“GMO” maize and public health – A case of Schumpeterian policy vs. free market in the EU

EU lawmakers have long refused the cultivation of “Genetically Modified Organisms”. An example of this struggle is the revision of the accepted level of contaminants in maize: rather than admitting that Bt maize is safer than “non-GMO” varieties, and therefore European farmers should be allowed not only to import it, but also to produce it, politicians have raised the threshold of the poisonous fumonisins that may be legally present in food and feed. This decision is an example of a “Schumpeterian” approach to policy, where public choices are not inspired by a science-based mindset, but are substantially dictated by a calculus of consent; economic/commercial protectionism has also been considered as a motivation. While scholars must continue to explain that every policy decision should have a basis in sound science, no way out of the “GMO” imbroglio seems to be foreseeable, as long as politicians stick to the Schumpeterian iron law

Voting, fast and slow: Ballot order and likeability effects in the Five Star Movement's 2012 online primary election

We document ballot order effects in the 2012 Parlamentarie, the online primary election held by the Italian Five-star Movement to select the candidate Members of Parliament in the 2013 Italian general elections. We show that candidates appearing towards the top of the screen systematically ranked higher in preferences. This effect holds controlling for candidates’ socio-demographic features. We also show that the number of competing candidates moderates ballot order effects, with a stronger penalty for candidates appearing at the bottom of the page in more crowded competitions. Finally, we show the influence of candidates’ likeability. Our results confirm for the first time that ballot order effects and likeability effects, already documented in traditional paper-based elections, are also found in online set-ups. We conclude by highlighting how the online medium, if properly leveraged, has the potential to reduce the influence of such biases

A defective ABC transporter of the MRP family, responsible for the bean lpa1 mutation, affects the regulation of the phytic acid pathway, reduces seed myo-inositol and alters ABA sensitivity

We previously identified the lpa1 (low phytic acid) 280-10 line that carries a mutation conferring a 90% reduction in phytic acid (InsP6) content. In contrast to other lpa mutants, lpa1(280-10) does not display negative pleiotropic effects. In the present paper, we have identified the mutated gene and analysed its impact on the phytic acid pathway. Here, we mapped the lpa1(280-10) mutation by bulk analysis on a segregating F2 population, an then, by comparison with the soybean genome, we identified and sequenced a candidate gene. The InsP6 pathway was analysed by gene expression and quantification of metabolites. The mutated Pvmrp1(280-10) cosegregates with the lpa1(280-10) mutation, and the expression level of several genes of the InsP6 pathway are reduced in the lpa1(280-10) mutant as well as the inositol and raffinosaccharide content. PvMrp2, a very similar paralogue of PvMrp1 was also mapped and sequenced. The lpa1 mutation in beans is likely the result of a defective Mrp1 gene (orthologous to the lpa genes AtMRP5 and ZmMRP4), while its Mrp2 paralog is not able to complement the mutant phenotype in the seed. This mutation appears to down-regulate the InsP6 pathway at the transcriptional level, as well as altering inositol-related metabolism and affecting ABA sensitivity

Prediction is very hard, especially about conversion. Predicting user purchases from clickstream data in fashion e-commerce

Knowing if a user is a buyer vs window shopper solely based on clickstream data is of crucial importance for ecommerce platforms seeking to implement real-time accurate NBA (next best action) policies. However, due to the low frequency of conversion events and the noisiness of browsing data, classifying user sessions is very challenging. In this paper, we address the clickstream classification problem in the fashion industry and present three major contributions to the burgeoning field of AI in fashion: first, we collected, normalized and prepared a novel dataset of live shopping sessions from a major European e-commerce fashion website; second, we use the dataset to test in a controlled environment strong baselines and SOTA models from the literature; finally, we propose a new discriminative neural model that outperforms neural architectures recently proposed at Rakuten labs

An innovative 8 channels system for time-resolved diffuse optical tomography based on SiPMs

We present the design of a novel 8 channels system for time resolved optical tomography based on Silicon Photomultipliers (SiPMs), therefore knocking down cost and complexity of this technique and paving the way to a widespread diffusion. We validated the system performances on phantoms

SIGIR 2021 E-Commerce Workshop Data Challenge

The 2021 SIGIR workshop on eCommerce is hosting the Coveo Data Challenge for "In-session prediction for purchase intent and recommendations". The challenge addresses the growing need for reliable predictions within the boundaries of a shopping session, as customer intentions can be different depending on the occasion. The need for efficient procedures for personalization is even clearer if we consider the e-commerce landscape more broadly: outside of giant digital retailers, the constraints of the problem are stricter, due to smaller user bases and the realization that most users are not frequently returning customers. We release a new session-based dataset including more than 30M fine-grained browsing events (product detail, add, purchase), enriched by linguistic behavior (queries made by shoppers, with items clicked and items not clicked after the query) and catalog meta-data (images, text, pricing information). On this dataset, we ask participants to showcase innovative solutions for two open problems: a recommendation task (where a model is shown some events at the start of a session, and it is asked to predict future product interactions); an intent prediction task, where a model is shown a session containing an add-to-cart event, and it is asked to predict whether the item will be bought before the end of the session.Comment: SIGIR eCOM 2021 Data Challeng

