Automatic vs Manual Provenance Abstractions: Mind the Gap

In recent years the need to simplify or to hide sensitive information in provenance has given way to research on provenance abstraction. In the context of scientific workflows, existing research provides techniques to semi automatically create abstractions of a given workflow description, which is in turn used as filters over the workflow's provenance traces. An alternative approach that is commonly adopted by scientists is to build workflows with abstractions embedded into the workflow's design, such as using sub-workflows. This paper reports on the comparison of manual versus semi-automated approaches in a context where result abstractions are used to filter report-worthy results of computational scientific analyses. Specifically; we take a real-world workflow containing user-created design abstractions and compare these with abstractions created by ZOOM UserViews and Workflow Summaries systems. Our comparison shows that semi-automatic and manual approaches largely overlap from a process perspective, meanwhile, there is a dramatic mismatch in terms of data artefacts retained in an abstracted account of derivation. We discuss reasons and suggest future research directions.Comment: Preprint accepted to the 2016 workshop on the Theory and Applications of Provenance, TAPP 201

A Low-Complexity Graph-Based LMMSE Receiver Designed for Colored Noise Induced by FTN-Signaling

We propose a low complexity graph-based linear minimum mean square error (LMMSE) equalizer which considers both the intersymbol interference (ISI) and the effect of non-white noise inherent in Faster-than-Nyquist (FTN) signaling. In order to incorporate the statistics of noise signal into the factor graph over which the LMMSE algorithm is implemented, we suggest a method that models it as an autoregressive (AR) process. Furthermore, we develop a new mechanism for exchange of information between the proposed equalizer and the channel decoder through turbo iterations. Based on these improvements, we show that the proposed low complexity receiver structure performs close to the optimal decoder operating in ISI-free ideal scenario without FTN signaling through simulations.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figures, IEEE Wireless Communications and Networking Conference 2014, Istanbul, Turke

Consumer protection laws and regulations in deposit and loan services : a cross-country analysis with a new data set

Consumer protection and financial literacy can contribute to improved efficiency, transparency, competition, and access in retail financial markets by reducing information asymmetries and power imbalances between providers and users of financial services. Financial consumer protection has gained significance in policy debates, especially since the onset of the financial crisis in 2008. This paper presents the results of a survey on consumer protection regulations in 142 countries. The findings indicate that although consumer protection legislation is in place in the majority of countries, these do not necessarily address the issues specific to financial services. There is some evidence that enforcement powers and monitoring capacity are limited in many countries, obstructing the effective implementation of the existing regulations. Furthermore, independent third party dispute resolution mechanisms are not widespread. The paper also compiles comprehensive information on laws and regulations relevant for consumer protection and discusses a number of challenges related to empirical analyses of financial consumer protection to enable cross-country comparison.Financial Literacy,Access to Finance,Emerging Markets,Debt Markets,Bankruptcy and Resolution of Financial Distress