Problematic Events Research Articles

Risk Factors Associated With Bullying in Context of a Territory Exposed to Armed Conflict: A Cross-sectional Study.

School violence and bullying are current and problematic events during adolescence. They are likely to have a marked presence in places highly exposed to armed conflict and violent environments, representing a double public health problem. The study aims to estimate the prevalence of different types of school violence perpetrated and experienced by school adolescents in a community with a history of exposure to armed conflict. Two thousand one hundred eighty-five school adolescents from a municipality in Colombia (males = 54.1%, 14-16 years = 38.6%) participated in the study. Nine educational institutions were included. A systematic random sampling was designed, with a proportional allocation of 35% within each school year from sixth to eleventh grade. The School Coexistence and Circumstances Affecting it-ECECA survey was applied. The prevalence and risks of bully and bullying were estimated. RRa were calculated with the 95% confidence interval adjusted for the other confounding variables. Analyses were constructed from generalized linear models, under the Poisson family and a logarithmic link function. We found a 9.3% of bullying victimization and a 3.5% prevalence of bully. A higher risk of bully was found among males, persons between 10 and 14 years of age, residents of rural or urban dispersed areas, residents of violent neighborhoods, alcohol consumers at school, and victims of aggression in childhood (RRa > 1.0, p-values <.05). The risk of victimization of bullying was higher in students younger than 15 years old, as residents of urban areas, having a history of childhood aggression, suffering abuse by a close person, and as alcohol users at school. This study provides evidence of risk factors for aggression and bullying that have implications for possible prevention measures in multiple social domains, including the individual, the family, and the school environment.

Bosnia and Herzegovina and the establishment of the AVNOY Yugoslavia (1943-1945)

Many states, like Yugoslavia, emerged from conflicting historical currents. A critical examination of the socio-historical multi-directional flows after the chaotic April War of 1941 and the rapid disintegration of monarchical Yugoslavia also encompasses rational knowledge of opposing political and national perspectives dating back to 1918 when it was established, with its problematic events between the two World Wars, their causes, and consequences. The turbulent interwar legacy and the failure to address acute problems within the state influenced the dramatic situation and conflicts in occupied Yugoslavia, leading to polarization, collaboration, and alignments. The state of war is a complex crisis situation. The breakup of Yugoslavia was met with divided opinions on whether (and if so, how and on what basis) to reestablish the state. Each Yugoslavia (the „old” and the „new”) also represented a „new constitutional concept of the relationship between its major nations/political groups” (Dejan Jović). The successful antifascist liberation struggle from 1941 to 1945 was primarily led by the partisan movement, with the dominant role of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (CPY). Vladimir Dedijer wrote that in 1941, a revolutionary war began, and „no one dreamed what its nature would be.” It was a civil war, destroying the idea that this state could be rebuilt in the form it took in 1918. It was a complex war („a war of all against all”) with numerous burdens (national, religious, social, historical). Anti-Yugoslav forces were long more numerous than pro-Yugoslav forces, which eventually triumphed. The speech of Yugoslav antifascism is most symbolically recognizable by the phrase: „Death to fascism – freedom to the people,” and „brotherhood and unity.” By the decision on the federal organization of the state at the Second Session of the Anti-Fascist Council of National Liberation of Yugoslavia (AVNOJ) in Jajce in 1943, the foundational pillar of the previous Yugoslavia—state and national unitarism—was denied. AVNOJ's decisions were of a framework and principle nature. The federation was established, but until the end, the forms of all its units related to their borders and the structure of alliance members („unitary or complex”) were not fully defined. The emergence of the federal Bosnia and Herzegovina was accompanied by harmonization at the top of the CPY and the People's Liberation Movement. The specificity of the „AVNOJ formula” was also reflected in the fact that in 1943, a federal state was formed, and in 1944, the members of the federation (republics). At that time, their provincial antifascist councils were constituted as the highest legislative and executive representative bodies. Many accompanying issues addressed in the decisions in Jajce on the structure of Yugoslavia remained under detailed consideration and clarification by the state-party leadership and AVNOJ in 1945. These issues have continued to be the subject of more detailed review and analysis in the context of the developments in historiography and have been exposed to considerations in a broader context. They have been reinterpreted, their facts have been analyzed, and there have been „in-depth” searches for more complete, multiperspective answers. The development of historiography is „marked by controversy.” Research into the formation of the „new” Yugoslavia should not be conducted with ideological biases and prejudices but should consider new experiences present in the flow of time and in the minds of contemporaries, including historians, as „children of their time.” Relevant historical contents must be separated from „declarative proclamations, pathos statements, ceremonial-protocol stances.” In a simplified understanding of the past, „everything appears simple and linear.” It is necessary to interpret historical phenomena and processes in a multidimensional, layered, and grounded manner.

