This Obscure Thing Called Transparency

Transparency is the metaphor of our time. Whether in government or corporate governance, finance, technology, health or the media – it is ubiquitous today, and there is hardly a current debate that does not call for more transparency. But what does this word actually stand for and what are the consequences for the life of individuals? Can knowledge from the arts, and its play of visibility and invisibility, tell us something about the paradoxical logics of transparency and mediation? This Obscure Thing Called Transparency gathers contributions by international experts who critically assess the promises and perils of transparency today.

This Obscure Thing Called Transparency

Transparency is the metaphor of our time. Whether in government or corporate governance, finance, technology, health or the media – it is ubiquitous today, and there is hardly a current debate that does not call for more transparency. But what does this word actually stand for and what are the consequences for the life of individuals? Can knowledge from the arts, and its play of visibility and invisibility, tell us something about the paradoxical logics of transparency and mediation? This Obscure Thing Called Transparency gathers contributions by international experts who critically assess the promises and perils of transparency today.

I Know What You Need: Investigating Document Retrieval Effectiveness with Partial Session Contexts

Reducing user effort in finding relevant information is one of the key objectives of search systems. Existing approaches have been shown to effectively exploit the context from the current search session of users for automatically suggesting queries to reduce their search efforts. However, these approaches do not accomplish the end goal of a search system—that of retrieving a set of potentially relevant documents for the evolving information need during a search session. This article takes the problem of query prediction one step further by investigating the problem of contextual recommendation within a search session. More specifically, given the partial context information of a session in the form of a small number of queries, we investigate how a search system can effectively predict the documents that a user would have been presented with had he continued the search session by submitting subsequent queries. To address the problem, we propose a model of contextual recommendation that seeks to capture the underlying semantics of information need transitions of a current user’s search context. This model leverages information from a number of past interactions of other users with similar interactions from an existing search log. To identify similar interactions, as a novel contribution, we propose an embedding approach that jointly learns representations of both individual query terms and also those of queries (in their entirety) from a search log data by leveraging session-level containment relationships. Our experiments conducted on a large query log, namely the AOL, demonstrate that using a joint embedding of queries and their terms within our proposed framework of document retrieval outperforms a number of text-only and sequence modeling based baselines.

Evaluating energy consumption, indoor air quality, and student productivity

Smart energy conservation research is gaining traction in a variety of industries throughout the world. The current research is projected to cut energy consumption in the construction sector, which has already reached 49% globally and is expected to rise by 2% annually, costing millions of dollars per month. Balancing energy savings with thermal satisfaction is a current difficulty, as most researchers have concentrated on attaining energy savings without reaching the thermal contentment of the occupant, which could pose a health risk to both young and old occupants. To address the problem, we conducted empirical studies with 193 participants in the Northern part of Nigeria, where they were exposed to an indoor temperature of 22°C to determine their thermal environment, choice and comfort votes, viewed and favored control, and overall thermal satisfaction, which will help calculate and define the unused thermal satisfaction thermostat and later.

Canadian Adalimumab Post-Marketing Observational Epidemiological Study Effectiveness in Psoriatic Arthritis (COMPLETE-PsA): 12-Month Results of Comparative Effectiveness of Adalimumab and nbDMARDs

