Wildlife Protection against Illegal Poachers (非法偷獵者)

Rong Yang, Benjamin Ford, Milind Tambe, and Andrew Lemieux, Adaptive resource allocation for wildlife protection against illegal poachers, Proceedings of the 2014 international conference on Autonomous agents and multi-agent systems, 2014/5/5, Pages 453-460.

This paper introduces the Protection Assistant for Wildlife Security (PAWS) application - a joint deployment effort done with researchers at Uganda’s Queen Elizabeth National Park (QENP) with the goal of improving wildlife ranger patrols. While previous works have deployed applications with a game-theoretic approach (specifically Stackelberg Games) for counter-terrorism, wildlife crime is an important domain that promotes a wide range of new deployments. Additionally, this domain presents new research challenges and opportunities related to learning behavioral models from collected poaching data. In addressing these challenges, our first contribution is a behavioral model extension that captures the heterogeneity of poachers’ decision making processes. Second, we provide a novel framework, PAWS-Learn, that incrementally improves the behavioral model of the poacher population with more data. Third, we develop a new algorithm, PAWS-Adapt, that adaptively improves the resource allocation strategy against the learned model of poachers. Fourth, we demonstrate PAWS’s potential effectiveness when applied to patrols in QENP, where PAWS will be deployed.

燁鋒輕合金的 F-35 戰機零件

鄧凱元，世界最強戰機零件　來自桃園150人小廠，天下雜誌，628 期，2017-07-26

但在桃園新屋，卻有一家員工人數只有150人的小廠，擊退美國廠與德國廠，搶下世界最強戰機F-35所用的鋁合金原料訂單，成為英國公司採購鋁合金的獨家供應商。 

不只戰鬥機用燁鋒製造的鋁合金，波音、空巴，甚至連以色列裝甲車和台灣中科院的火箭，都少不了燁鋒的鋁合金。...

Epistemology of Deep Learning (深度學習的知識論) by Yann LeCun

Yann LeCun, seminar talk at the Institute for Advanced Study, 2019/2/22

Clearly, Deep Learning research would greatly benefit from better theoretical understanding. DL is partly engineering science in which we create new artifacts through theoretical insight, intuition, biological inspiration, and empirical exploration. But understanding DL is a kind of "physical science" in which the general properties of this artifact is to be understood. The history of science and technology is replete with examples where the technological artifact preceded (not followed) the theoretical understanding: the theory of optics followed the invention of the lens, thermodynamics followed the steam engine, aerodynamics largely followed the airplane, information theory followed radio communication, and computer science followed the programmable calculator. My two main points are that (1) empiricism is a perfectly legitimate method of investigation, albeit an inefficient one, and (2) our challenge is to develop the equivalent of thermodynamics for learning and intelligence. While a theoretical underpinning, even if only conceptual, would greatly accelerate progress, one must be conscious of the limited practical implications of general theories.

重陽敬老金有影響到台北市長選情嗎？

顏維婷，重陽敬老金有影響到台北市長選情嗎？，whogovernstw，2019/02/18

根據台北市政府統計資料庫的資料顯示， 2014年(也就是政策還未更動時) 重陽敬老金的領取總人數有將近39萬人，柯文哲在2015年上任後旋即改變敬老金請領標準，導致從2015年開始，領取禮金人數僅剩下1萬多人。一來一往受影響的高齡選民有近38萬人，遠大於柯文哲這次選舉流失的27萬選票。一個有趣的問題是，重陽敬老金的政策變動是否有影響到柯文哲的選情? 從報章媒體的報導看來， 雖然這項政策的爭議大，但實際上是否導致選票流失仍舊是個大問號。 

政治學有一些相關議題的研究，回答像這樣的發錢政策是否能轉換成政治支持?1 大部分的研究成果是用拉丁美洲國家為例子，總的來說，實證研究的結果顯示，發錢政策是有助於提升選民的投票率、以及對於執政黨的支持度。所以有趣的是，如果發錢有助於增加投票率與選民支持度，那像取消重陽敬老金這類發錢的政策會不會造成反效果? 換句話說，65歲以上的選民會因為柯文哲取消重陽敬老金政策，憤而在2018年轉投其他候選人或者因此不出來投票嗎? 

實證資料: 沒影響

什麼是「疲勞航班」和可能解方

David Chang，什麼是「疲勞航班」？華航副機長現身說法，關鍵評論，2019/02/10

首先，在計算組員派遣的合法性時，有兩個專用詞：「飛時」以及「工時」。 

「飛時」在直觀上也許會認為是飛機在空中飛行的時間，其實不然。為了嚴謹的計算，飛時的計算方法是航機在登機門完成登機及貨物裝載後，機門關閉，開始由拖車後推的那個時間點起算（飛航電腦會感測並自動記錄顯示此時間點），直到航機落地後滑行到登機門位置開艙門當下的時間點為止。工會訴求的八小時及十二小時指的就是這個「飛時」。