Bar-Ilan University

About: Bar-Ilan University is a education organization based out in Ramat Gan, Israel. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Poison control. The organization has 12835 authors who have published 34964 publications receiving 995648 citations. The organization is also known as: Bar Ilan University & BIU.

Towards Faithfully Interpretable NLP Systems: How Should We Define and Evaluate Faithfulness?

Abstract: With the growing popularity of deep-learning based NLP models, comes a need for interpretable systems. But what is interpretability, and what constitutes a high-quality interpretation? In this opinion piece we reflect on the current state of interpretability evaluation research. We call for more clearly differentiating between different desired criteria an interpretation should satisfy, and focus on the faithfulness criteria. We survey the literature with respect to faithfulness evaluation, and arrange the current approaches around three assumptions, providing an explicit form to how faithfulness is "defined" by the community. We provide concrete guidelines on how evaluation of interpretation methods should and should not be conducted. Finally, we claim that the current binary definition for faithfulness sets a potentially unrealistic bar for being considered faithful. We call for discarding the binary notion of faithfulness in favor of a more graded one, which we believe will be of greater practical utility.

The Surface Chemistry of Lithium Electrodes in Alkyl Carbonate Solutions

Abstract: The chemical composition of the surface films formed on lithium in alkyl carbonate solutions was explored using surface sensitive Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (external reflectance mode). The solvents included propylene carbonate, ethylene carbonate, and dimethyl carbonate. The salts included LiAsF{sub 6}, LiClO{sub 4}, LiBF{sub 4}, and LiPF{sub 6}. The advantages of this work over previous studies are that highly reflective Li surfaces were prepared fresh in solution and that the aging processes of the surface films initially formed could be rigorously investigated. Furthermore these three important solvents were investigated in a single study. This work further proves that the films initially formed on Li surfaces in these solvents consist of ROCO{sub 2}Li as the major constituents. Upon storage, the films initially formed react with trace water to form Li{sub 2}CO{sub 3}, which gradually also becomes a major surface species. It was found that these aging processes also depend on the salts used (for example ROCO{sub 2}Li or Li{sub 2}CO{sub 3} films are not stable in LiPF{sub 6} or LiBF{sub 4} solutions).

Risk and Resilience The Family Experience of Adolescents With an Addicted Parent

Abstract: The family relationships of adolescents brought up by an addicted parent were studied in a qualitative research. The authors interviewed 19 adolescents, all of whom had a parent either actively addicted to drugs or else recovering addicts. The participants were assigned to one of two groups based on the degree to which they maintained normative lives or descended into addiction. It was found that the relative strength of the adolescents within the triad of forces (mother, father, self) had great significance for their development. Younger siblings awakened a desire to protect them from a life of addiction. The extended family was also found to have a potential to influence, in keeping with the significance the young people attributed to these relatives. The results indicate a definition, the first of its kind, of subjective risk and protective factors representing subjective perceptions of the reality of the lives of the participants.

Immunization and epidemic dynamics in complex networks

Abstract: We study the behavior of epidemic spreading in networks, and, in particular, scale free networks. We use the Susceptible-Infected-Removed (SIR) epidemiological model. We give simulation results for the dynamics of epidemic spreading. By mapping the model into a static bond-percolation model we derive analytical results for the total number of infected individuals. We study this model with various immunization strategies, including random, targeted and acquaintance immunization.