Data Center Control Application With Fuzzy Logic

Data centers are systems that host devices utilizing recording and communication technologies, which are expected to operate securely and accurately. Consequently, transforming data centers into smart environments for control purposes has become a significant area of focus. In this study, we monitor the cabinet environment within data centers and ensure that the control system reaches the predetermined optimal state values in the event of undesirable situations. Threshold control was implemented for humidity and flame data, while fuzzy logic theory was applied to temperature data. Fuzzy clusters can be adjusted according to the data center's location at the user's request. This approach allows users to input desired optimal and threshold values into the system, which are then evaluated based on the situation. The designed system ensures data center security with minimal personnel involvement. Additionally, all problematic events are recorded in the system, enabling them to be viewed on a webpage and communicated to designated personnel via email. In the conducted study, the fuzzy-controlled temperature value outputs are reported as heating (40%), cooling (53%), and instances where the system does not perform heating or cooling.

Inequality and Capabilities in an Era of Rising Instability

ABSTRACT This paper reviews the trends in income inequality over the last 40 years, and proposes a new explanation for their evolution – that it is hoped will be tested empirically by many studies in the years ahead – to see whether the observed increases in inequality of the last four decades have been caused by an aggravation of its traditional causes (such as land an human capital concentration), or by a widespread increase in instability in five key areas affecting inequality, the Human Development Index and human capabilities. The five areas where a sharp increase in instability has been observed concern: (a) the financial sector; (b) industry 4.0, especially the development of robotics and artificial intelligence; (c) diseases such as ebola, aids and covid; (d) number of conflicts and (e) a growing environmental crisis. A key unanswered question in the above proposed overall explanation is whether these five crises are interconnected and whether there is a primum movens that explains this series of problematic events.

The “Normative Turn” in Sociological Theory: Sociology’s Garden of the Forking Paths

In his “The Garden of the Forking Paths,” Argentinean storyteller Jorge Luis Borges devises an ever-growing maze of diverging and converging paths. While the underlying structure of these paths is the explicit object of his quest, the protagonist becomes increasingly aware that, in fact, his quest mirrors such big questions as the nature of space and time. We use this provocative image to kick off our much more modest quest on the current state of sociological theories of normativity that have become salient in the past three decades. What once seemed to be the specific object of critical theory, as it has constantly shown a special sensibility towards normative issues, is now a pressing theme in various theoretical traditions, and perhaps the very universe in which divergent sociological worlds concatenate with each other. We focus on three traditions that have made clear progress in explicitly analysing what is the normative: Neo-Durkheimianism, Neo-pragmatism, and Critical Realism. We identify their more salient aspects and reflect on their similarities and differences. We conclude that, to all three, normative ideals are congealed in social “facts” that cannot be explained, naturalistically or mechanistically, in causal terms. Equally, they all make apparent the autonomy of normative ideals in the structure of human agency by focusing on different aspects of it. Finally, we reflect on the different temporal dimension on which they focus: spaces of ritualism to past normative commitments (Neo-Durkheimians); spaces of reasons to present problematic events (Neo-pragmatism); and spaces of aspirations to imagined future states (Critical Realism).

Time-resolved dynamic disability adjusted life-years estimation.

