Enhancing collaborative filtering by user interest expansion via personalized ranking

Recommender systems suggest a few items from many possible choices to the users by understanding their past behaviors. In these systems, the user behaviors are influenced by the hidden interests of the users. Learning to leverage the information about user interests is often critical for making better recommendations. However, existing collaborative-filtering-based recommender systems are usually focused on exploiting the information about the user's interaction with the systems; the information about latent user interests is largely underexplored. To that end, inspired by the topic models, in this paper, we propose a novel collaborative-filtering-based recommender system by user interest expansion via personalized ranking, named iExpand. The goal is to build an item-oriented model-based collaborative-filtering framework. The iExpand method introduces a three-layer, user-interests-item, representation scheme, which leads to more accurate ranking recommendation results with less computation cost and helps the understanding of the interactions among users, items, and user interests. Moreover, iExpand strategically deals with many issues that exist in traditional collaborative-filtering approaches, such as the overspecialization problem and the cold-start problem. Finally, we evaluate iExpand on three benchmark data sets, and experimental results show that iExpand can lead to better ranking performance than state-of-the-art methods with a significant margin.     

A new model of job design: Initial evidence and implications for future research

Clegg and Spencer's (2007) model of job design synthesizes and extends recent conceptions of the job design process by incorporating variables such as knowledge, motivation, and trust into a cyclical and dynamic system. The objective of this study was to examine the sequential organization of variables that comprise the model, as a basis from which to justify further investigations of the model's dynamic properties. Data were collected via questionnaires from 432 participants in two work organizations. Results obtained from structural equation modeling are broadly supportive of the proposed relationships between the variables. Implications of this initial study for future research and practice are discussed. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Biomedical Visual Computing: Case Studies and Challenges

Advances in computational geometric modeling, imaging, and simulation let researchers build and test models of increasing complexity, generating unprecedented amounts of data. As recent research in biomedical applications illustrates, visualization will be critical in making this vast amount of data usable; it's also fundamental to understanding models of complex phenomena.     

Microstructure Evolution and Tensile Properties of a Selectively Laser Melted CoNi-Base Superalloy

Metallurgical and Materials Transactions A - A high $$\gamma ^{\prime }$$ volume fraction CoNi-base superalloy with roughly equal amounts of cobalt and nickel was successfully processed through...     

Effects of a single dose of N-Acetyl-5-methoxytryptamine (Melatonin) and resistance exercise on the growth hormone/IGF-1 axis in young males and females

Melatonin and resistance exercise alone have been shown to increase the levels of growth hormone (GH). The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of ingestion of a single dose of melatonin and heavy resistance exercise on serum GH, somatostatin (SST), and other hormones of the GH/insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1) axis. Physically active males (n = 30) and females (n = 30) were randomly assigned to ingest either a melatonin supplement at 0.5 mg or 5.0 mg, or 1.0 mg of dextrose placebo. After a baseline blood sample, participants ingested the supplement and underwent blood sampling every 15 min for 60 min, at which point they underwent a single bout of resistance exercise with the leg press for 7 sets of 7 reps at 85% 1-RM. After exercise, participants provided additional blood samples every 15 min for a total of 120 min. Serum free GH, SST, IGF-1, IGFBP-1, and IGFBP-3 were determined with ELISA. Data were evaluated as the peak pre- and post-exercise values subtracted from baseline and the delta values analyzed with separate three-way ANOVA (p < 0.05). In males, when compared to placebo, 5.0 mg melatonin caused GH to increase (p = 0.017) and SST to decrease prior to exercise (p = 0.031), whereas both 0.5 and 5.0 mg melatonin were greater than placebo after exercise (p = 0.045) and less than placebo for SST. No significant differences occurred for IGF-1; however, males were shown to have higher levels of IGFBP-1 independent of supplementation (p = 0.004). The 5.0 mg melatonin dose resulted in higher IGFBP-3 in males (p = 0.017). In conclusion, for males 5.0 mg melatonin appears to increase serum GH while concomitantly lowering SST levels; however, when combined with resistance exercise both melatonin doses positively impacts GH levels in a manner not entirely dependent on SST.     

