124 research outputs found
Neural Collaborative Filtering
In recent years, deep neural networks have yielded immense success on speech
recognition, computer vision and natural language processing. However, the
exploration of deep neural networks on recommender systems has received
relatively less scrutiny. In this work, we strive to develop techniques based
on neural networks to tackle the key problem in recommendation -- collaborative
filtering -- on the basis of implicit feedback. Although some recent work has
employed deep learning for recommendation, they primarily used it to model
auxiliary information, such as textual descriptions of items and acoustic
features of musics. When it comes to model the key factor in collaborative
filtering -- the interaction between user and item features, they still
resorted to matrix factorization and applied an inner product on the latent
features of users and items. By replacing the inner product with a neural
architecture that can learn an arbitrary function from data, we present a
general framework named NCF, short for Neural network-based Collaborative
Filtering. NCF is generic and can express and generalize matrix factorization
under its framework. To supercharge NCF modelling with non-linearities, we
propose to leverage a multi-layer perceptron to learn the user-item interaction
function. Extensive experiments on two real-world datasets show significant
improvements of our proposed NCF framework over the state-of-the-art methods.
Empirical evidence shows that using deeper layers of neural networks offers
better recommendation performance.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figure
A retrospective study of macropod progressive periodontal disease ("lumpy jaw") in captive macropods across Australia and Europe: using data from the past to inform future macropod management
Macropod Progressive Periodontal Disease (MPPD) is a well-recognised disease that causes high morbidity and mortality in captive macropods worldwide. Epidemiological data on MMPD are limited, although multiple risk factors associated with a captive environment appear to contribute to the development of clinical disease. The identification of risk factors associated with MPPD would assist with the development of preventive management strategies, potentially reducing mortality. Veterinary and husbandry records from eight institutions across Australia and Europe were analysed in a retrospective cohort study (1995 to 2016), examining risk factors for the development of MPPD. A review of records for 2759 macropods found incidence rates (IR) and risk of infection differed between geographic regions and individual institutions. The risk of developing MPPD increased with age, particularly for macropods >10 years (Australia Incidence Rate Ratio (IRR) 7.63, p < 0.001; Europe IRR 7.38, p < 0.001). Prognosis was typically poor, with 62.5% mortality reported for Australian and European regions combined. Practical recommendations to reduce disease risk have been developed, which will assist zoos in providing optimal long-term health management for captive macropods and, subsequently, have a positive impact on both the welfare and conservation of macropods housed in zoos globally
Asteroseismic stellar modelling: systematics from the treatment of the initial helium abundance
Despite the fact that the initial helium abundance is an essential ingredient
in modelling solar-type stars, its abundance in these stars remains a poorly
constrained observational property. This is because the effective temperature
in these stars is not high enough to allow helium ionization, not allowing any
conclusions on its abundance when spectroscopic techniques are employed. To
this end, stellar modellers resort to estimating the initial helium abundance
via a semi-empirical helium-to-heavy element ratio, anchored to the the
standard Big Bang nucleosynthesis value. Depending on the choice of solar
composition used in stellar model computations, the helium-to-heavy element
ratio, () is found to vary between 1 and 3. In this study,
we use the Kepler "LEGACY" stellar sample, for which precise seismic data is
available, and explore the systematic uncertainties on the inferred stellar
parameters (radius, mass, and age) arising from adopting different values of
, specifically, 1.4 and 2.0. The stellar grid constructed
with a higher value yields lower radius and mass
estimates. We found systematic uncertainties of 1.1 per cent, 2.6 per cent, and
13.1 per cent on radius, mass, and ages, respectively.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures, proceeding submited for the conference "Dynamics
of the Sun & Stars - Honoring the Life and Work of Michael J. Thompson
New light on the Gaia DR2 parallax zero-point: Influence of the asteroseismic approach, in and beyond the Kepler field