The quantification of how healthy the indoor air is, is a complex issue comprising of a large number of contaminants of various sources. The health implication of exposure to each of the contaminant deemed of importance can be expressed using Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALYs). The sum of all DALYs indicates how harmful the indoor air was during the investigated time-frame. This metric was originally developed by the World Bank and the WHO. In 2012, Logue et. al described two methods to estimate the DALYs related to exposure to contaminants in the indoor air based on the yearly mean exposure concentration of a population. The downside of these methods is that, when detailed exposure concentration profiles are available the method results in a loss of information. A novel method was developed to estimate DALYs originating from exposure to indoor pollutants that can be used for time-resolved exposure concentration data without this loss of information: Dynamic DALYs. The advantage of this method is that it can be calculated in real-time and for short or long periods of data. As such it can be used for pin-pointing problematic events in the exposure profile of a person and, as it can be calculated in real-time, makes it a candidate for use in automated optimization problems. The use of Dynamic DALYs is demonstrated for a simulation case-study of an occupied apartment. One continuously ventilated system (Dcont) and one smart ventilation system (Dsmart) are compared. Sources of typically indoor generated Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) were added and the related exposure profile and Dynamic DALY results of the working adult were analyzed. The results showcase detailed and more summative results with regards to health and energy use using the novel indicator. For Dcont and Dsmart the total Dynamic DALYs are 2.2 years and 8.6 years, respectively (population of 100 000, duration of 1year), for the VOCs and sources considered in the analysis.

Research on the Application of Improved Decision Tree Algorithm based on Information Entropy in the Financial Management of Colleges and Universities

In the era of information technology, the work relies on information technology to generate a huge amount of data and information. Among them, the financial data information of universities is growing exponentially, and the manual method of organizing data and extracting key information can no longer meet the requirements of financial data management of universities. Taking the financial management of higher education institutions as an example, it is difficult to grasp the progress of financial budget execution with frequent and complicated daily expenditure and income problems, and then it is difficult to execute correct decisions in the management. The study uses information entropy as the decision basis of decision tree in the financial management of higher education institutions. The higher the value of information entropy generated in financial management, the higher the prediction accuracy of the decision tree. The metric calculation method is introduced to obtain the information entropy as well as the information gain rate to predict the likelihood of problematic events. The study validates the performance of the improved decision tree with a dataset that achieves a maximum accuracy of 95% in the experiment. With the higher prediction accuracy, for the university financial management system, a decision tree for financial warning is established and the link between the current month's financial expenditure and the warning mechanism is analyzed, and finally the two common decision tree algorithms, (Iterative Dichotomiser3，ID3) ID3 and (Classification and regression tree，CART) CART, are compared with the algorithm proposed in the study. The mean square error and the sum of squared error metrics are used to conclude that the algorithm proposed in the study has better performance. By improving the existing decision tree algorithm, the study proposes a decision tree model based on information entropy, which aims to help decision makers to quickly and accurately distill relevant data and make correct decisions in a large amount of information data for more rational financial management.

Cancer in Parkinson’s Disease, a Review of Literature

Abstract Background/Aim: The present study aimed to assess the conclusions of literature articles on the matter of cancer in Parkinson’s disease. Patients and Methods: Studies and articles that contained information on epidemiology, pathophysiological, clinical as well as associations and correlations on the topic of Parkinson’s disease and cancer were incorporated in the research too. Results: The prevalent part of the investigations and studies on the matter of Parkinson’s disease patients’ risk of cancer revealed a decreased lifetime risk in comparisson with non-PD subjects. In the literature, the most prevalent types of cancer among Parkinson’s disease patients were melanoma and other subtypes skin cancer and also, breast cancer. Conclusion: Epigenetic factors, gene–environment interactions, and problematic events can have an impact in the occurance and progression of Parkinson’s disease. Further, the mentioned factors can also determine the developing of cancer. Therefore, a complex and interesting relation between the two diseases is further to be discovered.

Medicolegal Considerations in the Management of Opioid Use Disorder With Buprenorphine in the Correctional Setting.

Buprenorphine-based medication-assisted treatment is a long-term strategy for individuals with opioid use disorder (OUD), a condition observed at disproportionate rates among incarcerated populations. Individuals with OUD are also at higher risk of overdose and death upon community reentry, necessitating effective interventions and care modalities targeted at this high-risk population. As support for buprenorphine in correctional health care increases, so do concerns surrounding personal liability for prescribers. This article seeks to identify problematic events related to prescribing buprenorphine to incarcerated individuals, clarify medicolegal implications, and provide recommendations for safe prescribing and administration within this unique setting.

