Exploiting Group Information for Personalized Recommendation with Graph Neural Networks

Personalized recommendation has become more and more important for users to quickly find relevant items. The key issue of the recommender system is how to model user preferences. Previous work mostly employed user historical data to learn users’ preferences, but faced with the data sparsity problem. The prevalence of online social networks promotes increasing online discussion groups, and users in the same group often have similar interests and preferences. Therefore, it is necessary to integrate group information for personalized recommendation. The existing work on group-information-enhanced recommender systems mainly relies on the item information related to the group, which is not expressive enough to capture the complicated preference dependency relationships between group users and the target user. In this article, we solve the problem with the graph neural networks. Specifically, the relationship between users and items, the item preferences of groups, and the groups that users participate in are constructed as bipartite graphs, respectively, and the user preferences for items are learned end to end through the graph neural network. The experimental results on the Last.fm and Douban Movie datasets show that considering group preferences can improve the recommendation performance and demonstrate the superiority on sparse users compared

Learning from Substitutable and Complementary Relations for Graph-based Sequential Product Recommendation

Sequential product recommendation, aiming at predicting the products that a target user will interact with soon, has become a hotspot topic. Most of the sequential recommendation models focus on learning from users’ interacted product sequences in a purely data-driven manner. However, they largely overlook the knowledgeable substitutable and complementary relations between products. To address this issue, we propose a novel Substitutable and Complementary Graph-based Sequential Product Recommendation model, namely, SCG-SPRe. The innovations of SCG-SPRe lie in its two main modules: (1) The module of interactive graph neural networks jointly encodes the high-order product correlations in the substitutable graph and the complementary graph into two types of relation-specific product representations. (2) The module of kernel-enhanced transformer networks adaptively fuses multiple temporal kernels to characterize the unique temporal patterns between a candidate product to be recommended and any interacted product in a target behavior sequence. Thanks to the seamless integration of the two modules, SCG-SPRe obtains candidate-dependent user representations for different candidate products to compute the corresponding ranking scores. We conduct extensive experiments on three public datasets, demonstrating SCG-SPRe is superior to competitive sequential recommendation baselines and validating the benefits of explicitly modeling the product-product relations.

A GENERIC FUZZY-BASED RECOMMENDATION APPROACH (GFBRA)

Recommender Systems aim to automatically provide users with personalized information in an overloaded search space. To dual with vagueness and imprecision problems in RS, several researches have been proposed fuzzy based approaches. Even though, these works have incorporated experimental evaluation; they were used in different recommendation scenarios which makes it difficult to have a fair comparison between them. Also, some of them performed an items and/or users clustering before generating recommendations. For this reason they need additional information such as item attributes or trust between users which are not always available. In this paper, we propose to use fuzzy set techniques to predict the rating of a target user for each unrated item. It uses the target user's history in addition with rating of similar users which allows to the target user to contribute in the recommendation process. Experimental results on several datasets seem to be promising in term of MAE (Mean Average Error), RMSE (Root Mean Square Error), accuracy, precision, recall and F-measure.

Teaching Material Development of Islamic Education in Multicultural Perspective at Smk Negeri 4 Manado

This study aims to describe the level of validity, practicality and effectiveness of Islamic Education teaching materials in a multicultural perspective. The procedure for developing teaching materials is conducted by adapting Research and Development (R&D) using the Four-D model. The research subjects were Islamic education teachers and 30 students of class XI. Data collection was conducted using interview techniques, questionnaires, and the feasibility assessment sheet, practicality, and effectiveness of the product. The results showed that the teaching material products in the form of books for students as companion books on Islamic Education subjects were in the very valid category. The results of expert tests on Islamic Education teaching material products showed very valid criteria assessment. While the learning tools which include: learning implementation plans, teacher and student observation sheets and learning outcome assessment instruments are in the very valid category. The teaching material products developed meet practical criteria based on the target user test, namely educators on the ability of educators to manage the learning process with a fully implemented category as well as educators' responses to teaching material products are very positive. Teaching material products are effective because of a positive response from students and an increase in learning outcomes after using these teaching material products.

In Pursuit of Visibility: Queer Space Approach to Community Architecture in Jamaica

<p>Public space is a site of contestation where people enact their identities and exercise their citizenship. Often non-conforming individuals and communities are not given this opportunity, existing solely on the fringes of these spaces. Queer, especially Trans-identified, people are members of multi-marginalised groups grappling with the realities of discrimination in Jamaica’s (public) spaces. This thesis will explore queer spaces, specifically, how architecture can be used to create safe spaces for the inclusion of the displaced Trans* youth of Jamaica. While queer space has been explored conceptually in architecture, there is now a pressing need to bring physicality to this corporeal subject. How can the experience of this community be translated into architectural expression? Playing on the theme of visibility, this research aims to develop a design of physical space through the analysis of various visual media, along with other experimental participatory design techniques. With input from members of the community, the architectural intervention will remain relevant to its target user community and grounded in its users’ Jamaican context.</p>

In Pursuit of Visibility: Queer Space Approach to Community Architecture in Jamaica

<p>Public space is a site of contestation where people enact their identities and exercise their citizenship. Often non-conforming individuals and communities are not given this opportunity, existing solely on the fringes of these spaces. Queer, especially Trans-identified, people are members of multi-marginalised groups grappling with the realities of discrimination in Jamaica’s (public) spaces. This thesis will explore queer spaces, specifically, how architecture can be used to create safe spaces for the inclusion of the displaced Trans* youth of Jamaica. While queer space has been explored conceptually in architecture, there is now a pressing need to bring physicality to this corporeal subject. How can the experience of this community be translated into architectural expression? Playing on the theme of visibility, this research aims to develop a design of physical space through the analysis of various visual media, along with other experimental participatory design techniques. With input from members of the community, the architectural intervention will remain relevant to its target user community and grounded in its users’ Jamaican context.</p>

