Color Conflict Research Articles

COLORISM IN TONI MORRISONS GOD HELP THE CHILD

The present paper has been specifically designed to scrutinize the aspect of colorism in Toni Morrisons well acclaimed novel God Help the Child. African American literature is an academic body of writing produced by African descendants residing in America. The literary canon of African- American literature emerged in late part of 18th century in oral forms like sermon, gospel, music, jazz, blues and spirituals. African American writers have deliberately expressed their painful agony, racial segregation, social injustice and ill treatment which they tolerated in white American society. Toni Morrison was a prolific female novelist of African-American literary writing. Morrisons eleventh novel God Help the Child prominently deals with colorism, racism and child abuse. Conceptually, the term Colorism was coined by Alice Walker to address the superiority of lighter or white skin over the dark. Colorism has its genetic roots in racism because without racism the standardization of color conflict would not be exist. The novel unfolds the story of Bride, also known as Lula Ann who is born with dark black color. She receives ill treatment by her own parents and gets negative rejection because of having black skin. Brides dark color ruins her golden childhood period. Louis Bridewell rejects Bride from accepting as his baby. Similarly, Sweetness breeds Bride with harsh treatment and cruelty. The research study will primarily focus on to address the color conflict faced by child protagonist Lula Ann.

Analysis of a parallel MCMC algorithm for graph coloring with nearly uniform balancing

• We propose the convergence analysis of a parallel MCMC algorithm for graph coloring. • We prove that, throughout the iterations of the algorithm, the number of color conflicts converges in probability to 0. • We propose a qualitative analysis of the balancing level of the color class sizes achieved. • The parallel algorithm scales well with the graph size. • The effectiveness of the algorithm is assessed on large real-world graphs taken from social analysis. We propose the analysis of a scalable parallel MCMC algorithm for graph coloring aimed at balancing the color class sizes, provided that a suitable number of colors is made available. Firstly, it is shown that the Markov chain converges to the target distribution by repeatedly sampling from suitable proposed distributions over the neighboring colors of each node, independently and hence in parallel manner. We prove that the number of conflicts in the improper colorings genereted thoughout the iterations of the algorithm rapidly converges in probability to 0. As for the balancing, given to the complexity of the distributions involved, we propose a qualitative analysis about the balancing level achieved. Based on a collection of multinoulli distributions arising from the color occurrences within every node neighborhood, we provide some evidence about the character of the final color balancing, which results to be nearly uniform over the color classes. Some numerical simulations on big social graphs confirm the fast convergence and the balancing trend, which is validated through a statistical hypothesis test eventually.

Random choices facilitate solutions to collective network coloring problems by artificial agents

SummaryGlobal coordination is required to solve a wide variety of challenging collective action problems from network colorings to the tragedy of the commons. Recent empirical study shows that the presence of a few noisy autonomous agents can greatly improve collective performance of humans in solving networked color coordination games. To provide analytical insights into the role of behavioral randomness, here we study myopic artificial agents attempting to solve similar network coloring problems using decision update rules that are only based on local information but allow random choices at various stages of their heuristic reasonings. We show that the resulting efficacy of resolving color conflicts is dependent on the implementation of random behavior of agents and specific population characteristics. Our work demonstrates that distributed greedy optimization algorithms exploiting local information should be deployed in combination with occasional exploration via random choices in order to overcome local minima and achieve global coordination.

Random Choices Can Facilitate the Solving of Collective Network Coloring Problems by Artificial Agents

Global coordination is required to solve a wide variety of challenging collective action problems from network colorings to the tragedy of the commons. Recent empirical study shows that the presence of a few noisy autonomous agents can greatly improve collective performance of humans in solving networked color coordination games. To provide further analytical insights into the role of behavioral randomness, here we study myopic artificial agents attempt to solve similar network coloring problems using decision update rules that are only based on local information but allow random choices at various stages of their heuristic reasonings. We consider that agents are distributed over a random bipartite network which is guaranteed to be solvable with two colors. Using agent-based simulations and theoretical analysis, we show that the resulting efficacy of resolving color conflicts is dependent on the specific implementation of random behavior of agents, including the fraction of noisy agents and at which decision stage noise is introduced. Moreover, behavioral randomness can be finely tuned to the specific underlying population structure such as network size and average network degree in order to produce advantageous results in finding collective coloring solutions. Our work demonstrates that distributed greedy optimization algorithms exploiting local information should be deployed in combination with occasional exploration via random choices in order to overcome local minima and achieve global coordination.

