A Hierarchical Model for Ordinal Matrix Factorization

This paper proposes a hierarchical probabilistic model for ordinal matrix factorization. Unlike previous approaches, we model the ordinal nature of the data and take a principled approach to incorporating priors for the hidden variables. Two algorithms are presented for inference, one based on Gibbs sampling and one based on variational Bayes. Importantly, these algorithms may be implemented in the factorization of very large matrices with missing entries. The model is evaluated on a collaborative filtering task, where users have rated a collection of movies and the system is asked to predict their ratings for other movies. The Netflix data set is used for evaluation, which consists of around 100 million ratings. Using root mean-squared error (RMSE) as an evaluation metric, results show that the suggested model outperforms alternative factorization techniques. Results also show how Gibbs sampling outperforms variational Bayes on this task, despite the large number of ratings and model parameters. Matlab implementations of the proposed algorithms are available from cogsys.imm.dtu.dk/ordinalmatrixfactorization.

Low-rank optimization for distance matrix completion

This paper addresses the problem of low-rank distance matrix completion. This problem amounts to recover the missing entries of a distance matrix when the dimension of the data embedding space is possibly unknown but small compared to the number of considered data points. The focus is on high-dimensional problems. We recast the considered problem into an optimization problem over the set of low-rank positive semidefinite matrices and propose two efficient algorithms for low-rank distance matrix completion. In addition, we propose a strategy to determine the dimension of the embedding space. The resulting algorithms scale to high-dimensional problems and monotonically converge to a global solution of the problem. Finally, numerical experiments illustrate the good performance of the proposed algorithms on benchmarks. © 2011 IEEE.

Proteomic analysis of differentially expressed proteins in lymphoid organ of Fenneropenaeus chinensis response to Vibrio anguillarum stimulation

To gain an insight into the function of shrimp lymphoid organ at protein level, we analyzed the proteome of lymphoid organ in healthy Chinese shrimp Fenneropenaeus chinensis (F. chinensis) through two-dimensional gel electrophoresis (2-DE) based proteomic approach. A total of 95 spots representing 75 protein entries were identified by liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) with both online and in-house database. According to Gene Ontology (GO) annotation of biological process, the identified proteins were classified into 13 categories. Among them, approximately 36% of proteins related to cytoskeleton are noticeable. Then, a comparative proteomic approach was employed to investigate the differentially expressed proteins in lymphoid organ of Vibrio anguillarum-challenged F. chinensis. At 24 h post-injection (hpi), 17 differentially expressed protein spots were successfully identified, including 4 up-regulated protein spots (represent 4 proteins: cathepsin L protein similar to squid CG16901-PC, protein kinase C and protein similar to T-complex Chaperonin 5 CG8439-PA), and 13 down-regulated protein spots (represent 9 proteins: actin, beta-actin, cytoplasmic actin CyII, alpha tubulin, beta tubulin, protein similar to proteasome delta, vacuolar ATP synthase subunit B, elongation factor 2, carboxypeptidase B). These data may help us to understand the function of lymphoid organ and the molecular immune mechanism of shrimp responsive to pathogen infection. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Inspection Methods in Programming

The work reported here lies in the area of overlap between artificial intelligence software engineering. As research in artificial intelligence, it is a step towards a model of problem solving in the domain of programming. In particular, this work focuses on the routine aspects of programming which involve the application of previous experience with similar programs. I call this programming by inspection. Programming is viewed here as a kind of engineering activity. Analysis and synthesis by inspection area prominent part of expert problem solving in many other engineering disciplines, such as electrical and mechanical engineering. The notion of inspections methods in programming developed in this work is motivated by similar notions in other areas of engineering. This work is also motivated by current practical concerns in the area of software engineering. The inadequacy of current programming technology is universally recognized. Part of the solution to this problem will be to increase the level of automation in programming. I believe that the next major step in the evolution of more automated programming will be interactive systems which provide a mixture of partially automated program analysis, synthesis and verification. One such system being developed at MIT, called the programmer's apprentice, is the immediate intended application of this work. This report concentrates on the knowledge are of the programmer's apprentice, which is the form of a taxonomy of commonly used algorithms and data structures. To the extent that a programmer is able to construct and manipulate programs in terms of the forms in such a taxonomy, he may relieve himself of many details and generally raise the conceptual level of his interaction with the system, as compared with present day programming environments. Also, since it is practical to expand a great deal of effort pre-analyzing the entries in a library, the difficulty of verifying the correctness of programs constructed this way is correspondingly reduced. The feasibility of this approach is demonstrated by the design of an initial library of common techniques for manipulating symbolic data. This document also reports on the further development of a formalism called the plan calculus for specifying computations in a programming language independent manner. This formalism combines both data and control abstraction in a uniform framework that has facilities for representing multiple points of view and side effects.

