Noise-tolerant approximate blocking for dynamic real-time entity resolution

Entity resolution is the process of identifying records in one or multiple data sources that represent the same real-world entity. This process needs to deal with noisy data that contain for example wrong pronunciation or spelling errors. Many real world applications require rapid responses for entity queries on dynamic datasets. This brings challenges to existing approaches which are mainly aimed at the batch matching of records in static data. Locality sensitive hashing (LSH) is an approximate blocking approach that hashes objects within a certain distance into the same block with high probability. How to make approximate blocking approaches scalable to large datasets and effective for entity resolution in real-time remains an open question. Targeting this problem, we propose a noise-tolerant approximate blocking approach to index records based on their distance ranges using LSH and sorting trees within large sized hash blocks. Experiments conducted on both synthetic and real-world datasets show the effectiveness of the proposed approach

Understanding the Choice of Chinese Graduate Students' English Learning Strategies in a Canadian Context

This study, entitled “Understanding the Choice of Chinese Graduate Students’ English Learning Strategies in a Canadian Context,” explores the English learning strategies employed by six graduate students from China after their arrival in Canada, and documents and analyses changes in their learning strategies. These Chinese students encountered a change of language context because when in the unilingual Chinese environment they spoke Mandarin and upon their arrival in Canada, they were obligated to use English to communicate with Canadians and other international students. These students employed different English learning strategies in the Canadian context from what they were accustomed to in China. Thus, the researcher’s central objective in this study is to discover and document those changes in learning strategies and to investigate the factors accounting for the changes. In the process, the researcher aims to fill a gap in research exploring the learning strategies of Chinese students in foreign contexts, and create valuable new knowledge to benefit prospective Chinese international students, policy makers at the international universities, and English educators in China. The theoretical framework of this research is the qualitative co-constructivism paradigm along with narrative inquiry. Semi-structured interviews were used as the primary method of collecting data in this study, beginning with individual interviews, and followed by a focus group interview. The data collected through the interviews showed that the six participants’ reliance on the memory and cognitive strategies employed in China were abandoned in favor of utilization of compensation strategies and social strategies after moving to Canada. Furthermore, these participants were more open to making mistakes and taking risks during interactions with others in English. Moreover, these participants made these changes mainly because they desired to use the English-speaking environment in Canada to improve English proficiency. An important finding of my research is that their immersion in the English-speaking environment inspired these participants to employ different English learning strategies that led to significant improvement in their English proficiency

The role of glycogen synthase kinase 3-beta in interferon beta biology.

It has been shown that GSK3 ß plays a critical role in the inflammation response by differentially regulating MyD88-dependent pro- and anti-inflammatory cytokines production in TLR4-stimulated innate immune cells. The work included in this dissertation demonstrates that (I) GSK3ß negatively regulates the production of the TLR4 dependent and MyD88-independent cytokine, IFN ß, by controlling the levels of total c-Jun and thereby modulating the amount of c-Jun /ATF2 complexes, and (II) that IFN ß induces IL-10 in dendritic cells by regulating GSK3 ß activity. Part I: TLR4 stimulation of macrophages has been shown to induce the production of interferon-ß (IFN-ß) via the MyD88-independent pathway. Here we demonstrate that glycogen synthase kinase 3-ß (GSK3-ß) plays a fundamental role in this process. Suppression of GSK3-ß activity by pharmacological inhibition, siRNA-mediated gene silencing, or ectopic expression of a kinase-dead GSK3-ß mutant, augmented IFN-ß production by TLR4-stimulated macrophages. Conversely, ectopic expression of a constitutively active GSK3-ß mutant severely attenuated IFN-ß production. GSK3-ß was found to negatively control the cellular levels of the transcription factor c-Jun and its nuclear association with ATF-2. siRNA-mediated knockdown of c-Jun levels abrogated the ability of GSK3-ß inhibition to augment IFN-ß production by TLR4 stimulated macrophages. Inhibition of GSK3 in vivo resulted in potently augmenting the systemic levels of IFN-ß in mice that were administered LPS. These findings identified a novel regulatory pathway controlling IFN-ß production by TLR4-stimulated innate immune cells. Part II: IFN-ß is known to induce the production of IL-10 by innate immune cells, yet the underlying cellular mechanisms responsible for this effect are unknown. Here, we demonstrate that the constitutively active serine/threonine kinase, GSK3-ß, controls the IFN-ß-mediated production of IL-10 by human dendritic cells. Stimulation of cells with IFN-ß induced the activation of the phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K) pathway and blockade of PI3K activity inhibited the ability of IFN-ß to induce IL-10 production. Assessment of downstream kinases within the PI3K pathway demonstrated that IFN-ß induced the phosphorylation and subsequent suppression of GSK3ß activity. Direct inhibition of GSK3 activity via pharmacological inhibition, siRNA-mediated knockdown of GSK3-ß, or ectopic expression of a kinase dead GSK3-ß potently augmented the levels of IL-10 produced by type I IFN-stimulated dendritic cells, whereas no affect on the production of pro-inflammatory cytokines was observed. In contrast, ectopic expression of a constitutively active GSK3-ß mutant severely attenuated the levels of IL-10 produced by IFN-ß-stimulated cells. Analysis of transcription factors involved in the regulation of IL-10 showed that IFN-ß increased the nuclear levels of phospho-CREB and this effect was dependent upon the ability of IFN-ß to induce PI3K activity and inactivate GSK3-ß. These findings identify the cellular mechanism by which IFN-ß induces IL-10 production by innate immune cells

