenges

Scientific Assessment of Ozone Depletion: 1998

Rate constants for the reactions of OH, NO 3 , and O 3 with pinonaldehyde and the structurally related compounds 3-methylbutanal, 3-methylbutan-2-one, cyclobutyl- methylketone, and 2,2,3-trimethyl-cyclobutyl-1-ethanone have been measured at using on-line Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. The rate constants obtained for the reactions with pinonaldehyde were: ,

Kinetic Study of Gas-Phase Reactions of Pinonaldehyde and Structurally Related

We propose new approximate global multiplicative scaling factors for the DFT calculation of ground state harmonic vibrational frequencies using functionals from the TPSS, M06, and M11 functional families with standard correlation consistent cc-pVxZ and aug-cc-pVxZ (x = D, T, and Q), 6-311G split valence family, Sadlej and Sapporo polarized triple-ζ basis sets. Results for B3LYP, CAM-B3LYP, B3PW91, PBE, and PBE0 functionals with these basis sets are also reported. A total of 99 harmonic frequencies were calculated for 26 gas-phase organic and nonorganic molecules typically found in detonated solid propellant residue. Our proposed approximate multiplicative scaling factors are determined using a least-squares approach comparing the computed harmonic frequencies to experimental counterparts well established in the scientific literature. A comparison of our work to previously published global scaling factors is made to verify method reliability and the applicability of our molecular test set.

Harmonic Vibrational Frequencies: Approximate Global Scaling Factors for TPSS, M06, and M11 functional families using several common basis sets

A theoretical study on the mechanism and kinetics of the gas phase reactions of a volatile anaesthetic compound (CF3)2CHOCH2F (Sevoflurane) with the OH radicals has been carried out using the hybrid HF–density functional M06-2X/6-31+G(d,p) method. Three conformations are predicted for the Sevoflurane molecule. Among the three conformers, the most stable one is considered for a detailed study. Reaction profiles are modeled including the formation of pre-reactive and post-reactive complexes at entrance and exit channels. Single point energy calculations have been performed by using the 6-311++G(d,p) basis set. The hydrogen abstraction from the –CH2F group is found to be the dominant reaction channel for hydrogen abstraction by OH radicals. Theoretically the calculated rate constant is found to be in good agreement with the experimentally measured ones. Using group-balanced isodesmic reactions, the standard enthalpies of formation for (CF3)2CHOCH2F, (CF3)2COCH2F and (CF3)2CHOCHF radicals are also reported for the first time. The atmospheric fate of the alkoxy radical, (CF3)2CHOCHFO, is also investigated for the first time using the same level of theory. Out of four prominent plausible decomposition channels including oxidation, our results clearly point out that reaction with O2 is the dominant path for the decomposition of (CF3)2CHOCHFO in the atmosphere involving the lowest energy barrier which is in accord with recent experimental findings.

Theoretical investigation of atmospheric chemistry of volatile anaesthetic sevoflurane: reactions with the OH radicals and atmospheric fate of the alkoxy radical (CF3)2CHOCHFO: thermal decomposition vs. oxidation

Traditional Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies used in developing smart cities solutions, Machine Learning (ML) and recently Deep Learning (DL), rely more on utilising best representative training datasets and features engineering and less on the available domain expertise. We argue that such an approach to solution development makes the outcome of solutions less explainable, i.e., it is often not possible to explain the results of the model. There is a growing concern among policymakers in cities with this lack of explainability of AI solutions, and this is considered a major hindrance in the wider acceptability and trust in such AI-based solutions. In this work, we survey the concept of ‘explainable deep learning’ as a subset of the ‘explainable AI’ problem and propose a new solution using Semantic Web technologies, demonstrated with a smart cities flood monitoring application in the context of a European Commission-funded project. Monitoring of gullies and drainage in crucial geographical areas susceptible to flooding issues is an important aspect of any flood monitoring solution. Typical solutions for this problem involve the use of cameras to capture images showing the affected areas in real-time with different objects such as leaves, plastic bottles etc., and building a DL-based classifier to detect such objects and classify blockages based on the presence and coverage of these objects in the images. In this work, we uniquely propose an Explainable AI solution using DL and Semantic Web technologies to build a hybrid classifier. In this hybrid classifier, the DL component detects object presence and coverage level and semantic rules designed with close consultation with experts carry out the classification. By using the expert knowledge in the flooding context, our hybrid classifier provides the flexibility on categorising the image using objects and their coverage relationships. The experimental results demonstrated with a real-world use case showed that this hybrid approach of image classification has on average 11% improvement (F-Measure) in image classification performance compared to DL-only classifier. It also has the distinct advantage of integrating experts’ knowledge on defining the decision-making rules to represent the complex circumstances and using such knowledge to explain the results.

https://www.mdpi.com/2624-6511/3/4/65/pdf

Explainable Artificial Intelligence for Developing Smart Cities Solutions

Kinetics, mechanism and thermochemistry of the gas phase reactions of CF3CH2OCH2CF3 with OH radicals: A theoretical study

The present study deals with the decomposition of CF3OCF2O radical formed from a hydrofluoroether, CF3OCHF2 (HFE-125), in the atmosphere. The study is performed using ab initio quantum mechanical methods. Two plausible pathways of decomposition of the titled species have been considered, one involving C-O bond scission and the other occurring via F atom elimination. The geometries of the reactant, products and transition states involved in the decomposition pathways are optimized and characterized at DFT (B3LYP) level of theory using 6-311G(d,p) basis set. Single point energy calculations have been performed at G2M(CC,MP2) level of theory. Out of the two prominent decomposition channels considered, the C-O bond scission is found to be dominant involving a barrier height of 15.3 kcal mol−1 whereas the F-elimination path proceeds with a barrier of 26.1 kcal mol−1. The thermal rate constants for the above two decomposition pathways are evaluated using canonical transition state theory (CTST) and these are found to be 1.78 × 106 s−1 and 2.83 × 10−7 s−1 for C-O bond scission and F-elimination respectively at 298 K and 1 atm pressure. Transition states are searched on the potential energy surfaces involved during the decomposition channels and each of the transition states is characterized. The existence of transition states on the corresponding potential energy surface is ascertained by performing intrinsic reaction coordinate (IRC) calculation.

Ab initio studies on the decomposition kinetics of CF3OCF2O radical.

Theoretical investigations are carried out on the title reactions by means of ab initio and DFT methods. The optimized geometries, frequencies and minimum energy path are obtained at MPWB1K/6-31+G(d,p) level. Single point energy calculations are performed at MP2 and QCISD(T) levels of theory. Energetics were further refined by calculating the energy of the species with a high level G2(MP2) method. The rate constant of the two reactions are calculated at 298 K and 1 atm using Canonical Transition State Theory (CTST) utilizing the ab initio data obtained during the present study. The rate constant values are found to be 5.5 × 10−14 and 5.9 × 10−14 cm3 molecule−1 s−1, respectively which are in good agreement with the experimental data.

Bhupesh Kumar Mishra

Papers

Theoretical investigation of atmospheric chemistry of volatile anaesthetic sevoflurane: reactions with the OH radicals and atmospheric fate of the alkoxy radical (CF3)2CHOCHFO: thermal decomposition vs. oxidation

Explainable Artificial Intelligence for Developing Smart Cities Solutions

Kinetics, mechanism and thermochemistry of the gas phase reactions of CF3CH2OCH2CF3 with OH radicals: A theoretical study

Ab initio studies on the decomposition kinetics of CF3OCF2O radical.

Mechanistic and kinetics study of the gas phase reactions of methyltrifluoroacetate with OH radical and Cl atom