The Rustenburg Church Conference of 1990: A call to the churches in South Africa after 30 years

The Rustenburg Church Conference took place in 1990, 30 years after the historic Cottesloe Church Consultation of 1960. Both these conferences had a huge influence on the history of the churches in South Africa. Thirty years after the Rustenburg Conference, this article suggests that the current context of South Africa calls for another church conference. To motivate this, the events and the declarations of the Rustenburg Church Conference of 1990 are revisited. Firstly, the article starts with a short overview on the organising of the conference. Secondly, it revisits the important confession of Prof. W.D. Jonker on apartheid and what he said on behalf of the Dutch Reformed Church and the Afrikaner people. It then recalls the lesser known but not less important declaration by the women at the conference before moving on to the main declaration, which was made after the conference. The question that is then asked is what this important historical event means for the current situation in South Africa. It is suggested that the churches in South Africa are called to take the initiative to organise a Lekgotla where churches and other civil organisations can come together to discuss and address the challenges in South Africa. Racism, poverty, education, violence against women and children and corruption are specifically named as issues that should be addressed. The article concludes that given the current situation in South Africa, the churches have arrived at another Kairos moment.Interdisciplinary implications: The research in this article challenges other disciplines in theology, sociology, education and law to join the quest for workable solutions. This should be done with specific reference to research on the current problematic events in South Africa, namely poverty, corruption, racism, violence against women and the needs of children and land issues.

A consistent and high-quality M4+ earthquake catalogue for Turkey 2007–2016 from two independent catalogues

SUMMARYWe describe the process of pairing M4+ earthquakes reported in the routine catalogues of two seismic networks in Turkey and present the resulting products: (i) hypocentre locations and magnitudes and (ii) minimum 1-D velocity model with station delays for the combined station network. The two networks are the Kandilli Observatory (KOERI) and the National Earthquake Department (AFAD) and the data cover the decade 2007–2016. The seismic stations of these two networks spatially overlap within Turkey, and with their average station spacing of about 60 km, they potentially detect all events of magnitude ≥4 independently. We first obtain separate AFAD and KOERI catalogues using a series of joint hypocentre inversions that allow us to detect outliers and problematic events. We establish separate minimum 1-D velocity models and station delays for each catalogue and reduce the average inversion residuals by 75 per cent compared to our first joint hypocentre inversion using the original catalogue event locations. We then pair M4+ events from AFAD (1219) and KOERI (1271) catalogues using a spatiotemporal window and test if the combined observations indeed belong to the same event. In these tests, we compare the hypocentre location residuals of the combined observations to those of the two individual events, apply epicentral distance limits between the individual and the paired events and assess qualitatively a simple probabilistic solution of the events. As a result, we get 1145 paired events. We finally obtain a minimum 1-D velocity model with delays for all seismic stations of AFAD and KOERI combined and relocate the entire set of events. These include all paired events plus M4+ earthquakes reported by AFAD or KOERI that could not be paired (500). The velocity model has a well-defined Moho at a depth of 32 km. The station delays for both networks regionally correspond very well and exhibit some correlation with the regional subsurface temperature field. The well-locatable hypocentres of the new M4+ catalogue have an epicentre uncertainty of 3 km and a depth uncertainty of 4 km. We ascribe to each paired earthquake a magnitude equal to the average of the reported magnitudes by AFAD and KOERI. The new magnitude frequency distribution is similar to those of AFAD and KOERI for M4+ events. Except for events of magnitude larger than 5.5, there is no systematic bias in the magnitudes reported by AFAD and by KOERI, and the standard deviation is 0.3.

Rock’n’Roll and the Discontents of Communism

The literature on rock music in socialism oscillates between presenting it in opposition to the socialist society and being part of it. This article tackles the same question by looking at the moments where rock musicians found themselves at odds with mainstream morality: the scandals. Three cases have been selected for analysis: the media campaign against the band Chromatic in 1970, the publication of Ceauşescu’s Theses of July in 1971, and the continuing stream of defectors, including from the rock music scene. The analysis concludes that both sides tended to avoid open confrontations. Rock musicians were no dissidents; they preferred to make music using the available institutional means. Authorities would rather close an eye to problematic events to keep up appearances. Mid-level authorities served as mediators while working for their own benefit.

