A comparative study of russian trolls using several machine learning models on twitter data

Ever since Russian trolls have been brought into light, their interference in the 2016 US Presidential elections has been monitored and studied thoroughly. These Russian trolls have fake accounts registered on several major social media sites to influence public opinions. Our work involves trying to discover patterns in these tweets and classifying them by using different machine learning approaches such as Support Vector Machines, Word2vec and neural network models, and then creating a benchmark to compare all the different models. Two machine learning models are developed for this purpose. The first one is used to classify any given specific tweet as either troll or non-troll tweet. The second model classifies specific tweets as coming from left trolls or right trolls, based on apparent extreme political orientation. Several kinds of statistical analysis on these tweets are performed based on the tweets and their classifications. Further, an analysis of the machine learning algorithms, using several performance criteria, is presented

New Immigrants' Use of Four Social Service Agencies in a Canadian Metropolis

Relatively little is known about immigrants' use of social service agencies that are set up to help them. The purpose of this study is to examine the new immigrant's use of social service agencies in a metropolitan city in Canada. Five hypotheses have been developed in relation to the two basic subsystems under study. The dependent variable is the new immigrant's use of social agencies; and the antecedent variables are derived from the characteristics of immigrants. The hypotheses, which this study tests, were derived from a review of the relevant literature in the field of immigration, the history of social services to new immigrants in Canada, and the present structure of social services to new immigrants to Canada, and are backed by the general characteristics of new immigrants. The study population were immigrants who had come to Toronto less than two years before. Immigrants were divided into (1) those who sought assistance from social service agencies and (b) those who did not. A quota sampling method was used to select immigrants. Fifty immigrants were selected from each of two public social service agencies and fifty from each of two private agencies - agencies that had been set up primarily to provide services to new immigrants. To these 200 cases were added 75 immigrants who had never been to an agency for assistance; they were selected from the membership lists of ten immigrant associations. The author administered the open-ended questionnaire personally in all the 275 interviews with the immigrants. In cases where immigrants could not communicate in even a little English interpreters were used, except where the author himself spoke the immigrant's language. The first 200 immigrants were interviewed at the four different social service agencies; the 75 non-users of agencies were interviewed at their homes. Tabulation of the data shows an equal number of immigrants in the sample who came from the developing countries (53%) and from the industrialized countries (47%). Half of the people in the sample had no relatives or friends in Toronto, while the other half had at least one close relative or friend who was in Toronto before the new immigrant's arrival. Fifty-six per cent had college-level education; the rest less. Sixty-three per cent of them were employed before they immigrated, while 37 per cent were not employed. The following hypotheses were tested by this study: (1) Immigrants who are aware of social agencies in their home countries tend to feel comfortable in using agencies in the new country also. - Supported by the data. (2) When new immigrants make use of the network of available social services, they will use those which are closest to their own cultural and language orientation. - Supported by the data. (3) The new immigrant who has a professional background and/or English language skill uses social services more often than others. - Supported by the data. (4) Relative to immigrants from industrialized countries, immigrants from developing countries use social services less. - Supported by the data. (5) Dependent immigrants (who have relatives in the new country) make use of social service agencies more often than the independent immigrants (who have no relatives in the new country). - The study found, on the contrary, that independent immigrants use social service agencies more than dependent immigrants do. The study findings suggest the importance of finding a method by which the immigrant can be brought to the appropriate service by the shortest, most direct route without a frustrating waste of time, energy and skill. The study recommends setting up access services at neighborhood levels, in order to meet the changing needs of new immigrants in metropolitan Toronto

Auditing as a Signal in Small Business Lending

This paper models the borrowing decision of a small firm seeking a bank loan when it can optionally hire, at a cost, an independent external auditor to convey its risk characteristics to lenders. The analysis shows that a necessary condition for a potential borrower to prefer having an audit to not having an audit is that the borrower’s debt to equity ratio must be above a certain minimum cut-off value. For observed audit cost functions, this cut-off debt-equity ratio is higher for smaller initial size firms. Such firms will forego an audit even if they are of low risk, and potentially face loan denial and higher interest rate. Additionally, the cutoff debt-equity ratio is an increasing function of audit cost. Hence smaller audit costs may allow more high quality small firms to reveal their types to the banks, thus leading to a more partially separating equilibrium. The model suggests a number of interesting empirical questions for further study

Neutral User-defined Identifiers for Computational Resources

Clients of cloud service providers often require that controls be placed on cloud-resource names and attributes such that these cannot be read by employees of the service provider. This disclosure describes techniques that enable users to define descriptive, recognizable, and memorable identifiers that prevent deciphering of the significance of the object underlying an identifier. Such user-defined identifiers, termed as ‘neutral’ or ‘innocuous,’ are similar to secure IDs, and can be used to label sensitive resources to prevent unauthorized individuals from guessing the nature of the data underlying the identifier. Neutral, user-defined identifiers are created by having the identifiers conform to a schema that prevents an easy deciphering of the object underlying the identifier, while still enabling the identifier to be easily recognizable and memorable. An attempt by a user in a secure account to create a resource with an identifier meaningful enough to compromise security is rejected

FACTORS INFLUENCING COMPLIANCE TO THERAPEUTIC REGIMEN AMONG PATIENTS WITH HYPERTENSION

Objectives: The objectives of the study were to identify the level of compliance to therapeutic regimen, assess the factors promoting and interfering compliance, and to find the association between level of compliance and factors influencing it in patients with hypertension in a Tertiary Care Hospital, Kochi, with a view to develop an information booklet.Methods: Nonprobability convenience sampling technique was used to collect data from 150 individuals attending outpatient departments. Data on compliance were assessed through interview using standardized Hill And Bone High Blood Pressure Compliance. Scale and factors promoting and interfering compliance were assessed using self-developed semi-structured questionnaire.Results: Only 55 (36.7%) had good compliance, while 52 (34.7%) had average and 43 (28.7%) had poor compliance to anti-hypertensive therapeutic regimen. The major factors promoting compliance were found as patient-prescriber relationship 146 (97.3%), family support 133 (88.7%), motivation 125 (83.3%), communication with healthcare providers 122 (81.3%), health literacy 104 (69.3%), and patient satisfaction 75 (50%). The factors interfering with compliance were lack of self-esteem 136 (90.7%), long-term adherence 129 (86%), misconceptions and erroneous beliefs 122 (81.3%), cost of therapy and income 100 (80%), forgetfulness 107 (71.3%), difficulty in adjustment to dietary change 82 (54.7%), and fear of side effects 70 (50%). A significant association between the level of compliance and factors promoting and interfering with compliance to therapeutic regimen (p<0.01) was noted. Level of compliance with therapeutic regimen was found to be lower in patients with associated comorbidities such as diabetes mellitus (c2=9.52, p<0.01) and coronary artery disease (c2=6.737, p<0.05).Conclusion: The study concludes the significance of developing systems to tack and ensure compliance to therapy among hypertensives with a focus on factors promoting compliance not only from the patient perspective but also from the perspective of family and society

Spectrum and Local Metric Dimension of Andr\'asfai Graphs

The Andr\'asfai graph $And(k)$ for $k\geq 1$ is a circulant and triangle-free graph on 3k-1 vertices. In this paper, we have determined the least eigenvalue, second largest eigenvalue, and the number of distinct eigenvalues of the adjacency spectrum of $And(k)$. Also, we have found out the local metric dimension of $And(k)$

Forces on A Suspended Seawater Intake System Exposed to Waves and Currents

Source: ICHE Conference Archive - https://mdi-de.baw.de/icheArchiv