Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A differential private collaborative filtering framework based on privacy-relevance of topics

Some recent work proposed differential private collaborative filtering (DPCF) recommender systems to protect user privacy from indirect access attacks, e.g., KNN attacks. As the cost of such protection, the MAE of recommendation was retained with insignificant increase but the more focused metrics, i.e., the precision and recall of top-k recommendations, degraded unacceptable. To address this problem, we propose a DPCF framework based on privacy-relevance of topics, named DPCFT. Firstly, DPCFT works on topic-preference level which highly aggregates user behaviors and keeps the precision and recall of top-k differential private recommendations acceptable. More importantly, considering the unnoticed fact that the information leakage of some special topics worries users much more than that of other ones in terms of privacy concerns, DPCFT introduces the topic privacy-relevance level in the similarity computation and neighbor selection to impose stronger privacy protection on higher privacy-relevance topics with overall differential privacy and recommendation performance reserved. Finally, to reduce the recommendation performance cost for differential privacy, DPCFT selects the top-k recommendation items at user side further with personal topic-preference without risk of data expose. Experimental results on the MovieLens dataset verify that the proposed framework DPCFT preserves differential privacy and top-k recommendation performance simultaneously.
Photonic integration and components development for a Ku-band phased array antenna system

In this paper the development of a phased array antenna system using a photonic beamformer is reported. The paper emphasizes on the photonic integration between two main components of the beamformer, namely the photonic beamformer chip and the electroabsorption modulator array. System level simulation is used to determine the required performance of each component. The measurements on the component characteristics are presented.
Information Communication Technology (ICT) Utilization in Private Universities in Uganda: Exploring Strategies to Improve. A Case of Uganda Christian University

The study was an extension of a similar study by [1] conducted among local government staff in Uganda and was extended among staff at Uganda Christian University. A total of 108 respondents out of the accessible 130 representing 83.0% response rate was realized after administering the study instruments over a period of two (2) weeks. Of the 108 respondents, 70.4% constituted staff in administration, 8.0% heads of sections and 21.6% academic staff. Data was analyzed using different statistical techniques which included descriptive statistics, mainly mean and standard deviation, Pearson Product Moment Correlation Coefficient to establish the relationships between variables and multiple regression analysis to establish causal influence of factors on ICT utilization. At bivariate level, organizational support systems, ICT infrastructure and users’ perceptions had a strong relationship on ICT utilization. Multiple regression analysis revealed that only user perceptions (perceived ease of use) and user knowledge and skills had a significant causal influence on ICT utilization. The researcher Recommended that UCU strategic management cater for personnel ICT capacity building to improve their skills and therefore enhance ICT usability. Further research may consider segmenting staff by faculties and study how utilization levels differ using ANOVA. A comparative study can also be undertaken to assess UCU and any other private university.
Voice or Loyalty? The Evolution of the European Environment Agency (EEA)

This article seeks to contribute to the debate about the role and autonomy of European agencies, and it is argued that in order to capture a fuller picture of their functioning, we need to go beyond a legal framework, taking into account institutional features that involve both formal and informal processes. We also need to follow processes over time in order to avoid snapshot images and to be able to identify dynamics of institutionalization and change. The article examines the evolution of the European Environment Agency (EEA) from its inception in 1991, and analyses its gradual transformation from a legal to a living institution in the EU system. Over the years the agency has become a more loyal partner to the Commission in the European administrative system, balancing the ability to have a credible voice on the one hand and the need for stability and a secure resource supply on the other.
Prediction of low coverage prone regions for Illumina sequencing projects using a support vector machine

Applications of next-generation sequencing technologies have the potential to bring revolutionary changes to medicine and biology. However, coverage bias can pose a challenge to short read data analysis tools, which rely on high coverage. To address this issue we have developed a support vector machine (SVM) based method for predicting low coverage prone (LCP) regions on a given genome. The developed SVM-based prediction of LCP regions on a given genome can assist data processing procedures based on Illumina sequencing technology, such as de novo sequencing and transcriptome analysis.
Timescale Separation in Recurrent Neural Networks

Supervised learning in recurrent neural networks involves two processes: the neuron activity from which gradients are estimated and the process on connection parameters induced by these measurements. A problem such algorithms must address is how to balance the relative rates of these activities so that accurate sensitivity estimates are obtained while still allowing synaptic modification to take place at a rate sufficient for learning. We show how to calculate a sufficient timescale separation between these two processes for a class of contracting neural networks.
Outage analysis of Dynamic Selective Decode-and-Forward in slow fading wireless relay networks