Objective COMPLETE-PsA was an observational study of biologic-naïve Canadian adults with active psoriatic arthritis (PsA) treated with adalimumab or a non-biologic disease-modifying antirheumatic drug (nbDMARDs) regimen, after inadequate response/intolerance to a current nbDMARD treatment regimen. The aim of this analysis was to assess 12-month effectiveness of adalimumab versus nbDMARDs. Methods Patients enrolled between March 2012 and November 2017 were included. The following clinical parameters and patient-reported outcomes were collected/calculated per routine care: DAPSA28, DAS28, ESR, CRP, MDGA, PtGA, pain, HAQ-DI, SF-12, enthesitis, dactylitis, BSA, and time to achieving ACR50, ACR70 and modified MDA (mMDA). Results Two hundred seventy-seven adalimumab-treated and 148 nbDMARD-treated patients were included. At baseline, adalimumab-treated patients were less likely to be employed; had longer morning stiffness; higher DAPSA28, DAS28, MDGA, PtGA, pain, and HAQ-DI; and lower prevalence of dactylitis (all p<0.05). Adalimumab-treated patients showed lower baseline-adjusted DAPSA28 (16.5 vs. 26.6), DAS28 (2.8 vs. 3.9), MDGA (25.3 vs. 37.1), and ESR (10.2 vs. 15.4 mm/hr) after 3 months compared to nbDMARD-treated patients, with observed improvements maintained to month 12. Time to achievement of ACR50, ACR70, and mMDA was significantly (p<0.01) shorter among adalimumab-treated patients, with the likelihood of having dactylitis [OR: 0.4 (0.2–0.6)] and BSA<3% [2.7 (1.5–5.0)] significantly lower and higher, respectively. Switching to another biologic was less likely in adalimumab-treated vs. nbDMARD -treated patients (HR [95% CI]: 0.3 [0.2-0.5]). Conclusion In a real-world Canadian PsA population, adalimumab was more effective than nbDMARDs at reducing disease activity and the severity of skin involvement and demonstrated higher retention.

Sustainable and Printable Nanocellulose-Based Ionogels as Gel Polymer Electrolytes for Supercapacitors

A new gel polymer electrolyte (GPE) based supercapacitor with an ionic conductivity up to 0.32–0.94 mS cm−2 has been synthesized from a mixture of an ionic liquid (IL) with nanocellulose (NC). The new NC-ionogel was prepared by combining the IL 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium dimethyl phosphate (EMIMP) with carboxymethylated cellulose nanofibers (CNFc) at different ratios (CNFc ratio from 1 to 4). The addition of CNFc improved the ionogel properties to become easily printable onto the electrode surface. The new GPE based supercapacitor cell showed good electrochemical performance with specific capacitance of 160 F g−1 and an equivalent series resistance (ESR) of 10.2 Ω cm−2 at a current density of 1 mA cm−2. The accessibility to the full capacitance of the device is demonstrated after the addition of CNFc in EMIMP compared to the pristine EMIMP (99 F g−1 and 14.7 Ω cm−2).

Motivations to reciprocate cooperation and punish defection are calibrated by estimates of how easily others can switch partners

Evolutionary models of dyadic cooperation demonstrate that selection favors different strategies for reciprocity depending on opportunities to choose alternative partners. We propose that selection has favored mechanisms that estimate the extent to which others can switch partners and calibrate motivations to reciprocate and punish accordingly. These estimates should reflect default assumptions about relational mobility: the probability that individuals in one’s social world will have the opportunity to form relationships with new partners. This prior probability can be updated by cues present in the immediate situation one is facing. The resulting estimate of a partner’s outside options should serve as input to motivational systems regulating reciprocity: Higher estimates should down-regulate the use of sanctions to prevent defection by a current partner, and up-regulate efforts to attract better cooperative partners by curating one’s own reputation and monitoring that of others. We tested this hypothesis using a Trust Game with Punishment (TGP), which provides continuous measures of reciprocity, defection, and punishment in response to defection. We measured each participant’s perception of relational mobility in their real-world social ecology and experimentally varied a cue to partner switching. Moreover, the study was conducted in the US (n = 519) and Japan (n = 520): societies that are high versus low in relational mobility. Across conditions and societies, higher perceptions of relational mobility were associated with increased reciprocity and decreased punishment: i.e., those who thought that others have many opportunities to find new partners reciprocated more and punished less. The situational cue to partner switching was detected, but relational mobility in one’s real social world regulated motivations to reciprocate and punish, even in the experimental setting. The current research provides evidence that motivational systems are designed to estimate varying degrees of partner choice in one’s social ecology and regulate reciprocal behaviors accordingly.