The importance of studying the Gaia DR2 parallax zero-point by external means was underlined by the articles that accompanied the release, and initiated by several works making use of Cepheids, eclipsing binaries, and asteroseismology. Despite a very efficient elimination of basic-angle variations, a small fluctuation remains and shows up as a small offset in the Gaia DR2 parallaxes. By combining astrometric, asteroseismic, spectroscopic, and photometric constraints, we undertake a new analysis of the Gaia parallax offset for nearly 3000 red-giant branch (RGB) and 2200 red clump (RC) stars observed by Kepler, as well as about 500 and 700 red giants (all either in the RGB or RC phase) selected by the K2 Galactic Archaeology Program in campaigns 3 and 6. Engaging in a thorough comparison of the astrometric and asteroseismic parallaxes, we are able to highlight the influence of the asteroseismic method, and measure parallax offsets in the Kepler field that are compatible with independent estimates from literature and open clusters. Moreover, adding the K2 fields to our investigation allows us to retrieve a clear illustration of the positional dependence of the zero-point, in general agreement with the information provided by quasars. Lastly, we initiate a two-step methodology to make progress in the simultaneous calibration of the asteroseismic scaling relations and of the Gaia DR2 parallax offset, which will greatly benefit from the gain in precision with the third data release of Gaia.This work has made use of data from the European Space
Agency (ESA) mission Gaia (https://www.cosmos.esa.int/gaia), processed by the Gaia Data Processing and Analysis Consortium (DPAC, https:
//www.cosmos.esa.int/web/gaia/dpac/consortium). Funding for the
DPAC has been provided by national institutions, in particular the institutions
participating in the Gaia Multilateral Agreement. SK, AM, BM, GRD, BMR,
DB, and LG are grateful to the International Space Science Institute (ISSI) for
support provided to the asteroSTEP ISSI International Team. AM, WJC, GRD,
BMR, YPE, and TSHN acknowledge the support of the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC). AM acknowledges support from the ERC
Consolidator Grant funding scheme (project ASTEROCHRONOMETRY, G.A.
n. 772293). LC is the recipient of the ARC Future Fellowship FT160100402.
TSR acknowledges financial support from Premiale 2015 MITiC (PI B.
Garilli). This work was supported by FCT/MCTES through national funds and
by FEDER – Fundo Europeu de Desenvolvimento Regional through COMPETE2020 – Programa Operacional Competitividade e Internacionalização by
grants: UID/FIS/04434/2019; PTDC/FIS-AST/30389/2017 & POCI-01-0145-
FEDER-030389. DB is supported in the form of a work contract funded by
national funds through Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT)
Discovering temporal regularities in retail customers’ shopping behavior
In this paper we investigate the regularities characterizing the temporal purchasing behavior of the customers of a retail market chain. Most of the literature studying purchasing behavior focuses on what customers buy while giving few importance to the temporal dimension. As a consequence, the state of the art does not allow capturing which are the temporal purchasing patterns of each customers. These patterns should describe the customerâ\u80\u99s temporal habits highlighting when she typically makes a purchase in correlation with information about the amount of expenditure, number of purchased items and other similar aggregates. This knowledge could be exploited for different scopes: set temporal discounts for making the purchases of customers more regular with respect the time, set personalized discounts in the day and time window preferred by the customer, provide recommendations for shopping time schedule, etc. To this aim, we introduce a framework for extracting from personal retail data a temporal purchasing profile able to summarize whether and when a customer makes her distinctive purchases. The individual profile describes a set of regular and characterizing shopping behavioral patterns, and the sequences in which these patterns take place. We show how to compare different customers by providing a collective perspective to their individual profiles, and how to group the customers with respect to these comparable profiles. By analyzing real datasets containing millions of shopping sessions we found that there is a limited number of patterns summarizing the temporal purchasing behavior of all the customers, and that they are sequentially followed in a finite number of ways. Moreover, we recognized regular customers characterized by a small number of temporal purchasing behaviors, and changing customers characterized by various types of temporal purchasing behaviors. Finally, we discuss on how the profiles can be exploited both by customers to enable personalized services, and by the retail market chain for providing tailored discounts based on temporal purchasing regularity
Inverse analysis of asteroseismic data: a review
Asteroseismology has emerged as the best way to characterize the global and
internal properties of nearby stars. Often, this characterization is achieved
by fitting stellar evolution models to asteroseismic observations. The star
under investigation is then assumed to have the properties of the best-fitting
model, such as its age. However, the models do not fit the observations
perfectly. This is due to incorrect or missing physics in stellar evolution
calculations, resulting in predicted stellar structures that are discrepant
with reality. Through an inverse analysis of the asteroseismic data, it is
possible to go further than fitting stellar models, and instead infer details
about the actual internal structure of the star at some locations in its
interior. Comparing theoretical and observed stellar structures then enables
the determination of the locations where the stellar models have discrepant
structure, and illuminates a path for improvements to our understanding of
stellar evolution. In this invited review, we describe the methods of
asteroseismic inversions, and outline the progress that is being made towards
measuring the interiors of stars.Comment: 12 pages, 1 figure. Invited review, Dynamics of the Sun and Star
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