RETRACTED: Design of enterprise financial early warning model based on complex embedded system

Various economic crises such as banks, finance and currencies cause high economic costs and hurt society. The development of an early warning system can help prevent economic and commercial crises while systematically predicting unwanted events. Early warning systems are primarily used the detect crises before they cause damage and reduce false alarms that can occur. The purpose of this article is to provide a complex embedded system analysis of early warning systems and their development and use in a variety of environments, especially in the economic and financial fields. Studying the role of early warning systems in predicting and identifying adverse events, especially in the areas of business, finance and economics. This article also contributes to the existing literature by providing a systematic analysis of the development and use of early warning systems to predict major and problematic events in economic and social development. Banking and currency crises are a considerable cost for domestic and international financial systems. They avoid the cost of these critical issues, predicted the crisis surfaced, and led the development of a vibrant research area, that an Early Warning System (EWS). Related to the formation of the crisis, the crisis actually occurs between the variables and warning policymakers about future financial crises and assistance to prevent crises. Use historical data of model explicitly warning system relations. Continued global economic and financial crises exacerbated the urgency establish such a financial catastrophe model.

Formar Profesores de Educación Física para la Justicia Social: Efectos del Aprendizaje-Servicio en Estudiantes Chilenos y Españoles

Este artículo compara los efectos de dos modelos de Aprendizaje-Servicio en Educación Física para la formación de docentes desde una perspectiva de Justicia Social. Con un enfoque cuantitativo no experimental comparativo, la muestra se compone de 90 estudiantes universitarios de dos universidades: chilena y española que han participado en experiencias de Aprendizaje-Servicio en el ámbito de la Educación Física durante los cursos 2018/19 y 2019/20. El tratamiento y análisis estadístico se realizó mediante el programa SPSS v.25, estableciendo el nivel de significación para todos los análisis en P&lt;0,05. Los resultados del estudio muestran diferencias significativas sobre los efectos que produce cada modelo de Aprendizaje-Servicio en la formación inicial desde una perspectiva de Justicia Social, utilizado en cada universidad. Asimismo, los resultados se encuentran en línea con otros estudios que muestran cómo la participación en experiencias de Aprendizaje-Servicio favorece el desarrollo de la reflexibidad crítica sobre la Justifica Social en los futuros docentes de Educación Física; además de otorgarles herramientas para la resolución de eventos problemáticos, a partir de situaciones comunitarias reales.

Impact of a Mindfulness and Self-Care Program on the Psychological Flexibility and Well-Being of Parents with Children Diagnosed with ADHD

Families with children who have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) tend to display unpleasant psychological reactions arising from the pressure exerted by the social and school context, and from experiences linked to difficulties their children have. The present research seeks to examine the effectiveness of a mindfulness program on various dimensions related to well-being and psychological flexibility in parents of children with ADHD. The program is based on protocols of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT), enhanced through the specific inclusion of relational keys, self-compassion exercises and framed within self-care. Participants were 22 fathers and mothers of children and teenagers diagnosed with ADHD. Psychological flexibility (AAQ II), cognitive fusion (CFQ), mindfulness (FFMQ), coping (COPE), and self-compassion (SCS) measures were used. Results showed a significant increase in mindfulness skills, psychological flexibility, self-compassion, and in the use of humor (COPE) as a strategy for coping with personal problematic events. We discuss the results which emerged, the limitations of the study, as well as proposals for improvement.

A CA perspective on kills and deaths in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive video game play

The interest in studying multiplayer video game play has been growing since the mid-2000s. This is in part due to growing interest in games that are part of eSports settings such as Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO), which is one of the main games within eSports, and is the video game that is studied in this paper. Studies of multiplayer video game play from a conversation analysis (CA) participant perspective appear to be scarce, although they are steadily becoming a legitimate topic in ethnomethodological conversation analytical (EMCA) studies. EMCA studies have mostly focused on aspects around the screen, and on how physically present players interact and draw upon resources both on- and off-screen. Some studies have taken the CA perspective further and blur the on-/off-screen dichotomy to better understand on-screen actions as social actions worthy of study. The aim of this article is to describe and gain new understanding of how participants socially organize their game play with a focus on sequentiality and accountability connected to “kills” (K) and “deaths” (D) in CS:GO. The social organizational structure of game play connected to K- and D-events in CS:GO can be described as a set of “rules” that participants orient to. In short, these rules appear to encompass communication efficiency: K-events are more often other-topicalized, and D-events are more often self-topicalized; spectating provides more sequential and temporal space for topicalization; and D-events are oriented to as more problematic events in need of further negotiation. In-and-through describing the social organization connected to K- and D-events from a participant’s perspective, it becomes evident that “killing” and “dying” in-game is not oriented to in a literal fashion. They are oriented to as frequent events that are basic parts of the game’s mechanics and of playing the game to win or lose.

