54 research outputs found
Masking and Labeling Problems in Social Network Data Management
No full textOnline social networks (OSN) contain data about persons or objects including private information and user generated labels. We study two problems on managing OSN data. Data is often shared with trusted parties. Still, data has to be adapted so that it does not trivially reveal identities of the users and their interactions. We formulate this problem of “masking ” data by deliberately introducing uncertainty and trading it off with the utility of data for useful analyses. We present methods for masking static and dynamic OSN data and show high accuracy in experiments for answering a variety of queries over the masked data. User-generated labels have many uncertainties due to missing values, synonyms, and so on. The problem of Label Set Enhancing captures the task of reducing these uncertainties, by inferring missing values, replacing labels for larger concept labels and so on. We present first known, efficient, iterative solutions to this problem where the labels form a hierarchy. Our evaluations show significant benefits in using a hierarchy for reducing uncertainty in label sets in OSN data
Using dynamic time warping to improve the classical music production workflow
No full textThis electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.Thesis: M. Eng., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2019Cataloged from student-submitted PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (pages 71-73).The current music production workflow, comprising recording, editing, mixing, and mastering music, requires a great deal of manual work for the sound engineer. This thesis aims to bring some recent advances in Music Information Retrieval (MIR) techniques to music production tools, with the goal of streamlining the current process followed by sound engineers. We explored all areas in the music production workflow (with a focus on classical music) that could benet from digital signal processing (DSP) and MIR-based tools, built and iterated on these tools, and transformed the tools into products that are beneficial and easy to use. We collaborated with the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) sound engineers to gather requirements for this work, which led to the identification of our two tools: an automatic marking transfer (AMT) system and an audio search (AS) system. We then collaborated with other potential users for both AMT and AS tools, including sound engineers from radio stations in the Boston area. This enabled us to identify additional workflows and finalize requirements for these tools. Based on these, we created successful standalone applications for AMT and AS.by Smriti Pramanick.M. Eng.M.Eng. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Scienc
Economic impact of price controls and regulations: case of GM cotton in India
No full textBt cotton has been extremely popular with Indian farmers ever since unapproved varieties were introduced in Gujarat in 2001 by Navbharat Seed Company Ltd. Cotton hybrids with approved bt traits were released by Monsanto through the joint venture MMB (Mahyco Monsanto Biotech) in 2002. MMB had the first mover advantage because they had the only approved bt genes for commercialization in India thereby making considerable profits. This attracted a large number of firms to license the technology from MMB. However, in 2006 the government of Andhra Pradesh (AP) filed a petition with the Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Commission (MRTPC) seeking to reduce prices. The Commission agreed but MMB appealed to the Supreme Court. Meanwhile, the AP government negotiated with the seed companies to set the prices of hybrid bt cotton seed at 29/packet that MMB had been selling it at. Soon other state governments adopted the same pricing policy.
This paper primarily attempts to perform a cost-benefit analysis using the economic surplus model to address the immediate and longer term impact of price controls on farmers. A number of seed companies, especially the multinationals are concerned that this governmental intervention could inhibit innovation, which would mean that farmers would lose out on economic surplus in the future. We attempt to measure these losses. Our analysis finds that the current benefits to the farmers outweigh the losses of benefits due to non availability of some of the most easily measurable new technologies.M.S.Includes bibliographical references (p. 43-45)
Purification of Protease from Pseudomonas thermaerum GW1 Isolated from Poultry Waste Site
No full textLC-MS investigated as a tool to study the metabolomic characteristics of cereal fermentation
No full textFermentation of cereals to obtain desired food products is an age-old technique. It is often used to enhance the acceptability and shelf-life of the product. Fermentation can be viewed as a process where microbes bring about metabolic changes in the overall metabolic constitution of the product. In recent years, food metabolomics is emerging as a field to decipher these metabolomic changes to develop a more sustainable and robust food industry. With the advent of advanced analytical platforms, it is now possible to analyse cereal fermentation in-depth in a high-throughput manner. One such tool is LC-MS which has now become an indispensable tool for such food-based studies. The dynamic coverage of metabolites along with high qualitative and quantitative reproducibility makes it a method of choice in many metabolomic studies. The present study undertakes an exhaustive survey of the scholarly literature from 2005 to 2023 focusing on key studies that employ the LC-MS platform to study fermentation, particularly in cereals. The findings strongly advocate for the versatility and utility of LC-MS especially when complemented with chemometric approach in unravelling the intricacies of cereal fermentation. By leveraging these insights, the food industry can further enhance the development of functional foods and foster innovation
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