INTEGRATING ALBEMARLE RESOLVE DESULFURIZATION TECHNOLOGY WITH NOVEL PETRO-CANADA PROCESS CONCEPTS IN COMMERCIAL FCCU OPERATIONS

The gasoline and distillate sulfur regulations promulgated throughout the world to reduce tail-pipe emissions are now strongly impacting refinery operations and investments. FCC gasoline is recognized as the principal contributor of sulfur to the gasoline pool and has become the focus for meeting the new specifications. The difficulty in removing sterically hindered sulfur species in the fluid catalytic cracking unit (FCCU) cycle oil drives up the hydrogen and investment costs for treating the distillates. Although installation of pre- and post-treatment facilities is planned by many refiners, other non-capital approaches such as undercutting are being evaluated to meet interim and future sulfur levels. Even when expensive treatment facilities are installed, operating costs can be lowered and the flexibility of the facility increased with improvements in the ability to remove sulfur in the FCCU. In this article, we detail Petro-Canada's experience in integrating Albemarle's RESOLVE sulfur reduction technology with a combination of innovative process ideas. These concepts include heavy naphtha recycle, coprocessing of hydrogen donor feeds, and recycle of light cycle oil (LCO) to a specially designed stripper reactor. Special attention is paid to the interaction of deep FCC feed hydrodesulfurization with the FCC performance. The results demonstrate that very low FCC gasoline sulfur levels can be achieved without significant capital investment through novel approaches to recycle, creative integration of cat feed hydrotreating unit (CFHTU)-FCCU designs and operations, and application of state-of-the-art sulfur reduction additive technology. An added benefit of the RESOLVE 950 sulfur reduction technology is the substantial elimination of sulfur oxides in the FCC flue gas. This has been observed in Petro-Canada operations and numerous other RESOLVE 950 applications around the world.     

Combinatorial chemistry methods for coating development: VI. Correlation of high throughput screening methods with conventional measurement techniques

Combinatorial chemistry has proven to be a valuable tool for the development of new compounds. In the pharmaceutical industry, where combinatorial chemistry began, the approach has been instrumental in the high-speed development of new drugs. Due to the overwhelming success of the combinatorial methodology in the pharmaceutical industry, it has been recently applied to materials development. We have recently developed a combinatorial factory capable of preparing and evaluating on the order of 100 organic clear coatings in a day.

One of the most challenging aspects of the creation of the combinatorial factory was the development of the high throughput screening (HTS) methods for the primary coating properties of interest such as optical clarity, abrasion resistance, adhesion, and weatherability. For each property, an entirely new method was developed that allowed for rapid measurement of these properties on very small samples. This paper describes various aspects of the development of these novel measurement systems including the correlation of the HTS methods with conventional, industry standard measurement methods.     

Platinum-group metal cyclodextrin complexes and their use as command-cure catalysts in silicones

The Command-Cure concept is defined for a curable formulation as one with long work-like at ambient temperature and rapid cure time at elevated temperature. This concept is explored for a curable silicone system, cured via hydrosilylation. CODMCl₂ complexes (COD=1.5-cyclo-octadiene:M=Pt. Pd) are reacted with beta-cyclodextrin (-CD) to make 11 inclusion compounds,M=Pd.2;M=Pt.4. Compounds2 and4 were analyzed by¹H NMR and X-ray powder diffraction. Their catalytic ability was evaluated in a model system as well as a polymeric system that gels upon cure. Surprisingly, the Pd analog2 was a good command-cure catalyst whereas the guest compound CODPdCl₂,1, was not active in the hydrosilylation reaction. The Pt analog,4, was an effective command-cure catalyst while the corresponding guest. CODPtCl₂,3, was too active at low temperature in the hydrosilylation reaction. Additional Pt compounds and one Rh inclusion compound were evaluated as command cure catalysts. These inclusion compounds were: 11 -CD:[CODRhCl]₂,5: 11 -CD:CpPtMe₃,6 (Cp=cyclopentadienyl): 12 -CD:MeCpPtMe₃,7; 12 -CO:CODPtMe₂,8. The effectiveness of4 8 was evaluated in a number of silicone systems.     

Flow distribution in spiral mandrel dies

An analysis of flow of a power law fluid in a spiral mandrel die is presented. The analysis is applied to study the effect of various die design parameters on the flow distribution at the end of the spiral mandrel section. Three variables that have a very strong effect on the flow distribution are the number of grooves, the initial clearance, and the groove helix angle. The distribution is improved by increasing the number of grooves, by using a non-zero initial clearance, and a relatively small helix angle. Two more variables that have a significant effect on the flow distribution are the taper angle and the initial groove depth. The optimum taper angle was found to be between 1 and 3 degrees. The distribution uniformity improves with the initial groove depth, while the pressure drop reduces at the same time.