Analytic Methods for Optimizing Realtime Crowdsourcing

Realtime crowdsourcing research has demonstrated that it is possible to recruit paid crowds within seconds by managing a small, fast-reacting worker pool. Realtime crowds enable crowd-powered systems that respond at interactive speeds: for example, cameras, robots and instant opinion polls. So far, these techniques have mainly been proof-of-concept prototypes: research has not yet attempted to understand how they might work at large scale or optimize their cost/performance trade-offs. In this paper, we use queueing theory to analyze the retainer model for realtime crowdsourcing, in particular its expected wait time and cost to requesters. We provide an algorithm that allows requesters to minimize their cost subject to performance requirements. We then propose and analyze three techniques to improve performance: push notifications, shared retainer pools, and precruitment, which involves recalling retainer workers before a task actually arrives. An experimental validation finds that precruited workers begin a task 500 milliseconds after it is posted, delivering results below the one-second cognitive threshold for an end-user to stay in flow.Comment: Presented at Collective Intelligence conference, 201

An Insulin-Like Modular Basis for the Evolution of Glucose Transporters (GLUT) with Implications for Diabetes

Glucose transporters (GLUT) are twelve-transmembrane spanning proteins that contain two pores capable of transporting glucose and dehydroascorbate in and out of cells. The mechanism by which transport is effected is unknown. An evolutionarily-based hypothesis for the mechanism of glucose transport is presented here based on reports that insulin has multiple binding sites for glucose. It is proposed that insulin-like peptides were incorporated as modular elements into transmembrane proteins during evolution, resulting in glucose transporting capacity. Homology searching reveals that all GLUT contain multiple copies of insulin-like regions. These regions map onto a model of GLUT in positions that define the glucose transport cores. This observation provides a mechanism for glucose transport involving the diffusion of glucose from one insulin-like glucose-binding region to another. It also suggests a mechanism by which glucose disregulation may occur in both type 1 and type 2 diabetes: insulin rapidly self-glycates under hyperglycemic conditions. Insulin-like regions of GLUT may also self-glycate rapidly, thereby interfering with transport of glucose into cells and disabling GLUT sensing of blood glucose levels. All aspects of the hypothesis are experimentally testable

Abandoning the Use of Abstract Formulations in Interpreting RLUIPA’s Substantial Burden Provision in Religious Land Use Cases

This Note argues that the circuits’ use of vague formulations in interpreting RLUIPA is overly restrictive and that an alternative multifactor approach—one that considers both the manner in which the state implements its law and the manner in which the church experiences the burden—would provide a more practical, workable paradigm for courts to employ in the future in resolving actual historic preservation and land use disputes. That is, this Note suggests that it is the circuits’ very reliance on talismanic formulations that is problematic because RLUIPA’s substantial burden provision, particularly in the land use context, does not lend itself to the kind of bright-line definitions that the circuits have developed. The solution is not to choose among the circuits’ formulations but to chart a new approach entirely. To clear some underbrush, Part I introduces the structure and text of RLUIPA and outlines the colorful legislative history of the statute. This Part sketches the roughly ten-year prelude to RLUIPA, which commenced with the Supreme Court’s landmark free exercise decision in Employment Division, Department of Human Resources of Oregon v. Smith and climaxed with a constitutional waltz between Congress and the Court. Part II provides an in-depth examination and critique of regnant approaches to interpreting RLUIPA’s substantial burden provision. It argues that the various formulations relied on by the circuits, though derived through different means, are problematic in that they do not provide a workable framework for courts to use in deciding actual disputes. Part III first proposes an alternative multifactor framework that courts can employ to resolve real RLUIPA controversies. It then illustrates the utility of this analytical approach by applying it to the case of the Third Church

The cosmology dependence of weak lensing cluster counts

We present the main results of a numerical study of weak lensing cluster counting. We examine the scaling with cosmology of the projected-density-peak mass function. Our main conclusion is that the projected-peak and the three-dimensional mass functions scale with cosmology in an astonishingly close way. This means that, despite being derived from a two-dimensional field, the weak lensing cluster abundance can be used to constrain cosmology in the same way as the three-dimensional mass function probed by other types of surveys.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures. Accepted for publication in ApJL. Figure 1 modified, unchanged conclusion