Parameters of the Subjective Pattern of Disease in Rheumatoid Patients

Introduction. A patient’s subjective pattern of disease (SPD) is considered both as a result of his/her adjustment to disease and as an instrument of personal self-regulation in disease. Modern clinical psychology actively investigates this psychological construct, which expands available knowledge obtained in the process of determining psychological factors of the treatment process. The present study appears to be the first that examines rheumatoid patients using a SPD multilevel model, which focuses on illness perceptions and coping with it. Methods. The study sample consisted of 80 patients with rheumatic diseases aged 18–52 years, 50 % of whom were patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and 50 % of whom were patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). The study used the following techniques for assessing the structure and content of various levels of the subjective pattern of disease: (a) the Symptoms Check-List-90-Revised (SCL-90-R), (b) the Brief Inventory of Illness Perceptions, and (c) the technique for psychological assessment of coping with stressful and problematic events. Results. In the comparison groups, significant differences were observed on the scales of illness perceptions (‘illness understanding’, ‘course of illness’, ‘control of illness’, ‘control of treatment’), the scales of coping behavior (‘search for social support’, ‘acceptance of responsibility’), and the scales of ‘somatization’, ‘depression’, and ‘anxiety’. The correlations indicate associations among the parameters of various levels of the subjective pattern of disease in patients in both groups. Discussion. The parameters of the subjective pattern of disease in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus indicate their desire to recognize and overcome uncertainty and unpredictability of their disease. However, this does not reduce their emotional involvement in the problem. The subjective pattern of disease in patients with rheumatoid arthritis is characterized by a worse understanding and control of disease, as well as by emotion-focused coping strategies aimed at distancing from anxiety-related experiences associated with their disease.

Application of two fuzzy models using knowledge-based and linear aggregation approaches to identifying flooding-prone areas in Tehran

Flooding is one of the most problematic natural events affecting urban areas. In this regard, developing flooding models plays a crucial role in reducing flood-induced losses and assists city managers to determine flooding-prone areas (FPAs). The aim of this study is to investigate on the prediction capability of fuzzy analytical hierarchy process (FAHP) and Mamdani fuzzy inference system (MFIS) methods as two completely and semi-knowledge-based models to identify FPAs in Tehran, Iran. Six flooding conditioning factors including density of channel, distance from channel, land use, elevation, slope, and water discharge were extracted from various geo-spatial datasets. A total of 62 flooding locations were identified in the study area based on the existing reports and field surveys. Of these, 44 (70%) floods were randomly selected as training data and the remaining 18 (30%) cases were used for the validation purposes. After the data preparation step, data were processed by means of two statistical (FAHP) and soft computing (MFIS) methods. Unlike most statistical and soft computing approaches which use flooding inventory data for both training and evaluation of models, only conditioning factor was involved in data processing and inventory data were used in the current study to assess models prediction accuracy. Also, the efficiency of two approaches was evaluated by pixel matching (PM) and area under curve to validate the prediction capability of models. The prediction rate for MFIS and FAHP was 89% and 84%, respectively. Moreover, according to the results obtained from PM, it was found out that about 90% of known flooding locations fell in high-risk areas, whereas it was 83% for FAHP, indicating that flooding susceptibility map of MFIS has higher performance.

