A Framework for Auditable Synthetic Data Generation

Synthetic data has gained significant momentum thanks to sophisticated machine learning tools that enable the synthesis of high-dimensional datasets. However, many generation techniques do not give the data controller control over what statistical patterns are captured, leading to concerns over privacy protection. While synthetic records are not linked to a particular real-world individual, they can reveal information about users indirectly which may be unacceptable for data owners. There is thus a need to empirically verify the privacy of synthetic data -- a particularly challenging task in high-dimensional data. In this paper we present a general framework for synthetic data generation that gives data controllers full control over which statistical properties the synthetic data ought to preserve, what exact information loss is acceptable, and how to quantify it. The benefits of the approach are that (1) one can generate synthetic data that results in high utility for a given task, while (2) empirically validating that only statistics considered safe by the data curator are used to generate the data. We thus show the potential for synthetic data to be an effective means of releasing confidential data safely, while retaining useful information for analysts

Hygrothermal performance of bio-based insulation materials

Bio-based insulation materials have the potential to make a significant contribution to the reduction in the global warming potential of the construction industry world-wide. They contribute in two ways. First they provide the opportunity to reduce the embodied energy in the fabric of buildings. They do this because they are renewable and recyclable. Plant-based insulation materials also sequester carbon dioxide through photosynthesis, sealing up atmospheric carbon dioxide for the life-time of the building. Second they are able to reduce the in-use energy consumption of buildings in more ways than by simply reducing energy transmission. They have the ability to buffer heat and moisture, which is most evident in dynamic situations. This paper discusses the hygrothermal performance of bio-based insulation materials, examining the hygrothermal effects associated with their vapour activity. The incremental performance offered by these materials is not allowed for in building regulations, nor is it readily accounted for in many commercially available building physics models. The paper discusses the reasons for this and identifies the need for the transient performance of bio-based insulation materials to be taken into account, because this will better reflect their actual contribution to the energy performance of a building. </jats:p

The ethical challenge of Touraine's 'living together'

In Can We Live Together? Alain Touraine combines a consummate analysis of crucial social tensions in contemporary societies with a strong normative appeal for a new emancipatory 'Subject' capable of overcoming the twin threats of atomisation or authoritarianism. He calls for a move from 'politics to ethics' and then from ethics back to politics to enable the new Subject to make a reality out of the goals of democracy and solidarity. However, he has little to say about the nature of such an ethics. This article argues that this lacuna could usefully be filled by adopting a form of radical humanism found in the work of Erich Fromm. It defies convention in the social sciences by operating from an explicit view of the 'is' and the 'ought' of common human nature, specifying reason, love and productive work as the qualities to be realised if we are to move closer to human solidarity. Although there remain significant philosophical and political differences between the two positions, particularly on the role to be played by 'the nation', their juxtaposition opens new lines of inquiry in the field of cosmopolitan ethics

Re-examination of salt and water retention in congestive heart failure : Significance of renal filtration fraction

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/32481/1/0000566.pd

A phase 1, first-in-child, multicenter study to evaluate the safety and efficacy of the oncolytic herpes virus talimogene laherparepvec in pediatric patients with advanced solid tumors

BACKGROUND The survival rates for pediatric patients with relapsed and refractory tumors are poor. Successful treatment strategies are currently lacking and there remains an unmet need for novel therapies for these patients. We report here the results of a phase 1 study of talimogene laherparepvec (T-VEC) and explore the safety of this oncolytic immunotherapy for the treatment of pediatric patients with advanced non-central nervous system tumors. METHODS T-VEC was delivered by intralesional injection at 10$^{6}$ plaque-forming units (PFU)/ml on the first day, followed by 10$^{8}$ PFU/ml on the first day of week 4 and every 2 weeks thereafter. The primary objective was to evaluate the safety and tolerability as assessed by the incidence of dose-limiting toxicities (DLTs). Secondary objectives included efficacy indicated by response and survival per modified immune-related response criteria simulating the Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors (irRC-RECIST). RESULTS Fifteen patients were enrolled into two cohorts based on age: cohort A1 (n = 13) 12 to ≤21 years old (soft-tissue sarcoma, n = 7; bone sarcoma, n = 3; neuroblastoma, n = 1; nasopharyngeal carcinoma, n = 1; and melanoma, n = 1) and cohort B1 (n = 2) 2 to <12 years old (melanoma, n = 2). Overall, patients received treatment for a median (range) of 5.1 (0.1, 39.4) weeks. No DLTs were observed during the evaluation period. All patients experienced at least one treatment-emergent adverse event (TEAE), and 53.3% of patients reported grade ≥3 TEAEs. Overall, 86.7% of patients reported treatment-related TEAEs. No complete or partial responses were observed, and three patients (20%) overall exhibited stable disease as the best response. CONCLUSIONS T-VEC was tolerable as assessed by the observation of no DLTs. The safety data were consistent with the patients' underlying cancer and the known safety profile of T-VEC from studies in the adult population. No objective responses were observed. TRIAL REGISTRATION ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT02756845. https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02756845

We are playing football: Seeing the game on Panapompom, PNG

© Royal Anthropological Institute 2011.This article is about football, played by men from Panapompom in Papua New Guinea's Milne Bay province. Football is problematic not because it is culturally appropriated or modified, but rather because Panapompom desired accurately to reproduce the appearance of the international game. As such it questions conventional frames of reference. An interpretation in terms of culture obscures Panapompom interests in football: its globally recognizable character. It mattered profoundly that Panapompom people played football. Yet framing football as a universal sporting institution is equally inadequate, erasing the specific political project that was embedded in the game. Displacing the interpretative framings, I argue that football itself provides a context in which Panapompom people can judge themselves in relation to others, who are defined in terms of colonial and postcolonial discourses on ‘development’. Taking football as a contextualizing image, Panapompom people appear in distinctive ways in the field of relationships that it defines.ESR

End of organised atheism. The genealogy of the law on freedom of conscience and its conceptual effects in Russia

In the current climate of the perceived alliance between the Russian Orthodox Church and the state, atheist activists in Moscow share a sense of juridical marginality that they seek to mitigate through claims to equal rights between believers and atheists under the Russian law on freedom of conscience. In their demands for their constitutional rights, including the right to political critique, atheist activists come across as figures of dissent at risk of the state's persecution. Their experiences constitute a remarkable (and unexamined in anthropology) reversal of political and ideological primacy of state-sponsored atheism during the Soviet days. To illuminate the legal context of the atheists’ current predicament, the article traces an alternative genealogy of the Russian law on freedom of conscience from the inception of the Soviet state through the law's post-Soviet reforms. The article shows that the legal reforms have paved the way for practical changes to the privileged legal status of organized atheism and brought about implicit conceptual effects that sideline the Soviet meaning of freedom of conscience as freedom from religion and obscure historical references to conscience as an atheist tenet of Soviet ethics