Discrete selfish herd optimizer for solving graph coloring problem

Selfish herd optimizer is a new and effective continuous optimization algorithm, but the algorithm cannot solve the specific discrete problem. Therefore, we design a discrete selfish herd optimizer (DSHO) specifically for solving graph coloring problems. At present, many existing methods cannot effectively solve graph coloring problems. To deal with this difficult problem, in DSHO, we propose an effective step-size updating method. This step-size update method is not random, but is updated based on the conflict matrix of candidate solutions. Moreover, we also add a mechanism to deal with potential color conflict areas. By using these methods, DSHO can effectively reduce the number of conflict areas when calculating the conflict matrix of candidate solutions. To verify DSHO’s optimization performance, we use 83 test cases, they includes five simulated maps, six real maps (China, New York, America, Paris, France and Russia) and 72 test cases of minimum coloring number (They come from DIMACS Implementation Challenge). DSHO compare with the latest coloring algorithms, they are DABC, DFA, GETS, HACO, LGFPA, FROGSIM and SDGC, respectively. The experimental outcomes exhibit that DSHO has minimum number of conflict areas, smaller standard deviation, fewer iterations and higher coloring success rate. Discrete selfish herd optimizer is more competitive than other algorithms. Therefore, it is a new method for solving graph coloring problems effectively.

Ambassador Bonnie Jenkins: Reducing threats, increasing diversity

ABSTRACTIn this interview, Ambassador Bonnie Jenkins talks about her work on arms control and nuclear security and discusses differences between the Obama and Trump administrations on issues including nuclear weapons modernization and the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. She highlights the scarcity of women and people of color in national security, explains why that matters, and describes how the organization she founded last year – Women of Color Advancing Peace, Security and Conflict Transformation – is working to diversify the field.

Color Planning and Intercell Interference Coordination for Multicolor Visible Light Communication Networks

We address the intercell interference coordination for the indoor attocell multicolor visible light communication (VLC) network under lighting constraints. In the multicolor VLC system, soft frequency reuse-based interference coordination is adopted, which adjusts the signal deviations transmitted on cell-edge color and cell-center color. A static scheduler is proposed to increase the signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) for the cell-edge region, given that the SINR for the cell-center region is larger than a certain threshold. To adapt to the interference intensity that varies with the density of base stations, we propose a dynamic scheduler for the intercell interference coordination. The dynamic scheduler comprises of two separate parts: the distributed part that adjusts the power allocation and asks to restrict color usages in neighboring attocells, and the centralized part that resolves the color conflicts and allocates the color resources in the network. Two solution approaches are proposed for the centralized part, one based on the linear programming relaxation of the integer programming, and the other based on the greedy color allocation. Simulation results show that the dynamic scheduler can improve the cell-edge user's throughput with acceptable penalty to the overall throughput.

Alcohol's acute effect on food intake is mediated by inhibitory control impairments.

There is a strong association between alcohol misuse and excess weight. Although alcohol is highly calorific and may directly contribute to weight gain, it is also likely to have indirect effects on weight. Indeed, alcohol primes have been found to stimulate appetite and increase energy intake in experimental taste tests. The current study investigated whether the effects of alcohol on energy intake are the result of inhibitory control impairments and whether this effect is moderated by individual differences in dietary restraint. Sixty undergraduate females completed measures of dietary restraint and the Food Craving Questionnaire-State (FCQS). Following this, they were given an alcohol prime (0.6 g of alcohol per kg of body weight) or a placebo drink manipulated to smell and taste alcoholic. Participants then completed another FCQS and a color conflict Stroop to measure inhibitory control. Finally, participants were asked to taste cookies for 15 minutes. Participants in the alcohol condition performed worse on the Stroop (d = .61) and consumed more cookie calories (d = .61) than participants in the placebo condition. Notably, the effect of the experimental condition on the amount of cookies consumed was mediated by Stroop performance (Κ2 = .08), although this effect was not evident under high levels of restraint. There was no effect of experimental condition on any subscale of craving. The current study suggests that increased energy intake after alcohol administration may be the product of inhibitory control impairments. However, the most restrained eaters are able to maintain control over their eating behavior.