Mapping surface features of an Alpine glacier through multispectral and thermal drone surveys

Glacier surfaces are highly heterogeneous mixtures of ice, snow, light-absorbing impurities and debris material. The spatial and temporal variability of these components affects ice surface characteristics and strongly influences glacier energy and mass balance. Remote sensing offers a unique opportunity to characterize glacier optical and thermal properties, enabling a better understanding of different processes occurring at the glacial surface. In this study, we evaluate the potential of optical and thermal data collected from field and drone platforms to map the abundances of predominant glacier surfaces (i.e., snow, clean ice, melting ice, dark ice, cryoconite, dusty snow and debris cover) on the Zebrù glacier in the Italian Alps. The drone surveys were conducted on the ablation zone of the glacier on 29 and 30 July 2020, corresponding to the middle of the ablation season. We identified very high heterogeneity of surface types dominated by melting ice (30% of the investigated area), dark ice (24%), clean ice (19%) and debris cover (17%). The surface temperature of debris cover was inversely related to debris-cover thickness. This relation is influenced by the petrology of debris cover, suggesting the importance of lithology when considering the role of debris over glaciers. Multispectral and thermal drone surveys can thus provide accurate high-resolution maps of different snow and ice types and their temperature, which are critical elements to better understand the glacier’s energy budget and melt rates

Oxygen consumption is depressed in patients with lactic acidosis due to biguanide intoxication

INTRODUCTION: Lactic acidosis can develop during biguanide (metformin and phenformin) intoxication, possibly as a consequence of mitochondrial dysfunction. To verify this hypothesis, we investigated whether body oxygen consumption (VO2), that primarily depends on mitochondrial respiration, is depressed in patients with biguanide intoxication. METHODS: Multicentre retrospective analysis of data collected from 24 patients with lactic acidosis (pH 6.93 +/- 0.20; lactate 18 +/- 6 mM at hospital admission) due to metformin (n = 23) or phenformin (n = 1) intoxication. In 11 patients, VO2 was computed as the product of simultaneously recorded arterio-venous difference in O2 content [C(a-v)O2] and cardiac index (CI). In 13 additional cases, C(a-v)O2, but not CI, was available. RESULTS: On day 1, VO2 was markedly depressed (67 +/- 28 ml/min/m2) despite a normal CI (3.4 +/- 1.2 L/min/m2). C(a-v)O2 was abnormally low in both patients either with (2.0 +/- 1.0 ml O2/100 ml) or without (2.5 +/- 1.1 ml O2/100 ml) CI (and VO2) monitoring. Clearance of the accumulated drug was associated with the resolution of lactic acidosis and a parallel increase in VO2 (P < 0.001) and C(a-v)O2 (P < 0.05). Plasma lactate and VO2 were inversely correlated (R2 0.43; P < 0.001, n = 32). CONCLUSIONS: VO2 is abnormally low in patients with lactic acidosis due to biguanide intoxication. This finding is in line with the hypothesis of inhibited mitochondrial respiration and consequent hyperlactatemia

The CFT dual of AdS gravity with torsion

We consider the Mielke-Baekler model of three-dimensional AdS gravity with torsion, which has gravitational and translational Chern-Simons terms in addition to the usual Einstein-Hilbert action with cosmological constant. It is shown that the topological nature of the model leads to a finite Fefferman-Graham expansion. We derive the holographic stress tensor and the associated Ward identities and show that, due to the asymmetry of the left- and right-moving central charges, a Lorentz anomaly appears in the dual conformal field theory. Both the consistent and the covariant Weyl and Lorentz anomaly are determined, and the Wess-Zumino consistency conditions for the former are verified. Moreover we consider the most general solution with flat boundary geometry, which describes left-and right-moving gravitational waves on AdS_3 with torsion, and shew that in this case the holographic energy-momentum tensor is given by the wave profiles. The anomalous transformation laws of the wave profiles under diffeomorphisms preserving the asymptotic form of the bulk solution yield the central charges of the dual CFT and confirm the results that appeared earlier on in the literature. We finally comment on some points concerning the microstate counting for the Riemann-Cartan black hole.Comment: 17 pages, uses JHEP3.cls. References added, minor errors correcte