Quality Assessment for National Libraries

National libraries as well as any other progressive institutions have to assess the results of their performance. Depending on the type, functions, structure, areas of activities, organizational and financial methods, any national library can test wide sets of performance indicators consistent with its mission. Those indicators may differ from the indicators being tested by other national libraries. Quite often national libraries can also use additional indicators if financial/sponsoring organizations or target user groups etc. require this.The paper considers the methods and procedures for measuring quantitative indicators of national libraries’ performance according to the new international standard ISO 21248:2019 “Information and documentation: Quality assessment for national libraries”, which is partially based upon the ISO 11620:2008 standard “Information and documentation. Library performance indicators”. The author presents specific examples for calculating indicators using formulas and detailed description of steps for calculation of indicators depending on the library mission and goals. Along with qualitative indicators, the new standard recommends to use qualitative indicators to assess the impact of national libraries not only on their users, but also on society as a whole. In recent years, libraries have developed and probated methods to justify their importance. One of those methods is user surveying by means of special questionnaires made on the basis of ISO 16439:2014 standard “Information and documentation. Methods and procedures for assessing the impact of libraries” and circulated by libraries among their users to educe and differentiate interests of different user groups to provide them with subsequent target service.

Using Smart Speakers in Low-Income Senior Housing to Enhance the Aging in Place Experience: Stakeholder Views

Smart speakers provide a platform that can integrate smart home technology and/or safety devices within the home to enhance quality of life and independent living for older adults. However, few attempts to utilize this technology specifically within low-income senior housing (LISH) residents have been documented. Our purpose was to explore different stakeholder perceptions about the use of smart speakers to support aging in place in older adults living alone in LISH. Smart speakers were deployed in individual LISH apartments, equipped with a voice technology-based aging in place solution for the facility. A qualitative analysis of semi-structured interviews using a constant comparative approach for emerging themes was conducted (n=10: older adult users, n=2: housing staff, n=2: voice technology developers). The three participant groups showed diverging perceptions in terms of benefits, uses, and stakeholder interests. Older adults found smart speakers useful in four main areas: assistance with daily tasks, feeling connected, safety measures, and emotional wellbeing. The two other groups showed a broader interest in the use of the smart speaker device, such as residential management tools and communication channels in addition to its potential use as safety and wellness tools. Older adults experienced significant difficulty setting up desired functions or finding instructions, which restricted utilization of the technology to a limited set of tasks. All stakeholder groups addressed a need for formal training or personalized tech support for older adult users. Findings indicate the importance of developing deployment strategies tailored to the needs and characteristics of the target user group.

Short of Suspension: How Suspension Warnings Can Reduce Hate Speech on Twitter

Debates around the effectiveness of high-profile Twitter account suspensions and similar bans on abusive users across social media platforms abound. Yet we know little about the effectiveness of warning a user about the possibility of suspending their account as opposed to outright suspensions in reducing hate speech. With a pre-registered experiment, we provide causal evidence that a warning message can reduce the use of hateful language on Twitter, at least in the short term. We design our messages based on the literature on deterrence, and test versions that emphasize the legitimacy of the sender, the credibility of the message, and the costliness of being suspended. We find that the act of warning a user of the potential consequences of their behavior can significantly reduce their hateful language for one week. We also find that warning messages that aim to appear legitimate in the eyes of the target user seem to be the most effective. In light of these findings, we consider the policy implications of platforms adopting a more aggressive approach to warning users that their accounts may be suspended as a tool for reducing hateful speech online.

Appraising clinical applicability of studies: mapping and synthesis of current frameworks, and proposal of the FrACAS framework and VICORT checklist

Background Not all research findings are translated to clinical practice. Reasons for lack of applicability are varied, and multiple frameworks and criteria exist to appraise the general applicability of epidemiological and clinical research. In this two-part study, we identify, map, and synthesize frameworks and criteria; we develop a framework to assist clinicians to appraise applicability specifically from a clinical perspective. Methods We conducted a literature search in PubMed and Embase to identify frameworks appraising applicability of study results. Conceptual thematic analysis was used to synthesize frameworks and criteria. We carried out a framework development process integrating contemporary debates in epidemiology, findings from the literature search and synthesis, iterative pilot-testing, and brainstorming and consensus discussions to propose a concise framework to appraise clinical applicability. Results Of the 4622 references retrieved, we identified 26 unique frameworks featuring 21 criteria. Frameworks and criteria varied by scope and level of aggregation of the evidence appraised, target user, and specific area of applicability (internal validity, clinical applicability, external validity, and system applicability). Our proposed Framework Appraising the Clinical Applicability of Studies (FrACAS) classifies studies in three domains (research, practice informing, and practice changing) by examining six criteria sequentially: Validity, Indication-informativeness, Clinical relevance, Originality, Risk-benefit comprehensiveness, and Transposability (VICORT checklist). Conclusions Existing frameworks to applicability vary by scope, target user, and area of applicability. We introduce FrACAS to specifically assess applicability from a clinical perspective. Our framework can be used as a tool for the design, appraisal, and interpretation of epidemiological and clinical studies.