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.

Evaluating Models’ Local Decision Boundaries via Contrast Sets

Abstract: Standard test sets for supervised learning evaluate in-distribution generalization. Unfortunately, when a dataset has systematic gaps (e.g., annotation artifacts), these evaluations are misleading: a model can learn simple decision rules that perform well on the test set but do not capture the abilities a dataset is intended to test. We propose a more rigorous annotation paradigm for NLP that helps to close systematic gaps in the test data. In particular, after a dataset is constructed, we recommend that the dataset authors manually perturb the test instances in small but meaningful ways that (typically) change the gold label, creating contrast sets. Contrast sets provide a local view of a model’s decision boundary, which can be used to more accurately evaluate a model’s true linguistic capabilities. We demonstrate the efficacy of contrast sets by creating them for 10 diverse NLP datasets (e.g., DROP reading comprehension, UD parsing, and IMDb sentiment analysis). Although our contrast sets are not explicitly adversarial, model performance is significantly lower on them than on the original test sets—up to 25% in some cases. We release our contrast sets as new evaluation benchmarks and encourage future dataset construction efforts to follow similar annotation processes.

Core/CdS Quantum Dot/Shell Mesoporous Solar Cells with Improved Stability and Efficiency Using an Amorphous TiO2 Coating

Abstract: Here we present a CdS quantum dot sensitized solar cell based on a mesoporous TiO2 film with remarkable stability using I−/I3− electrolyte. Chemical Bath Deposition (CBD) was used to deposit the CdS quantum dots within the porous network. We show that a thin coating of the QD sensitized film with an amorphous TiO2 layer strongly improves the performance and photostability of the solar cell. We propose that the coating passivates QD surface states which act as hole traps and are responsible for photodegradation of the device. In addition, this coating decreases the recombination of electrons from the CdS quantum dots and the mesoporous TiO2 into the electrolyte solution. We obtain a significant improvement of all cell parameters resulting in a total light to electric power conversion efficiency of 1.24%.

Fear of death and the judgment of social transgressions: a multidimensional test of terror management theory

Abstract: The purpose of the research was to integrate a multidimensional approach to fear of personal death with terror management theory. In Study 1, 190 students were divided according to the manipulation of death salience and the intrapersonal and interpersonal aspects of fear of death and were asked to judge transgressions that have either intrapersonal or interpersonal consequences. Study 2 was a conceptual replication of Study 1, with the exception that the manipulation of mortality salience included conditions that made salient either intrapersonal or interpersonal aspects of death. Findings indicate that the effects of mortality salience depend on the aspect of death that is made salient, the aspect of death that individuals most fear, and the type of the judged transgression. More severe judgments of transgressions after death salience manipulation were found mainly when there was a fit between these 3 factors. Findings are discussed in light of terror management theory.