On the Power of Standard Information for Tractability for L2- Approximation in the Randomized Setting

We study the approximation of multivariate functions from a separable Hilbert space in the randomized setting with the error measured in the weighted L2 norm. We consider algorithms that use standard information Λstd consisting of function values or general linear information Λall consisting of arbitrary linear functionals. We investigate the equivalences of various notions of algebraic and exponential tractability in the randomized setting for Λstd and Λall for the normalized or absolute error criterion. For the normalized error criterion, we show that the power of Λstd is the same as that of Λall for all notions of exponential tractability and some notions of algebraic tractability without any condition. For the absolute error criterion, we show that the power of Λstd is the same as that of Λall for all notions of algebraic and exponential tractability without any condition. Specifically, we solve Open Problems 98, 101, 102 and almost solve Open Problem 100 as posed by E.Novak and H.Wo´zniakowski in the book: Tractability of Multivariate Problems, Volume III: Standard Information for Operators, EMS Tracts in Mathematics, Zürich, 2012.

Changes in consumers’ awareness and interest in cosmetic products during the pandemic

This research investigates the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on consumers’ perspectives of beauty and individual cosmetic products. Since the first confirmed case of COVID-19 was announced on December 31st, 2019, the search volumes of Google News have been updated and information on confirmed cases of the disease has been collected. This study used Python 3.7, NodeXL 1.0.1, and Smart PLS 3.0 to analyze consumer awareness of cosmetic products during the pandemic. The results reveal that consumers’ perspectives of beauty are impacted by a pandemic. Global consumers perceive skincare as an important aspect during the pandemic, while the importance of makeup fell after the outbreak. The awareness of skincare and makeup products has changed. The spread of the pandemic (SOP) has a positive impact on skincare products, but a negative impact on makeup products, except for eye makeup products, which was positive. Finally, the SOP was not significant in terms of consumers’ interest in masks. Fifth, interest in masks showed a positive relationship with interest in skincare products, such as cleansing products, while a negative relationship was observed with interest in makeup products. Overall, this study concludes that pandemics certainly have an impact on global consumers’ perspectives. As a pandemic spread, interest in skincare products increases, while interest in makeup products decreases. This study has academic significance in that it investigates the effects of consumption of cosmetic products during the stay-at-home rules. It can be used as standard information for setting marketing strategies in pandemic-like situations in the future.

Saturation, acceleration and information pathologies: the conditions that influence the emergence of information literacy safeguarding practice in COVID-19-environments

PurposeThe purpose of this second study into information literacy practice during the COVID-19 pandemic is to identify the conditions that influence the emergence of information literacy as a safeguarding practice.Design/methodology/approachThe qualitative research design comprised one to one in-depth interviews conducted virtually during the UK's second and third lockdown phase between November 2020 and February 2021. Data were coded and analysed by the researchers using constant comparative techniques.FindingsContinual exposure to information creates the “noisy” conditions that lead to saturation and the potential for “information pathologies” to act as a form of resistance. Participants alter their information practices by actively avoiding and resisting formal and informal sources of information. These reactive activities have implications for standard information literacy empowerment discourses.Research limitations/implicationsThe paper is limited to the UK context.Practical implicationsFindings will be useful for librarians and researchers who are interested in the theorisation of information literacy as well as public health and information professionals tasked with designing long-term health promotion strategies.Social implicationsThis paper contributes to our understandings of the role that information literacy practices play within ongoing and long-term crises.Originality/valueThis paper develops research into the role of information literacy practice in times of crises and extends understanding related to the concept of empowerment, which forms a central idea within information literacy discourse.

Square transposition: an approach to the transposition process in block cipher

The transposition process is needed in cryptography to create a diffusion effect on data encryption standard (DES) and advanced encryption standard (AES) algorithms as standard information security algorithms by the National Institute of Standards and Technology. The problem with DES and AES algorithms is that their transposition index values form patterns and do not form random values. This condition will certainly make it easier for a cryptanalyst to look for a relationship between ciphertexts because some processes are predictable. This research designs a transposition algorithm called square transposition. Each process uses square 8 × 8 as a place to insert and retrieve 64-bits. The determination of the pairing of the input scheme and the retrieval scheme that have unequal flow is an important factor in producing a good transposition. The square transposition can generate random and non-pattern indices so that transposition can be done better than DES and AES.