In this paper, we consider a slow fading Multiple Access Multiple Relay Channel (MAMRC) defined as follows: (1) Multiple statistically independent sources communicate with a single destination with the help of multiple half-duplex dedicated relays; (2) The links between the different nodes are independent, and subject to slow fading and additive white Gaussian noise; (3) Sources and cooperating relays interfere (non-orthogonal transmission); (4) No Channel State Information (CSI) at senders and perfect CSI at receivers is available and no feedback is allowed. We introduce an advanced Decode-and-Forward (DF) protocol, referred to as Dynamic Selective Decode and Forward (D-SDF), where each relay individually decides the end of its listening phase and the beginning of its cooperation phase based on a predefined selection strategy. We analyse the outage behavior of this protocol under the assumption that each relay sender employs joint network channel coding and each receiver implements joint network channel decoding, and demonstrate that D-SDF outperforms static SDF in a variety of transmission scenarios.
Detecting Structural Breaks in Some Major Macroeconomic Variables in Ghana

This research was conducted to detect structural breaks in some major macroeconomic variables using single and multiple breaks approaches. The data used was obtained from the Central Bank of Ghana (BoG) and included monthly Consumer Price Index (CPI), 91-day Treasury bill (91 T-bill), Inflation rate, Cocoa Price (Cocoa P) and Crude Oil Price (Crude oil P) spanning from January, 2007 to December, 2012. The study showed that all the macroeconomic variables were not normally distributed as they were platykurtic in nature with their standard deviations far from their means, indicating volatility. Using ADF test, all the variables were not stationary at level, but stationary after first differencing. The Chow, Quandt Likelihood, Cumulative Sum test (CUSUM), Cumulative Sum Squared test (CUSUMSQ) and Bai and Perron multiple tests were used to check for structural breaks. They all showed structural breaks in all the variables. The observed variables were categorized into subgroups with smaller sizes of 72, 24, 12 and 6 months. The number of breakpoints detected by the Bai and Perron multiple tests were six (6) in all the macroeconomic variables and in each subgroup too. Detected breaks date from the CUSUM test were substituted into the Chow test and there were inconsistencies. Keywords: structural breaks, macroeconomic variables, stationary
The evaluation of river water quality improvements by the contingent valuation method

The results of an application of the Contingent Valuation Method (CVM) to the estimation of the recreational benefits which would result from improvements in river water quality are described. This case study is used as a basis to discuss the wider, generic issues in the application of the CVM: in particular, the problems of defining the population who benefit; the nature of the goods; why they benefit; and the questions of validity and reliability. A series of recommendations both as to appropriate methodological procedures to be adopted in CVM studies are given and as to areas where further theoretical and methodological research is required.
Exposure-Based Cash-Flow-At-Risk for Value-Creating Risk Management Under Macroeconomic Uncertainty

A strategically minded CFO will realize that strategic corporate risk management is about finding the right balance between risk prevention and proactive value generation. Efficient risk and performance management requires adequate assessment of risk and risk exposures on the one hand and performance on the other. Properly designed, a risk measure should provide information on to what extend the firm's performance is at risk, what is causing that risk, the relative importance of non-value-adding and value-adding risk, and the possibilities to use risk management to reduce total risk. In this chapter, we present an approach – exposure-based cash-flow-at-risk – to calculating a firm's downside risk conditional on the firm's exposure to non-value-adding macroeconomic and market risk and to analyzing corporate performance adjusted for the impact of non-value-adding risk.
Vulnerability: a quantitative and qualitative assessment

This paper presents the results of an assessment of vulnerability in Guatemala in the context of the World Bank's on-going analysis of poverty and its preparation of a new social protection operation. The paper draws primarily on quantitative data from the Living Standards Measurement Survey (ENCOVI, 2000) and on qualitative information from an in-depth qualitative study of poverty and exclusion carried out in 10 villages in Guatemala. The first section of the paper gives background information on the current state of poverty and vulnerability in Guatemala. The second section outlines the sources of vulnerability in Guatemala and examines how households coped in 2000 when they were faced with or were anticipating welfare shocks. Section three estimates the welfare cost of the shocks that occurred in 2000. Section four identifies those who are likely to have become poor in 2001/2002, in other words, those who were vulnerable to poverty in 2000, and which household characteristics are a sign of being vulnerable to poverty.
Propensity scores based methods for estimating average treatment effect and average treatment effect among treated: A comparative study

