MetLife, Inc. (NYSE:MET) last week reported its latest first-quarter results, which makes it a good time for investors...

(United States Seventh Circuit) - Held that the manufacturer of a coffeemaker infringed the unregistered trade dress of a competitor's widely lauded product by mimicking the overall appearance. Affirmed a jury verdict.

(United States Seventh Circuit) - Held that the manufacturer of a coffeemaker infringed the unregistered trade dress of a competitor's widely lauded product by mimicking the overall appearance. Affirmed a jury verdict.

(Court of Appeals of New York) - In an injury and tort action, brought against defendants ABC News, a hospital, and attending physician for the nonconsensual filming and subsequent broadcast of decedent's treatment and death at the hospital, the Appellative Division's order is modified and affirmed where: 1) the broadcasting of the footage as part of a documentary series about medical trauma was not so extreme and outrageous as to support an intentional infliction of emotional distress claim; but 2) plaintiffs have stated a cause of action against the hospital and treating physician for breach of physician-patient confidentiality.

25% Of Surveyed Americans Say They've Listened To A Podcast In The Past Month, Up From Less Than 10% In 2008

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Vin Scully, 92, has been released from Los Robles Hospital following a fall Tuesday at his home, according to a Dodgers team statement Saturday.

Butler Bulldogs is a finalist for some prominent college basketball transfers after missing out on a guard.

Butler Bulldogs is a finalist for some prominent college basketball transfers after missing out on a guard.

Tom Bergeron tweeted that he thought the producers had agreed the show should be “free of inevitably divisive bookings from ANY party affiliations.”

Invitation Only Research Event

Event participants

Professor Tim Benton, Research Director, Emerging Risks; Director, Energy, Environment and Resources Programme, Chatham House
Professor Paul Stevens, Distinguished Fellow, Energy, Environment and Resources Programme, Chatham House
Antony Froggatt, Senior Research Fellow, Energy, Environment and Resources Programme, Chatham House
Chair: Glada Lahn, Senior Research Fellow, Energy, Environment and Resources Programme

No one can predict who will commit a crime but in some cities math is helping detect areas where crimes have the greatest chance of occurring. Police then increase patrols in these "hot spots" in order to prevent crime. This innovative practice, called predictive policing, is based on large amounts of data collected from previous crimes, but it involves more than just maps and push pins. Predictive policing identifies hot spots by using algorithms similar to those used to predict aftershocks after major earthquakes. Just as aftershocks are more likely near a recent earthquake.s epicenter, so too are crimes, as criminals do indeed return to, or very close to, the scene of a crime. Cities employing this approach have seen crime rates drop and studies are underway to measure predictive policing.s part in that drop. One fact that has been determined concerns the nature of hot spots. Researchers using partial differential equations and bifurcation theory have discovered two types of hot spots, which respond quite differently to increased patrols. One type will shift to another area of the city while the other will disappear entirely. Unfortunately the two appear the same on the surface, so mathematicians and others are working to help police find ways to differentiate between the two so as to best allocate their resources.

Carla Mooney lands role in spy thriller ‘Kickback’ opposite John Cusack, Stuart Townsend nabs multi-episode part in US TV show ‘Elementary’ and Jason Barry and Brian Robinson both to star in new feature ‘Murphy’ from Caspian Pictures.

Invitation Only Research Event

Invitation Only Research Event

Event participants

Professor Tim Benton, Research Director, Emerging Risks; Director, Energy, Environment and Resources Programme, Chatham House
Professor Paul Stevens, Distinguished Fellow, Energy, Environment and Resources Programme, Chatham House
Antony Froggatt, Senior Research Fellow, Energy, Environment and Resources Programme, Chatham House
Chair: Glada Lahn, Senior Research Fellow, Energy, Environment and Resources Programme

Cooperation between different data owners may lead to an improvement in forecast quality - for instance by benefiting from spatial-temporal dependencies in geographically distributed time series. Due to business competitive factors and personal data protection questions, said data owners might be unwilling to share their data, which increases the interest in collaborative privacy-preserving forecasting. This paper analyses the state-of-the-art and unveils several shortcomings of existing methods in guaranteeing data privacy when employing Vector Autoregressive (VAR) models. The paper also provides mathematical proofs and numerical analysis to evaluate existing privacy-preserving methods, dividing them into three groups: data transformation, secure multi-party computations, and decomposition methods. The analysis shows that state-of-the-art techniques have limitations in preserving data privacy, such as a trade-off between privacy and forecasting accuracy, while the original data in iterative model fitting processes, in which intermediate results are shared, can be inferred after some iterations.