The time course of attentional modulation on emotional conflict processing

Cognitive conflict resolution is critical to human survival in a rapidly changing environment. However, emotional conflict processing seems to be particularly important for human interactions. This study examined whether the time course of attentional modulation on emotional conflict processing was different from cognitive conflict processing during a flanker task. Results showed that emotional N200 and P300 effects, similar to colour conflict processing, appeared only during the relevant task. However, the emotional N200 effect preceded the colour N200 effect, indicating that emotional conflict can be identified earlier than cognitive conflict. Additionally, a significant emotional N100 effect revealed that emotional valence differences could be perceived during early processing based on rough aspects of input. The present data suggest that emotional conflict processing is modulated by top-down attention, similar to cognitive conflict processing (reflected by N200 and P300 effects). However, emotional conflict processing seems to have more time advantages during two different processing stages.

Node coloring based replica detection technique in wireless sensor networks

Node replication attack possess a higher level of threat in wireless sensor networks. A replicated node takes advantage of having legal identity of the compromised node to control the network traffic and inject malicious information into the network. Several techniques have been proposed to detect node replication in wireless sensor networks. However, in most of these techniques, the responsibility for replica detection lies either with the base station or a few randomly selected witness nodes. In this paper, we propose a technique for detecting replicas without the participation of base station and witness nodes. In the proposed scheme, each node is assigned with a color (value), which is unique within its neighborhood. A color conflict within the neighborhood of a node is detected as a replica. We made a comparison of the proposed scheme with RED (Conti et al. in IEEE Trans Dependable Secure Comput 8(5):685---698, 2011), LSM (Parno et al. in Proceedings of IEEE symposium on security and privacy. IEEE, pp 49---63, 2005), and SET (Choi et al. in Proceedings of third international conference on security and privacy in communications networks and the workshops, SecureComm 2007. IEEE, pp 341---350, 2007). Parameters considered for comparison are detection probability, communication complexity and storage overhead. We observed that the proposed scheme has a higher detection probability, and lower communication and storage overhead.

Analysis on Color Configuration of Plants in Landscape Design

Color configuration of plant is an important factor which influences the overall visual effect of landscape design. Due to improper color configuration of plant in landscape design, problems concerning damaging the overall color harmony of design works will appear. Through analysis on various comparisons of color, fully analyze plant color and color correlation of other objects in the surrounding environment in design, select the plant with proper color, avoid color conflict which can cause unpleasant feelings through the visual perception of people and obtain the harmonious beauty of color.

Autonomic Regulation on the Stroop Predicts Reading Achievement in School Age Children

In this study we examined high frequency heart rate variability (HF‐HRV, a parasympathetic index) both at rest and during challenge, to assess if variations in cardiovascular activity measured during a Stroop task could be used to predict reading achievement in typically developing children. Reading achievement was examined using the Peabody Individual Achievement Test–Revised. Results showed that greater HF‐HRV suppression during both the Stroop word and Stroop word–color conflict tasks was associated with better reading achievement. Higher basal levels of HF‐HRV did not predict better reading scores. These results are among the first to show a link between HF‐HRV and reading achievement in a normative school age population, and offer new insight into the association between cognitive activity and autonomic regulation of the heart.

Cognitive and Electrophysiological Correlates of the Bilingual Stroop Effect

The color word Stroop effect in bilinguals is commonly half the magnitude when the written and naming languages are different (between) than when they are the same (within). This between-within language Stroop difference (BWLS) is likened to a response set effect, with greater response conflict for response relevant than irrelevant words. The nature of the BWLS was examined using a bilingual Stroop task. In a given block (Experiment 1), color congruent and incongruent words appeared in the naming language or not (single), or randomly in both languages (mixed). The BWLS effect was present for both balanced and unbalanced bilinguals, but only partially supported a response set explanation. As expected, color incongruent trials during single language blocks, lead to slower response times within than between languages. However, color congruent trials during mixed language blocks led to slower times between than within languages, indicating that response-irrelevant stimuli interfered with processing. In Experiment 2, to investigate the neural timing of the BWLS effect, event related potentials were recorded while balanced bilinguals named silently within and between languages. Replicating monolingual findings, an N450 effect was observed with larger negative amplitude for color incongruent than congruent trials (350–550 ms post-stimulus onset). This effect was equivalent within and between languages, indicating that color words from both languages created response conflict, contrary to a strict response set effect. A sustained negativity (SN) followed with larger amplitude for color incongruent than congruent trials, resolving earlier for between than within language Stroop. This effect shared timing (550–700 ms), but not morphology or scalp distribution with the commonly reported sustained potential. Finally, larger negative amplitude (200–350 ms) was observed between than within languages independent of color congruence. This negativity, likened to a no-go N2, may reflect processes of inhibitory control that facilitate the resolution of conflict at the SN, while the N450 reflects parallel processing of distracter words, independent of response set (or language). In sum, the BWLS reflects brain activity over time with contributions from language and color conflict at different points.