Propensity score based statistical methods, such as matching, regression, stratification, inverse probability weighting (IPW), and doubly robust (DR) estimating equations, have become popular in estimating average treatment effect (ATE) and average treatment effect among treated (ATT) in observational studies. Propensity score is the conditional probability receiving a treatment assignment with given covariates, and propensity score is usually estimated by logistic regression. However, a misspecification of the propensity score model may result in biased estimates for ATT and ATE. As an alternative, the generalized boosting method (GBM) has been proposed to estimate the propensity score. GBM uses regression trees as weak predictors and captures nonlinear and interactive effects of the covariate. For GBM‐based propensity score, only IPW methods have been investigated in the literature. In this article, we provide a comparative study of the commonly used propensity score based methods for estimating ATT and ATE, and examine their performances when propensity score is estimated by logistic regression and GBM, respectively. Extensive simulation results indicate that the estimators for ATE and ATT may vary greatly due to different methods. We concluded that (i) regression may not be suitable for estimating ATE and ATT regardless of the estimation method of propensity score; (ii) IPW and stratification usually provide reliable estimates of ATT when propensity score model is correctly specified; (iii) the estimators of ATE based on stratification, IPW, and DR are close to the underlying true value of ATE when propensity score is correctly specified by logistic regression or estimated using GBM.
How to Turn a Beggar into a Bus Stop: Law, Traffic and the 'Function of the Place'

A review of recent Canadian case law on the constitutionality of legal controls on begging reveals the importance of an unacknowledged view of space and behaviour that I call the traffic code. The paper endeavours to take this code seriously, unpacking its logic and scope. In particular, it explores its legal effects, noting that it deflects rights-based arguments on behalf of the public poor. Its emphasis upon space, use and behaviour appears to be not only illiberal, but curiously aliberal, operating without reference to rights. It is suggested, however, that it may in fact rely upon some deeply liberal notions of rights and space. This, perhaps, allows for a rights-based critique of the traffic code. This, and other possibilities for challenges to the traffic code, are explored in the conclusion.
Systematic Liquidity in the Xetra Order Book

Based on reconstructed high-frequency limit order book data, we provide empirical evidence of systematic liquidity co-variation across DAX-30 stocks. We show that commonality in liquidity is even more crucial beyond the best limits, and that liquidity shocks are correlated across different order book areas. Moreover, we argue that (aggregated) systematic liquidity constitutes a priced factor, and that shocks in bid/ask imbalance and the level of systematic factors in deeper areas of the order book are correlated considerably. In order to understand the origins of market-wide liquidity interactions, we further study systematic patterns on the sub-level of individual order submissions. Each single order activity is classified according to its aggressiveness. We propose that common patterns in trading behavior constitute a source of systematic liquidity co-variation in the limit order book.
Emulsion cloud chamber: Measurement of 12C ions beam fragmentation at large angle

The use of carbon ion beams in radiotherapy has appreciable advantages with respect to traditional X-rays. Carbon ions deposit energy in a narrow region at the end of their range, the Bragg peak. This behavior allows to increase the energy released in the cancer volume and to reduce the irradiation of healthy tissues. The inadequate knowledge of the secondary fragments produced by the beam interaction in the irradiated volume is a constraint in the use of carbon beams. The accurate measurements of the secondary particles produced and of their angular distribution is crucial to determine the global dose deposition. We present an hybrid detector (Emulsion Cloud Chamber — ECC) for fragmentation measurements, that performs a sub-micrometric tridimensional spatial resolution, excellent multi-particle separation and large angle track recognition. The detector structure consists in nuclear emulsion films (300 μm thick) alternated with lead layers (1 mm thick) as passive material. We report on data obtained by exposing two ECC detectors to the fragments produced by a 400 MeV/nucleon 12C beam on a composite target at the GSI laboratory in Germany. The ECCs exposure was performed to collect fragments with a continuous angular distribution in the range 31°÷81° with respect to the beam axis. In this paper, momentum estimation and angular distribution of 12C fragments are reported in the range 50°÷81°.
Are Workers Paid their Marginal Products