Waterworks and commemoration: purity, rurality, and civic identity in Britain, 1880-1921

Roberts, Owen, 'Waterworks and commemoration: purity, rurality, and civic identity in Britain, 1880-1921', Continuity and Change (2007) 22(2) pp.305-325 RAE2008

Nie tylko Dzierżon: wprowadzenie do bibliografii piśmiennictwa pszczelniczego na Śląsku

Zadaniem artykułu jest ukazanie dorobku piśmiennictwa pszczelniczego na Śląsku. Pretekstem do poruszenia tego tematu jest przypadająca w 2011 roku dwusetna rocznica urodzin wybitnego pszczelarza Jana Dzierżona. Osoba i dokonania najsłynniejszego chyba w świecie Ślązaka do tego stopnia zdominowały historię pszczelarstwa tego regionu, że właściwie bardzo niewiele mówi się o dorobku innych działających aktywnie śląskich pszczelarzach praktykach i publicystach. Tymczasem dorobek ten jest imponujący. W części pierwszej artykułu przypomniano Nickela Jacoba ze Szprotawy, autora pierwszej wydanej na Śląsku książki pszczelarskiej, uznanego jednocześnie za ojca niemieckiej bibliografii pszczelarskiej. Wśród pionierów niemieckiej literatury fachowej dotyczącej pszczół znajduje się też Johann Coler ze Złotoryi. W XVIII wieku swą działalność praktyczną i publicystyczną w znacznej mierze związali ze Śląskiem Łużyczanin Adam Gottlieb Schirach i Niemiec Johann Riem. W dziełach innych autorów z zakresu gospodarstwa wiejskiego pojawiają się również fragmenty poświęcone pszczelarstwu. Dorobek swych poprzedników wzbogacił i swą działalnością rozsławił śląskie pszczelarstwo ksiądz dr Jan Dzierżon, odkrywca partenogenezy, konstruktor nowoczesnego ula, autor licznych publikacji. „Księciu pszczół” poświęcona została druga część artykułu. Przedstawiono w niej pokrótce jego życie i działalność, dzieje walki o uznanie teorii partenogenezy, ogromny dorobek publicystyczny. Wskazano jednocześnie na brak opracowania pełnej bibliografii podmiotowej. Dzierżon był wydawcą jednego z pierwszych na Śląsku czasopism pszczelarskich. Dorobek śląskiego czasopiśmiennictwa pszczelarskiego jest bogaty i dziwi fakt, że właściwie w bardzo małym dotychczas stopniu został poznany. Część trzecią poświęcono niemieckim i polskim czasopismom pszczelarskim wydawanym na Śląsku. Uwzględniono tutaj tytuły samoistne oraz dodatki. W podsumowaniu wykazano, że we wszystkich obszarach bibliografia piśmiennictwa śląskiego wymaga kompleksowego rozpoznania. Stan opracowania piśmiennictwa pszczelarskiego na Śląsku stanowi w pewnej mierze odbicie stanu bibliografii tego zagadnienia na ziemiach polskich.

Nazwiska mieszkańców Poznania od XVI do XVIII wieku w świetle ksiąg metrykalnych Kolegiaty św. Marii Magdaleny. Studium onomastyczno-socjolingwistyczne

Wydział Filologii Polskiej i Klasycznej

Asesoría para el rescate de producto y técnicas tradicionales y mejoramiento artesanal actual a partir del perfeccionamiento de la talla en madera en la comunidad Emberá Duma de Bahía Solano - Chocó.

30 hojas : ilustraciones, fotografía.

Ralladores de yuca brava tallados en madera con incrustaciones de piedras de los indígenas Tukanos y Curripacos del Vaupés.

6 hojas : ilustraciones, fotografías a color.

Deformable Prototypes for Encoding Shape Categories in Image Databases

We describe a method for shape-based image database search that uses deformable prototypes to represent categories. Rather than directly comparing a candidate shape with all shape entries in the database, shapes are compared in terms of the types of nonrigid deformations (differences) that relate them to a small subset of representative prototypes. To solve the shape correspondence and alignment problem, we employ the technique of modal matching, an information-preserving shape decomposition for matching, describing, and comparing shapes despite sensor variations and nonrigid deformations. In modal matching, shape is decomposed into an ordered basis of orthogonal principal components. We demonstrate the utility of this approach for shape comparison in 2-D image databases.

Negotiating the boundaries between home and work practices: The case of home-workers

When people work from home, the domains of home and work are co-located, often under one roof. Home-workers have to cope with the meeting of two practices that have traditionally been physically separated. In light of this, we need to understand: how do people who work from home negotiate the boundaries between their home and work practices? What kinds of boundaries do people construct? How do boundaries affect the relationship between home and work as domains? What kinds of boundaries are available to home-workers? Are home-workers in charge of their boundaries or do they co-create them with others? How does this position home-workers in their domains? In order to address these questions, I analysed a variety of data, including newspaper columns, online forum discussions, interviews, and personal diary entries, using a discourse analytic approach that lends itself to issues of positioning. Current literature clashes over whether home-workers are in control of their boundaries, and over the relationship between home and work that arises out of boundary negotiations, i.e. whether home and work are dichotomous or layered. I seek to contribute to boundary theory by adopting a practice theory stance (Wenger, 1998) to guide my analysis. By viewing home and work as practices, I show that boundary negotiations depend on how home-workers are positioned, e.g. if they are positioned as peripheral in a domain, they lack influence over boundaries. I demonstrate that home and work constitute a number of different practices, rather than a rigid dichotomy, and that the way home and work are related are not the same for all home-workers. The application of practice concepts further shows how relationships between practices are created. The contribution of this work is a reconceptualisation of current boundary theory away from individual and cognitive notions (Nippert-Eng, 1996) into the realm of positioning.