Semantic-aware blocking for entity resolution

In this paper, we propose a semantic-aware blocking framework for entity resolution (ER). The proposed framework is built using locality-sensitive hashing (LSH) techniques, which efficiently unifies both textual and semantic features into an ER blocking process. In order to understand how similarity metrics may affect the effectiveness of ER blocking, we study the robustness of similarity metrics and their properties in terms of LSH families. Then, we present how the semantic similarity of records can be captured, measured, and integrated with LSH techniques over multiple similarity spaces. In doing so, the proposed framework can support efficient similarity searches on records in both textual and semantic similarity spaces, yielding ER blocking with improved quality. We have evaluated the proposed framework over two real-world data sets, and compared it with the state-of-the-art blocking techniques. Our experimental study shows that the combination of semantic similarity and textual similarity can considerably improve the quality of blocking. Furthermore, due to the probabilistic nature of LSH, this semantic-aware blocking framework enables us to build fast and reliable blocking for performing entity resolution tasks in a large-scale data environment

Cram\'er-Rao Bounds for Near-Field Sensing with Extremely Large-Scale MIMO

Mobile communication networks were designed to mainly support ubiquitous wireless communications, yet they are also expected to achieve radio sensing capabilities in the near future. However, most prior studies on radio sensing usually rely on far-field assumption with uniform plane wave (UPW) models. With the ever-increasing antenna size, together with the growing demands to sense nearby targets, the conventional far-field UPW assumption may become invalid. Therefore, this paper studies near-field radio sensing with extremely large-scale (XL) antenna arrays, where the more general uniform spheric wave (USW) sensing model is considered. Closed-form expressions of the Cram\'er-Rao Bounds (CRBs) for both angle and range estimations are derived for near-field XL-MIMO radar mode and XL-phased array radar mode, respectively. Our results reveal that different from the conventional UPW model where the CRB for angle decreases unboundedly as the number of antennas increases, for XL-MIMO radar-based near-field sensing, the CRB decreases with diminishing return and approaches to a certain limit as the number of antennas increases. Besides, different from the far-field model where the CRB for range is infinity since it has no range estimation capability, that for the near-field case is finite. Furthermore, it is revealed that the commonly used spherical wave model based on second-order Taylor approximation is insufficient for near-field CRB analysis. Extensive simulation results are provided to validate our derived CRBs

Evaluating Regional Emissions Trading Pilot Schemes in China\u27s Two Provinces and Five Cities

With the highest energy use and greenhouse gas emissions around the world, China has begun to adopt comprehensive approaches to control its CO2 emissions and fight climate change. China has committed to reduce its carbon intensity by 40% to 45% compared to 2005 levels by 2020. In 2011, China initiated the development of seven regional carbon trading scheme (ETS) pilots in two provinces (Guangdong and Hubei) and five cities (Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Chongqing and Shenzhen) and has embarked on an ambitious pathway for establishing a national carbon market in 2017. This paper provides an overview and analysis of China’s carbon emission trading market. A background and design characters of China’s seven ETS pilots are introduced. Market performance and compliance are summarized. Linkage existed in China’s carbon emission trading market is identified