Node Coloring and Color Conflict Detection in Wireless Sensor Networks

In wireless sensor networks, energy efficiency is mainly achieved by making nodes sleep. In this paper, we present the combination of SERENA, a new node activity scheduling algorithm based on node coloring, with TDMA/CA, a collision avoidance MAC protocol. We show that the combination of these two protocols enables substantial bandwidth and energy benefits for both general and data gathering applications. As a first contribution, we prove that the three-hop node coloring problem is NP-complete. As a second contribution, the overhead induced by SERENA during network coloring is reduced, making possible the use of these protocols even in dense networks with limited bandwidth. The third contribution of this paper is to show that applying any slot assignment algorithmwith spatial reuse based on node neighborhood without taking into account link quality can lead to poor performances because of collisions. The use of good quality links will prevent this phenomenon. The fourth contribution consists of optimizing end-to-end delays for data gathering applications, by means of cross-layering with the application. However, color conflicts resulting from topology changes, mobility and late node arrivals can give rise to collisions. As a fifth contribution, we show how the MAC layer can detect color conflicts, and cope with them at the cost of a slightly reduced throughput. Then, we discuss the tradeoffbetween requesting SERENA to solve the color conflicts and dealing with them at the MAC layer, our third contribution. The combination of SERENA and TDMA/CA is evaluated through simulations on realistic topologies.

Prevalência de isquemia induzida por estresse mental

The myocardial radionuclide imaging with mental distress seems to induce ischemia through a particular physiopathology when compared to radionuclide imaging with physical or pharmacological distress. To assess the prevalence of induced myocardial ischemia by mental distress in patients with thoracic pain and radionuclide imaging with normal conventional distress, with 99mTc-Sestamibi. Twenty-two patients were admitted with thoracic pain at emergency or were referred to the nuclear medicine service of our institution, where myocardial radionuclide imaging of distress or rest without ischemic alterations was carried out. The patients were, then, invited to go through an additional phase with mental distress induced by color conflict (Strop Color Test) with the objective of detecting myocardial ischemia. Two cardiologists and nuclear physicians performed the blind analysis of perfusional data and consequent quantification through Summed Difference Score (SDS), punctuating the segments that were altered after mental distress and comparing it to the rest period image. The presence of myocardial ischemia was considered if SDS > or = 3. The prevalence of mental distress-induced myocardial ischemia was 40% (9 positive patients). Among the 22 studied patients, there were no statistical differences with regard to the number of risk factors, mental distress-induced hemodynamic alterations, usage of medications, presented symptoms, presence or absence of coronary disease and variations of ejection fraction and final systolic volume of Gated SPECT. In a selected sample of patients with thoracic pain and normal myocardial radionuclide imaging, the research of myocardial ischemia induced by mental distress through radionuclide imaging may be positive in up to 40% of cases.

A MODEL OF GRAPH COLORING DYNAMICS WITH ATTENTION WAVES AND STRATEGIC WAITING

Recently, Kearns et al. [Kearns, M., Suri, S. and Montfort, N., An experimental study of the coloring problem on human subject networks, Science313 (2006) 824–827] studied the topology dependence of graph coloring dynamics. In their empirical study, the authors analyze, how a network of human subjects acting as autonomous agents performs in solving a conflict-avoidance task (the graph coloring problem) for different network architectures. A surprising result was that the run-time of the empirical dynamics decreases with the number of shortcuts in a Watts–Strogatz small-world graph. In a simulation of the dynamics based on randomly selecting color conflicts for update, they observe a strong increase of the run-time with the number of shortcuts. Here, we propose classes of strategies, which are capable of explaining the decrease in run-time with an increasing number of shortcuts. We show that the agent's strategy, the graph topology, and the complexity of the problem (essentially given by the graph's chromatic number) interact nontrivially yielding unexpected insights into the problem-solving capacity of organizational structures.