The Vikings in ninth-century Ireland: Sources and settlements

Archaeological excavations, particularly those of the last fifty years, have greatly advanced our understanding of Viking settlement in Ireland, and this study sets out to present a complementary analysis of the historical sources. Increasingly, evidence suggests that Viking occupation encompassed a more diverse range of settlement types than previously acknowledged. Major urban excavations such as those carried out in Dublin and Waterford, are now complemented by small scale excavations and studies of sites such as: Cherrywood, Co Dublin, a rural settlement; Beginish, Co Kerry, a maritime haven; Truska, Co Galway, a possible farmstead; longphort-settlements at Dunrally, Co Laois and Athlunkard, Co Limerick; and significant Viking settlements at Woodstown, Co Waterford and at Annagassan, Co Louth. This thesis sets out to examine patterns of Viking settlement in ninth-century Ireland; an interdisciplinary approach is adopted that attempts to combine evidence from both the extant primary sources and the archaeological evidence. It is argued that the Vikings had bases in Ireland even in the earliest period of activity 795-836, traditionally characterised as the ‘hit-and-run’ phase. The downturn discernible in Viking-related annalistic entries occurs at a time when there are increased references to Viking settlements in the Irish annals; therefore, it is proposed that this change in the ninth-century recorded pattern of Viking activity reflects their increased involvement in trade and settlement. To support this hypothesis, the evidence for settlement, settlement patterns and trade at Dublin and Waterford in the ninth century is then discussed.

Interaction strengths and net effects in food web models

Understanding how dynamic ecological communities respond to anthropogenic drivers of change such as habitat loss and fragmentation, climate change and the introduction of alien species requires that there is a theoretical framework able to predict community dynamics. At present there is a lack of empirical data that can be used to inform and test predictive models, which means that much of our knowledge regarding the response of ecological communities to perturbations is obtained from theoretical analyses and simulations. This thesis is composed of two strands of research: an empirical experiment conducted to inform the scaling of intraspecific and interspecific interaction strengths in a three species food chain and a series of theoretical analyses on the changes to equilibrium biomass abundances following press perturbations. The empirical experiment is a consequence of the difficulties faced when parameterising the intraspecific interaction strengths in a Lotka-Volterra model. A modification of the dynamic index is used alongside the original dynamic index to estimate intraspecific interactions and interspecific interaction strengths in a three species food. The theoretical analyses focused on the effect of press perturbations to focal species on the equilibrium biomass densities of all species in the community; these perturbations allow for the quantification of a species total net effect. It was found that there is a strong and consistent positive relationship between a species body size and its total net effect for a set of 97 synthetic food webs and also for the Ythan Estuary and Tuesday Lake food webs (empirically described food webs). It is shown that ecological constraints (due to allometric scaling) on the magnitude of entries in the community matrix cause the patterns observed in the inverse community matrix and thus explain the relationship between a species body mass and its total net effect in a community.

Quantifying data quality for clinical trials using electronic data capture.

BACKGROUND: Historically, only partial assessments of data quality have been performed in clinical trials, for which the most common method of measuring database error rates has been to compare the case report form (CRF) to database entries and count discrepancies. Importantly, errors arising from medical record abstraction and transcription are rarely evaluated as part of such quality assessments. Electronic Data Capture (EDC) technology has had a further impact, as paper CRFs typically leveraged for quality measurement are not used in EDC processes. METHODS AND PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: The National Institute on Drug Abuse Treatment Clinical Trials Network has developed, implemented, and evaluated methodology for holistically assessing data quality on EDC trials. We characterize the average source-to-database error rate (14.3 errors per 10,000 fields) for the first year of use of the new evaluation method. This error rate was significantly lower than the average of published error rates for source-to-database audits, and was similar to CRF-to-database error rates reported in the published literature. We attribute this largely to an absence of medical record abstraction on the trials we examined, and to an outpatient setting characterized by less acute patient conditions. CONCLUSIONS: Historically, medical record abstraction is the most significant source of error by an order of magnitude, and should be measured and managed during the course of clinical trials. Source-to-database error rates are highly dependent on the amount of structured data collection in the clinical setting and on the complexity of the medical record, dependencies that should be considered when developing data quality benchmarks.

The Cliché as Critique and Complaint

The cliché is a peripheral term in our critical vocabulary. Reviewers, critics, and editors speak of clichés, but dictionaries of critical terms rarely provide entries on the word. This paper asks whether pointing out clichés represents a form of critique or whether it is just quibbling, and how we draw the line between scrutiny and pedantry.