Algorithms and Architecture for Real-time Recommendations at News UK

Recommendation systems are recognised as being hugely important in industry, and the area is now well understood. At News UK, there is a requirement to be able to quickly generate recommendations for users on news items as they are published. However, little has been published about systems that can generate recommendations in response to changes in recommendable items and user behaviour in a very short space of time. In this paper we describe a new algorithm for updating collaborative filtering models incrementally, and demonstrate its effectiveness on clickstream data from The Times. We also describe the architecture that allows recommendations to be generated on the fly, and how we have made each component scalable. The system is currently being used in production at News UK.Comment: Accepted for presentation at AI-2017 Thirty-seventh SGAI International Conference on Artificial Intelligence. Cambridge, England 12-14 December 201

Pollination services in the UK: how important are honeybees?

Pollination services are known to provide substantial benefits to human populations and agriculture in particular. Although many species are known to provide pollination services, honeybees (Apis mellifera) are often assumed to provide the majority of these services to agriculture. Using data from a range of secondary sources, this study assesses the importance of insect pollinated crops at regional and national scales and investigates the capacity of honeybees to provide optimal pollination services to UK agriculture. The findings indicate that insect pollinated crops have become increasingly important in UK crop agriculture and, as of 2007, accounted for 20% of UK cropland and 19% of total farmgate crop value. Analysis of honeybee hive numbers indicates that current UK populations are only capable of supplying 34% of pollination service demands even under favourable assumptions, falling from 70% in 1984. In spite of this decline, insect pollinated crop yields have risen by an average of 54% since 1984, casting doubt on long held beliefs that honeybees provide the majority of pollination services. Future land use and crop production patterns may further increase the role of pollination services to UK agriculture, highlighting the importance of measures aimed at maintaining both wild and managed species

Open Layered Networks: the Growing Importance of Market Coordination

Based upon the Internet perspective, this paper will attempt to clarify and revise several ideas about the separation between infrastructure facilities and service offerings in digital communications networks. The key notions that we will focus on in this paper are: i) the bearer service as a technology-independent interface which exports blind network functionality to applications development; ii) the organizational consequences associated with the emergence of a sustainable market of bearer service: a clear movement at the level of industrial structure from traditional hierarchies to more market coordination

Vulnerabilities in first-generation RFID-enabled credit cards

Credit cards ; Radio frequency identification systems

The production of metal-organic frameworks by microfluidic synthesis

Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOFs), particularly Zirconium based UiO type MOFs, have been developed for a wide variety of applications in the past, such as gas storage and supporting catalysts. However, they are limited by traditionally being synthesised in long batch reactions, leading to high energy cost and potential batch to batch variations. Microfluidic synthesis can address these issues, as continuous flow reactors with increased mass/heat transfer, leading to reduced synthesis times and greater reaction control. Microfluidic synthesis has been used in this thesis to synthesise, modify, and investigate MOFs/UiO-67 in varying ways, presented in a papers format. The first paper was published in MethodsX and describes the microfluidic synthesis of UiO-67 using a coiled flow inverter reactor. The second paper, published in the Journal of Porous Materials, describes how the crystal phase of UiO-67 can be controlled using water in the microfluidic reactor, resulting in a new product, HCP/FCC-UiO-67-Benzoic acid, being formed for the first time. The third paper, which has been submitted to the Journal of Porous Materials, describes the attempted microfluidic synthesis of Pd(0)-UiO-67-BPYDC and the several insights made on the complications present within this attempted synthesis. The final paper, which was published in the Journal of Chemical Information and Modelling, describes the formation of a machine learning model to predict the gravimetric uptake of several gasses (CO2, CH4 and H2) in MOF materials at varying pressures and temperatures. This model was fitted using experimental literature uptake data and descriptors that could be acquired without pre done modelling, to form an accurate, flexible and easy to use model for a new researcher. This project was a success, with novel research into MOF materials through a lens of microfluidics being produced and resulting in several publications. Specific results and conclusions have been formed in each publication alongside more overarching deductions on the effects of microfluidic synthesis on MOF materials. The insights formed within this thesis may be used in future research into MOF materials and the use of microfluidics for their synthesis