中国2省5都市における排出権取引制度パイロット事業の評価

中国はエネルギー使用量最多国であり温室効果ガス排出量最多国でもあるが，国内CO2放出量の管理および気候変動への取り組みに向けて包括的アプローチを採用し始めている。中国では，2020年までに2005年水準比40～45%の炭素強度低減を目指して，積極的取り組みを行っている。2011年には，2省（広東省および湖北省）および5都市（北京，天津，上海，重慶，深川）にて7つの市・省での地域炭素排出権取引制度（ETS）のパイロット事業の展開に着手し，全国的な排出権取引市場の2017年確立を目指して意欲的に計画に乗りだしている。本論文では，中国炭素排出権取引市場の概要および分析を示す。また，中国の7の市・省でのETSパイロット事業の背景および設計上の特徴を紹介する。さらに市場の実績およびコンプライアンスについて要約を与え，中国の炭素排出権取引市場における異なる自治体の排出権取引制度間の連携を特定する

Fluências Verbais e Funcionamento Executivo em Idosos Institucionalizados do Distrito de Coimbra

Contexto: As fluências verbais (FV) podem ser consideradas marcadores do funcionamento executivo (FE) e as investigações mostram que as duas se associam. Faltam estudos com idosos portugueses nestes domínios e dos aspetos que se lhe associam. Objetivos: Descrever as pontuações médias das FV e suas componentes (agrupamento e alternância) e do FE; analisar a relação entre as FV e suas componentes e as variáveis sociodemográficas; 3) analisar a relação entre as FV e suas componentes e as FE, controlando as variáveis sociodemográficas; 4) analisar a relação entre as FV e suas componentes e as variáveis emocionais e 5) explorar o papel preditivo das variáveis com as quais tenhamos encontrado associações significativas para as FV e suas componentes. Metodologia: Utilizando uma amostragem de conveniência, foram inquiridos 256 idosos, com idades compreendidas entre os 65 e os 100 anos, 72,3% eram mulheres: a maioria tinha companheiro (56,5%), baixa escolaridade (67,7%) e profissão essencialmente manual (85,2%). As FV foram avaliadas foneticamente (letras P, M, R) e semânticamente (animais e alimentos); as FV foram avaliadas com a Frontal Assessment Battery (FAB); os sintomas depressivos por meio do Geriatric Anxiety Inventory (GDS); os sintomas ansiosos por meio do Geriatric Anxiety Inventory (GAI) e para avaliar a satisfação com a vida utilizou-se a Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS). Resultado: Os valores médios nas fluências fonémicas totais foram de 4,13 (DP = 2,81) e na semântica de 7,64 (DP = 3,47). As FV e a componente alternância, foram significativamente diferentes nos grupos definidos pela escolaridade e pela profissão. As fluências e a alternância correlacionam-se de forma significativa com o FE. Comprovámos também que a fluência fonémica e semântica apresentam correlações significativamente com o GDS; a fonémica também se correlaciona com o PANAS negativo, a alternância apresenta correlações com todas as variáveis emocionais, exceto com o SWLS. Conclusão: Sendo a avaliação do funcionamento executivo importante para o diagnóstico precoce de do declínio frontal, saber quais as variáveis que se lhe associam é importante para a reabilitação cognitiva./ Background: The verbal fluencies (VF) can be considered markers of executive functioning (EF) and investigations show that the two are associated. There is a gap in Portuguese studies with elderly in these areas and aspects associated. Objectives: To describe the average scores of VF and its components (clustering and switching) and EF; analyze the relationship between the VF and its components and sociodemographic variables, 3) analyze the relationship between the VF and its components and the EF, controlling sociodemographic variables; 4) analyze the relationship between the VF and its components and emotional variables; and 5) explore the role of predictive variables which we found significant associations for VF and its components. Methodology: Using a convenience sample, we questioned 256 elderly people with 65 to 100 years old, 72.3% were women, most had a partner (56.5%), low education (67.7%) and mainly a manual profession (85.2%). The VF were evaluated phonetically (letters P, M, R), and semantically (animals and food); the VF were evaluated with the Frontal Assessment Battery (FAB); depressive symptoms with the Geriatric Anxiety Inventory (GDS), the anxiety symptoms through the Geriatric Anxiety Inventory (GAI), and to assess satisfaction with life we used the Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS). Results: The phonemic means total scores were 7.64 (SD = 3.47). The VF and switching component, were significantly different between the groups defined by education and profession. The fluencies and the switching correlate significantly with the EF. We also confirmed that phonemic and semantic fluencies have significantly correlations with GDS, the phonemic also correlates with the negative PANAS, switching shows correlation with all the emotional variables, except with the SWLS. Conclusion: Since the assessment of executive functioning is important for early diagnosis of frontal decline, knowing which variables associate with executive functioning are important for cognitive rehabilitation