Exercise, Fitness, and Neurocognitive Function in Older Adults: The “Selective Improvement” and “Cardiovascular Fitness” Hypotheses

Although basic research has uncovered biological mechanisms by which exercise could maintain and enhance adult brain health, experimental human studies with older adults have produced equivocal results. This randomized clinical trial aimed to investigate the hypotheses that (a) the effects of exercise training on the performance of neurocognitive tasks in older adults is selective, influencing mainly tasks with a substantial executive control component and (b) performance in neurocognitive tasks is related to cardiorespiratory fitness. Fifty-seven older adults (65-79 years) participated in aerobic or strength-and-flexibility exercise training for 10 months. Neurocognitive tasks were selected to reflect a range from little (e.g., simple reaction time) to substantial (i.e., Stroop Word-Color conflict) executive control. Performance in tasks requiring little executive control was unaffected by participating in aerobic exercise. Improvements in Stroop Word-Color task performance were found only for the aerobic exercise group. Changes in aerobic fitness were unrelated to changes in neurocognitive function. Aerobic exercise in older adults can have a beneficial effect on the performance of speeded tasks that rely heavily on executive control. Improvements in aerobic fitness do not appear to be a prerequisite for this beneficial effect.

Hemodynamic and autonomic responses during psychological and physiological stressors in African American males prior to and following an aerobic training program

We compared the patterning of autonomic and blood pressure (BP) response to psychologic and physiologic stressors prior to and after an 8‐week aerobic training program. METHODS: 16 African American males underwent training and were compared to 16 controls matched for family history of hypertension, race, gender, body mass index, age and VO2. Heart rate (HR), brachial systolic BP and radial beat‐to‐beat BP were recorded during seated rest, cold pressor test, deep breathing and color‐conflict stressor. Spectral analyses of HR and SBP were used to derive baroreflex sensitivity (BRS) and parasympathetic (HFRR[nu]) and sympathetic vasomotor modulation (LFSBP[nu]). RESULTS: Trained individuals showed significant improvement (p<0.05) in BRS as measured by alpha index (msec/mmHg): 8(3) vs 14(3), rest; 9(7) vs 16(4), cold pressor; 13(7) vs 18(9), deep breathing; 8(4) vs 13(7), color conflict. HFRR[nu], LFSBP[nu] and arterial compliance also showed improvements. No significant changes were seen in controls. CONCLUSIONS: Findings indicate aerobic training improved autonomic and blood pressure profiles at rest and during stressors in a population at high risk for cardiovascular events. Support: VIDDA foundation.

The active inhibition for the processing of visual irrelevant conflict information

We applied event-related potentials (ERPs) to assess brain activities with inhibition of irrelevant conflict information processing during visual selective attention. Fifteen healthy subjects matched two sequentially presented color spots (S1 and S2) in a visual selective attention task. The two spots might be presented in a fixed position of either the same color (match), or different colors (color conflict). They might be in different positions of the same color (position conflict), or different colors (color and position conjunction conflicts). Subjects matched the stimuli in two different sessions according to different attention tasks: attending to color (Ac) or attending to position (Ap). In the time window of 201–350 ms after the onset of S2, an ERP component the N270, was elicited in all the conflict conditions with the amplitude enhanced in the task-relevant conflict. The amplitude of the N270 in the conjunction conflict condition was lower than that of the task-relevant conflict condition in either Ac or Ap session. The results suggest that the conflict processing is modulated by attention. All kinds of conflicts might be processed in a common system in the human brain, the conflict processing system. Due to the limited capacity of the conflict processing system, the decrement of the N270 in the conjunction conflict condition is deduced to reflect an active inhibition for the processing of the irrelevant conflict.

Caribbean Cricket: The Role of Sport in Emerging Small-nation Politics

Caribbean Cricket: The Role of Sport in Emerging Small-nation Politics