“Clean” Collections: On the Idea of Contamination in the Provenance Discussion

“Clean” Collections: On the Idea of Contamination in the Provenance Discussion Roger Fayet Debates over provenance and how to handle museum objects are increasingly using the vocabulary of “clean” and “unclean” to characterize objects that are thought to be in some way “contaminated” by their histories. This essay will first give some examples for this discussion and then examine theoretical assumption behind the notion of contamination that transfers certain problematic events linked to guilt into the essence of objects. Beyond that, I am interested in knowing whether this makes any sense and should be continued. The terminology of “clean/unclean,” “contaminated,” and “toxic,” as far as I can tell, first arose noticeably in the context of the Gurlitt case. When Cornelius Gurlitt donated his art collection to the Bern Museum of Art, some were referred to as “clean” paintings—meaning unproblematic and admissible to the art collection of the Museum, while others were considered “contaminated” and even “toxic.” When the media reported about the contract signed between the Bern Museum of Art, the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Bavarian State Ministry for Justice on November 24, 2014, they emphasized that only the “clean works” of the Gurlitt collection were to be admitted into the Museum. For instance, the Berner Zeitung writes on June 29, 2017: “Since 2014 the complete body of work, which contains many works of classical modernism, has been carefully examined. According to the contract of the Museum of Art with the German authorities, only ‘clean’ paintings are to be permitted to come to Bern.” This means concretely that any work suspected of being looted was not to be handed over to the Museum but was to remain in Germany in order to be returned to its rightful owners. In their statements, those responsible for the Museum used the same terminology. Marcel Brülhart, vice president of the board of trustees of the Bern Museum of Art, told the Schweizerische Depeschenagentur in November 2016 that the Museum would not accept works that “are not clean in their provenance.” A year later, the Swiss tabloid Der Blick quoted Museum director Nina Zimmer saying that all of the works shown in the Gurlitt exhibit are “clean,” and none are under suspicion for being looted art. Asked by the Berner Zeitung about the state of provenance investigation in the Bern Museum of Art in general, then director Matthias Frehner replied that the Museum has “a clean inventory practice.” In another vein, the notion of “clean” paintings also appears, when writers insist that cleanness can never be restored. Thus, the art critic Philipp Meier commented on the contents of the exhibit in the Bern Museum of Art for the Neue Zürcher Zeitung: “All of them are ‘clean’ works, and hence under no suspicion for being looted art […] But has this art been, as it were, washed clean? Of course not. It remains part of their history. And this filter will always cloud the view of them.” As early as February 2016, Philipp Meier, together with Luzi Bernet, conducted an interview with the President of the World Jewish Congress, Ronald Lauder, who declared with references to the acquisition practice of art collector Emil Bührle: “Good faith doesn't make these paintings clean.” The interviewers liked this remark so much that they turned it into the title for the entire interview. About the Bern Museum's taking over the Gurlitt collection, Lauder said: “What's the good of that? The whole Gurlitt collection is contaminated.” The art critic Hans‐Joachim Müller even suggested in Die Welt on this context that such “stains” adhere to the paintings: “One cannot—and that above all is the lesson from the meritorious self‐examination of the Bern Museum—simply wipe away the history of these paintings with research. It will always stick to them—like stains that cannot be removed with anything.” With the word “contamination” from the Latin contaminare, to soil or defile (German besudeln), yet another term from the semantic field of the pure and impure makes its appearance in the discussion of provenance. As mentioned, Lauder uses the adjective “contaminated” to characterize the Gurlitt collection. An article published in the Neue...

A Skewness-Aware Matrix Factorization Approach for Mesh-Structured Cloud Services

Online cloud services need to fulfill clients’ requests scalably and fast. State-of-the-art cloud services are increasingly deployed as a distributed service mesh. Service to service communication is frequent in the mesh. Unfortunately, problematic events may occur between any pair of nodes in the mesh, therefore, it is vital to maximize the network visibility. A state-of-the-art approach is to model pairwise RTTs based on a latent factor model represented as a low-rank matrix factorization. A latent factor corresponds to a rank-1 component in the factorization model, and is shared by all node pairs. However, different node pairs usually experience a skewed set of hidden factors, which should be fully considered in the model. In this paper, we propose a skewness-aware matrix factorization method named SMF. We decompose the matrix factorization into basic units of rank-one latent factors, and progressively combine rank-one factors for different node pairs. We present a unifying framework to automatically and adaptively select the rank-one factors for each node pair, which not only preserves the low rankness of the matrix model, but also adapts to skewed network latency distributions. Over real-world RTT data sets, SMF significantly improves the relative error by a factor of 0.2 $\times$ to 10 $\times$ , converges fast and stably, and compactly captures fine-grained local and global network latency structures.