Inferring transcription factor complexes from ChIP-seq data

Chromatin immunoprecipitation followed by high-throughput sequencing (ChIP-seq) allows researchers to determine the genome-wide binding locations of individual transcription factors (TFs) at high resolution. This information can be interrogated to study various aspects of TF behaviour, including the mechanisms that control TF binding. Physical interaction between TFs comprises one important aspect of TF binding in eukaryotes, mediating tissue-specific gene expression. We have developed an algorithm, spaced motif analysis (SpaMo), which is able to infer physical interactions between the given TF and TFs bound at neighbouring sites at the DNA interface. The algorithm predicts TF interactions in half of the ChIP-seq data sets we test, with the majority of these predictions supported by direct evidence from the literature or evidence of homodimerization. High resolution motif spacing information obtained by this method can facilitate an improved understanding of individual TF complex structures. SpaMo can assist researchers in extracting maximum information relating to binding mechanisms from their TF ChIP-seq data. SpaMo is available for download and interactive use as part of the MEME Suite (http://meme.nbcr.net)

Prospectus, April 1, 1981

REAGAN SHOT: BUT IS IN GOOD CONDITION AFTER EMERGENCY SURGERY MONDAY; Bennett\u27s job more than writing releases; Week in Review: World, Nation; Letter to the Editor: What does it mean???; Suddenly Single; Widowhood to be presented; Classifieds; Applications for SARP available; House Democrats propose amendment to prohibit oil companies; PC Health Fair next Wednesday; Contest winner to announced in next issue; Miss USA has great plans for herself; Streakers Bare All At U of I; Happiness is in a dip of ice cream; WPCD Top 30; It\u27s a bird--It\u27s a plane--WHO IS IT?; What\u27s the word this spring? Soft; Purse Thieves--9, Purse Owners--0; Don\u27t panic! Vinegar is easy substitute; Applications are being accepted; Power plants causing increasing pollution; Stepparenting is subject of Dr Lentz\u27 presentation to PACT; Big changes in grants proposed...; Clampett appears at PC; ...Bills proposed involving these grants; Flashback of our past: SG Raps Prospectus; Wheelchair Basketball Game Thursday!; Former parkland baseballers successful; Cobras open CICL season with 4-game split with LL; Benchwarner: Cubs and Cardinals are unexpectable.https://spark.parkland.edu/prospectus_1981/1022/thumbnail.jp

Lucerne guidelines for Western Australia principles for integrating a perennial pasture into broadacre dryland farming systems

Lucerne, often regarded as the queen of forages, has been used in agriculture for centuries. In Western Australia, however, its potential has never been fully realised despite its well-documented ability to dewater soils and reduce groundwater recharge. Over the years adoption has been limited by a range of factors including pests and diseases, soil acidity, grazing management and economics. During the last decade research has addressed these issues, paving the way for much greater impact at the farm and catchment level.https://researchlibrary.agric.wa.gov.au/bulletins/1204/thumbnail.jp

Sculpting molecular structures from bilayer graphene and other materials

We demonstrate a technique for creating unique forms of pure sp(2)-bonded carbon and unprecedented heteromolecules. These new structures, which we refer to as sculpturenes, are formed by sculpting selected shapes from bilayer graphene, heterobilayers, or multilayered materials and allowing the shapes to spontaneously reconstruct. The simplest sculpturene is topologically equivalent to a torus, with dimensions comparable to those of fullerenes. The topology of these new molecular structures is stable against atomic-scale defects. We demonstrate that sculpturenes can form the basic building blocks of hollow, multiconnected structures, with potential applications to nanofluidics and nanoelectronics