Broadcasting Health and Disease: Bodies, markets and television, 1950s–1980s An ERC BodyCapital international conference to be held at the Wellcome Trust, 19–21 February 2018 In the television age, health and the body have been broadcasted in many ways: in short… Continue reading

Yicheng Li, Adrian E. Raftery.

Source: The Annals of Applied Statistics, Volume 14, Number 1, 381--408.

Abstract:
Smoking is one of the leading preventable threats to human health and a major risk factor for lung cancer, upper aerodigestive cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Estimating and forecasting the smoking attributable fraction (SAF) of mortality can yield insights into smoking epidemics and also provide a basis for more accurate mortality and life expectancy projection. Peto et al. ( Lancet 339 (1992) 1268–1278) proposed a method to estimate the SAF using the lung cancer mortality rate as an indicator of exposure to smoking in the population of interest. Here, we use the same method to estimate the all-age SAF (ASAF) for both genders for over 60 countries. We document a strong and cross-nationally consistent pattern of the evolution of the SAF over time. We use this as the basis for a new Bayesian hierarchical model to project future male and female ASAF from over 60 countries simultaneously. This gives forecasts as well as predictive distributions that can be used to find uncertainty intervals for any quantity of interest. We assess the model using out-of-sample predictive validation and find that it provides good forecasts and well-calibrated forecast intervals, comparing favorably with other methods.

Seth Flaxman, Michael Chirico, Pau Pereira, Charles Loeffler.

Source: The Annals of Applied Statistics, Volume 13, Number 4, 2564--2585.

Abstract:
We propose a generic spatiotemporal event forecasting method which we developed for the National Institute of Justice’s (NIJ) Real-Time Crime Forecasting Challenge (National Institute of Justice (2017)). Our method is a spatiotemporal forecasting model combining scalable randomized Reproducing Kernel Hilbert Space (RKHS) methods for approximating Gaussian processes with autoregressive smoothing kernels in a regularized supervised learning framework. While the smoothing kernels capture the two main approaches in current use in the field of crime forecasting, kernel density estimation (KDE) and self-exciting point process (SEPP) models, the RKHS component of the model can be understood as an approximation to the popular log-Gaussian Cox Process model. For inference, we discretize the spatiotemporal point pattern and learn a log-intensity function using the Poisson likelihood and highly efficient gradient-based optimization methods. Model hyperparameters including quality of RKHS approximation, spatial and temporal kernel lengthscales, number of autoregressive lags and bandwidths for smoothing kernels as well as cell shape, size and rotation, were learned using cross validation. Resulting predictions significantly exceeded baseline KDE estimates and SEPP models for sparse events.

Lisa Schlosser, Torsten Hothorn, Reto Stauffer, Achim Zeileis.

Source: The Annals of Applied Statistics, Volume 13, Number 3, 1564--1589.

Abstract:
To obtain a probabilistic model for a dependent variable based on some set of explanatory variables, a distributional approach is often adopted where the parameters of the distribution are linked to regressors. In many classical models this only captures the location of the distribution but over the last decade there has been increasing interest in distributional regression approaches modeling all parameters including location, scale and shape. Notably, so-called nonhomogeneous Gaussian regression (NGR) models both mean and variance of a Gaussian response and is particularly popular in weather forecasting. Moreover, generalized additive models for location, scale and shape (GAMLSS) provide a framework where each distribution parameter is modeled separately capturing smooth linear or nonlinear effects. However, when variable selection is required and/or there are nonsmooth dependencies or interactions (especially unknown or of high-order), it is challenging to establish a good GAMLSS. A natural alternative in these situations would be the application of regression trees or random forests but, so far, no general distributional framework is available for these. Therefore, a framework for distributional regression trees and forests is proposed that blends regression trees and random forests with classical distributions from the GAMLSS framework as well as their censored or truncated counterparts. To illustrate these novel approaches in practice, they are employed to obtain probabilistic precipitation forecasts at numerous sites in a mountainous region (Tyrol, Austria) based on a large number of numerical weather prediction quantities. It is shown that the novel distributional regression forests automatically select variables and interactions, performing on par or often even better than GAMLSS specified either through prior meteorological knowledge or a computationally more demanding boosting approach.

