42 research outputs found
Multi-GCN: Graph Convolutional Networks for Multi-View Networks, with Applications to Global Poverty
With the rapid expansion of mobile phone networks in developing countries,
large-scale graph machine learning has gained sudden relevance in the study of
global poverty. Recent applications range from humanitarian response and
poverty estimation to urban planning and epidemic containment. Yet the vast
majority of computational tools and algorithms used in these applications do
not account for the multi-view nature of social networks: people are related in
myriad ways, but most graph learning models treat relations as binary. In this
paper, we develop a graph-based convolutional network for learning on
multi-view networks. We show that this method outperforms state-of-the-art
semi-supervised learning algorithms on three different prediction tasks using
mobile phone datasets from three different developing countries. We also show
that, while designed specifically for use in poverty research, the algorithm
also outperforms existing benchmarks on a broader set of learning tasks on
multi-view networks, including node labelling in citation networks
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Enabling Humanitarian Applications with Targeted Differential Privacy
The proliferation of mobile phones in low- and middle-income countries has suddenly and dramatically increased the extent to which the world’s poorest and most vulnerable populations can be observed and tracked by governments and corporations. Millions of historically “off the grid” individuals are now passively generating digital data; these data, in turn, are being used to make life-altering decisions about those individuals — including whether or not they receive government benefits, and whether they qualify for a consumer loan. This paper develops an approach to implementing algorithmic decisions based on personal data, while also providing formal privacy guarantees to data subjects. The approach adapts differential privacy to applications that require decisions about individuals, and gives decision makers granular control over the level of privacy guaranteed to data subjects. We show that stronger privacy guarantees typically come at some cost, and use data from two real world applications — an anti-poverty program in Togo and a consumer lending platform in Nigeria — to illustrate those costs. Our empirical results quantify the tradeoff between privacy and predictive accuracy, and characterize how different privacy guarantees impact overall program effectiveness. More broadly, our results demonstrate a way for humanitarian programs to responsibly use personal data, and better equip program designers to make informed decisions about data privacy
Manipulation-Proof Machine Learning
An increasing number of decisions are guided by machine learning algorithms.
In many settings, from consumer credit to criminal justice, those decisions are
made by applying an estimator to data on an individual's observed behavior. But
when consequential decisions are encoded in rules, individuals may
strategically alter their behavior to achieve desired outcomes. This paper
develops a new class of estimator that is stable under manipulation, even when
the decision rule is fully transparent. We explicitly model the costs of
manipulating different behaviors, and identify decision rules that are stable
in equilibrium. Through a large field experiment in Kenya, we show that
decision rules estimated with our strategy-robust method outperform those based
on standard supervised learning approaches
Promises and Pitfalls of Mobile Money in Afghanistan: Evidence from a Randomized Control Trial
ABSTRACT Despite substantial interest in the potential for mobile money to positively impact the lives of the poor, little empirical evidence exists to substantiate these claims. In this paper, we present the results of a field experiment in Afghanistan that was designed to increase adoption of mobile money, and determine if such adoption led to measurable changes in the lives of the adopters. The specific intervention we evaluate is a mobile salary payment program, in which a random subset of individuals of a large firm were transitioned into receiving their regular salaries in mobile money rather than in cash. We separately analyze the impact of this transition on both the employer and the individual employees. For the employer, there were immediate and significant cost savings; in a dangerous physical environment, they were able to effectively shift the costs of managing their salary supply chain to the mobile phone operator. For individual employees, however, the results were more ambiguous. Individuals who were transitioned onto mobile salary payments were more likely to use mobile money, and there is evidence that these accounts were used to accumulate small balances that may be indicative of savings. However, we find little consistent evidence that mobile money had an immediate or significant impact on several key indicators of individual wealth or well-being. Taken together, these results suggest that while mobile salary payments may increase the efficiency and transparency of traditional systems, in the short run the benefits may be realized by those making the payments, rather than by those receiving them
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Computational Communication Science: A Methodological Catalyzer for a Maturing Discipline
Mobile Phone Data for Children on the Move: Challenges and Opportunities
Today, 95% of the global population has 2G mobile phone coverage and the
number of individuals who own a mobile phone is at an all time high. Mobile
phones generate rich data on billions of people across different societal
contexts and have in the last decade helped redefine how we do research and
build tools to understand society. As such, mobile phone data has the potential
to revolutionize how we tackle humanitarian problems, such as the many suffered
by refugees all over the world. While promising, mobile phone data and the new
computational approaches bring both opportunities and challenges. Mobile phone
traces contain detailed information regarding people's whereabouts, social
life, and even financial standing. Therefore, developing and adopting
strategies that open data up to the wider humanitarian and international
development community for analysis and research while simultaneously protecting
the privacy of individuals is of paramount importance. Here we outline the
challenging situation of children on the move and actions UNICEF is pushing in
helping displaced children and youth globally, and discuss opportunities where
mobile phone data can be used. We identify three key challenges: data access,
data and algorithmic bias, and operationalization of research, which need to be
addressed if mobile phone data is to be successfully applied in humanitarian
contexts.Comment: 13 pages, book chapte
Global Analysis of Gene Expression: Methods, Interpretation, and Pitfalls
Abstract Over the past 15 years, global analysis of mRNA expression has emerged as a powerful strategy for biological discovery. Using the power of parallel processing, robotics, and computer-based informatics, a number of high-throughput methods have been devised. These include DNA microarrays, serial analysis of gene expression, quantitative RT-PCR, differential-display RT-PCR, and massively parallel signature sequencing. Each of these methods has inherent advantages and disadvantages, often related to expense, technical difficulty, specificity, and reliability. Further, the ability to generate large data sets of gene expression has led to new challenges in bioinformatics. Nonetheless, this technological revolution is transforming disease classification, gene discovery, and our understanding of regulatory gene networks