Status is, like Coase's social costs, a reciprocal phenomenon. Given that one person's gain in status can occur only at the expense of a loss in status for others, and that workers are free to choose their coworkers, it follows that the competitive wage structure within a firm must be one in which individual wage differences understate individual differences in marginal products. ' The purpose of this paper is to examine a variety of empirical evidence that relates to this proposition about the firm's internal wage structure. The paper is organized as follows. Section I briefly summarizes the theoretical considerations that govern competitive wage determination when status matters to people and firms are viewed as voluntary associations of workers. Section II then confronts the predictions of Section I by examining pay and productivity schedules for a group of sales occupations for which these schedules are relatively easily observed. Section II also examines the relationship between wages and productivity for a sample of university professors, an occupation in which individual productivity differences are, for a variety of obvious reasons, relatively more difficult to measure. All of the evidence examined is consistent with the hypothesis that, within firms, wage rates vary substantially less than do individual productivity values. Section III discusses additional observations and evidence that bear on this same hypothesis. It suggests that the implicit market for status may strongly influence the ways in which firms are organized to carry out the tasks they perform. Section IV concludes by considering the claim that egalitarian internal wage structures arise because of "equity considerations. " It argues that the concept of equity appears very closely linked to the concept of status, and suggests a strategy for assigning monetaty value to the equity considerations that so often dominate public policy decisions.
Crucial Study of Primary Schools of District Rajanpur, Punjab: A Case Study from Pakistan

The main function of the study was crucial study of primary schools of district Rajanpur, Punjab, Pakistan. The research is based on main and minor sources. The data are collected from students, teachers, parents and officers through questionnaire. 100 students, 100 teachers, 100 parents and 50 officers are selected for sample. Researchers are used simple percentage for data analysising. They find out that greater part of the public primary schools do not have accurate school structure and other fundamental services. Syllabus is not complete in a year. There is a clash on medium of teaching. The dropout is rising and system of examination is not excellent. The presentation of teachers and students are very poor. Parents do not take attention in the learning process and officers do not visit the school properly.
Consumers' perceptions of mobile banking continuous usage in Finland and South Africa

This study examines continuous usage behaviour related to mobile banking m-banking among consumers living in Finland FI and South Africa ZA. The study investigates three post-adoption behavioural consequences - namely, trust, satisfaction and word of mouth. Using purposeful sampling techniques, we found that trust plays a significant role in promoting continuous usage of m-banking. In general, the respondents reported high levels of trust in m-banking technology and were satisfied with the m-banking application and services. In addition, convenience, user friendliness and speed emerged as the main sub-topics related to satisfaction. In most cases, the convenience of using m-banking dominated the recommendation criteria. However, users, especially those in ZA, generally do not promote m-banking services to others. This study shows that for the majority of users, m-banking usage is related to increased satisfaction with the bank, implying that m-banking services should be a vital part of banks' strategy to retain customers.
EXAMINING DRIVERS OF COLLABORATIVE INBOUND OPEN INNOVATION: EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE FROM AUSTRALIAN FIRMS

Knowledge-based competition is leading to collaboration with partners and even competitors as firms pursue appropriate knowledge for innovation which has become a strategic imperative. Inbound open innovation helps increase the innovativeness of the firm by monitoring the operating environment and enabling it to source knowledge from collaborative partners. On the basis of in-depth interviews with senior managers and the knowledge-based view of the firm, this study examines the extent to which inbound open innovation activities contribute to collaborative innovation. Then, using a sample of 224 surveys representative of a cross-section of medium to large firms involved in collaborative ventures, the theoretical model is empirically examined. The results show that collaborative creativity, learning and knowledge stock are critical core inputs of collaborative innovation, with the support of formal coordination mechanisms and internal search processes, such as structural centralisation, formality and absorptive capacity.
Soft-tissue modeling and image-guided control of steerable needles

In this paper, we exploit a fuzzy controller on a flexible bevel-tip needle to manipulate the needle’s base in order to steer its tip in a preset obstacle-free and target-tracking path. Although the needle tends to follow a curvature path, spinning the needle with an extremely high rotational velocity makes it symmetric with respect to the tissue to follow a straight path. The fuzzy controller determines an appropriate spinning to generate the planned trajectory and, the closed-loop system tries to match the needle body with that trajectory. The swine’s brain tissue model, extracted from an in-vitro experimental setup, is a non-homogenous, uncertain and fast-updatable network to model real tissues, needle and their interactions providing the essential visual feedback for the control system. The simulation results illustrate a precise path tracking of the bevel-tip needle based on the fuzzy controller’s commands with two degrees of freedom.
Spotlight on the September 4 Issue

Data were available for 33 studies (16,070 patients): 26 of 33 reported stroke at 2 days, 32 of 33 at 7 days, and 28 of 33 at 90 days after TIA. The ABCD2 score leads to only small revisions of baseline stroke risk, particularly in settings of low baseline risk and when used by nonspecialists. See p. 971; Editorial, p. 958 This study determined the prevalence and potential significance of stroke symptoms among patients with end-stage renal disease without a prior diagnosis of stroke or TIA. Among …