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.

Improving preoperative breast reconstruction consultations: a qualitative study on the impact of personalised audio-recordings

Background To investigate the value of audio-recordings in aiding patient understanding and recall of preoperative breast reconstruction information. Methods This was a prospective cohort study. Participants were randomly allocated into either a recording group who were offered the opportunity to record their breast reconstruction explanation of surgery, or a standard information package group who received standard care. The value of having an audio-recording was assessed by semi-structured interviews and analysis of recurring themes. Results Between 21/2/19 and 19/3/20, 32 women attending consultations for breast reconstruction consented to participate in the study, 17 were randomly assigned to the recording group and 15 the standard information package group. Twenty-eight of the 32 participants completed qualitative interviews. All participants agreed that audio-recordings were a beneficial resource which allowed them to have a better understanding of the concepts discussed. Commonly reported themes included the ability to listen to the recording multiple times to refresh memory, as well as usefulness in helping to inform other family members. Participants also reported increased levels of trust in their clinician for allowing the audio-recordings. Very few participants raised any medico-legal implications of the recordings, their focus was more on the potential of the audio-recordings to alleviate the overwhelming nature of a pre-operative breast reconstruction consultation. Conclusions There was a positive response from participants to the use of audio-recordings in the setting of breast reconstruction consultations. These types of recordings could potentially be used in other complex appointments where detailed information is discussed, with similar success.

Evaluation of different machine learning approaches and input text representations for multilingual classification of tweets for disease surveillance in the social web

Twitter and social media as a whole have great potential as a source of disease surveillance data however the general messiness of tweets presents several challenges for standard information extraction methods. Most deployed systems employ approaches that rely on simple keyword matching and do not distinguish between relevant and irrelevant keyword mentions making them susceptible to false positives as a result of the fact that keyword volume can be influenced by several social phenomena that may be unrelated to disease occurrence. Furthermore, most solutions are intended for a single language and those meant for multilingual scenarios do not incorporate semantic context. In this paper we experimentally examine different approaches for classifying text for epidemiological surveillance on the social web in addition we offer a systematic comparison of the impact of different input representations on performance. Specifically we compare continuous representations against one-hot encoding for word-based, class-based (ontology-based) and subword units in the form of byte pair encodings. We also go on to establish the desirable performance characteristics for multi-lingual semantic filtering approaches and offer an in-depth discussion of the implications for end-to-end surveillance.

Survey of Parents' Awareness of How to Immediately Deal with Dental Injuries in Zanjan

Introduction: Proper exposure and management of removed tooth from the alveolar sac are essential to ensure its long-term prognosis. This study aimed to assess the parents’ knowledge about damaged and avulsed teeth and their immediate treatment in children aged 6-12 years in Zanjan. Collected data using a standard information questionnaire. Materials & Methods: In a cross-sectional study in 1397 from all areas of Zanjan city in a systematic circular method 19 primary schools for girls were selected. A 23-item questionnaire was distributed among all grades one through six to assess parents’ awareness of how to deal with dental trauma in these schools. Chi-square statistical test was used to analyze the data. The significance level was considered 0.05. Results: 44.6% of parents had previous exposure to dental injuries, and 71.9% of them declared the removed tooth from the alveolar sac to be unsustainable. More than 50% go to the dentist if they notice looseness and bleeding with contusions, broken crowns and dislodged teeth. 92.9% of parents expressed their interest in training for more information on how to deal with dental injuries. Conclusion: Parents with the diploma and university education had more information about trauma and avulsion. Most parents were unaware of the proper intermediate environment for the location of the tooth, and most parents declared the tooth removed from the alveolar sac unsuitable.

Using Response Times to Infer Others’ Private Information: An Application to Information Cascades

The standard assumption in social learning environments is that agents learn from others through choice outcomes. We argue that in many settings, agents can also infer information from others’ response times (RT), which can increase efficiency. To investigate this, we conduct a standard information cascade experiment and find that RTs do contain information that is not revealed by choice outcomes alone. When RTs are observable, subjects extract this private information and are more likely to break from incorrect cascades. Our results suggest that in environments where RTs are publicly available, the information structure may be richer than previously thought. This paper was accepted by Yan Chen, decision analysis.