Guillaume Kon Kam King, Antonio Canale, Matteo Ruggiero.

Source: Bayesian Analysis, Volume 14, Number 4, 1121--1141.

Abstract:
Motivated by the problem of forecasting demand and offer curves, we introduce a class of nonparametric dynamic models with locally-autoregressive behaviour, and provide a full inferential strategy for forecasting time series of piecewise-constant non-decreasing functions over arbitrary time horizons. The model is induced by a non Markovian system of interacting particles whose evolution is governed by a resampling step and a drift mechanism. The former is based on a global interaction and accounts for the volatility of the functional time series, while the latter is determined by a neighbourhood-based interaction with the past curves and accounts for local trend behaviours, separating these from pure noise. We discuss the implementation of the model for functional forecasting by combining a population Monte Carlo and a semi-automatic learning approach to approximate Bayesian computation which require limited tuning. We validate the inference method with a simulation study, and carry out predictive inference on a real dataset on the Italian natural gas market.

Pamir Productions, formed in 1991, passionately uses all forms of media to spread the gospel to Afghans worldwide.

[Jessica Curtis and Adam Hillman, both Forecasting Advisors at SAS, were co-authors of this post] The world has been dramatically impacted by the recent COVID-19 pandemic. Many of us are juggling a completely new lifestyle that was forced upon us overnight. As consumers find their way to a new normal, [...]

Retail forecasting through a pandemic was published on SAS Voices by Brittany Bullard

The International Journal of Forecasting has published its 2020-Q1 issue, guest edited by Spyros Makridakis and Fotios Petropoulos, and dedicated entirely to results and commentary on the M4 Forecasting Competition. This issue should be of great interest and value to business forecasting practitioners, and you get online access to it [...]

The post M4 Forecasting Competition: Results and Commentary appeared first on The Business Forecasting Deal.

With 2018's M4 Forecasting Competition behind us (although analysis, interpretation, and debate continue), the new M5 Competition starts March 2. Running through June 30, M5 is utilizing actual data provided by Walmart. It will be implemented using Kaggle's Platform, with $100,000 in prize money. Forecasting practitioners are encouraged to participate, [...]

The post Get ready for M5 with launch of the Makridakis Open Forecasting Centre appeared first on The Business Forecasting Deal.

What if you suspect something is wrong with your forecasting process? What if the process is consuming too much time and too many resources, while still delivering unsatisfactory results (lousy forecasts). What can you do about it? This post looks at the first two steps to effecting meaningful forecasting process [...]

The post 2 first steps to effecting forecasting process change appeared first on The Business Forecasting Deal.

Two weeks ago we looked at the first two steps in effecting forecasting process change: Justify your suspicions with data Communicate your findings That was the easy part. So why is it that so many organization realize they have a forecasting problem, yet are unable to do anything about it? [...]

The post The difficult step in effecting forecasting process change (1 of 2) appeared first on The Business Forecasting Deal.

Fildes and Goodwin (F&G) observed the subject (the regional subsidiary of a pharmaceutical company) was using a statistical forecasting system, but not fully trusting its output. Forecasters were making overrides to the system generated forecast to make it look like what they believed it should (e.g., following a life-cycle curve [...]

The post The difficult step in effecting forecasting process change (2 of 2) appeared first on The Business Forecasting Deal.

Forecasting During Chaos The Institute of Business Forecasting has produced an 80-minute virtual town hall on "Forecasting & Planning During the Chaos of a Global Pandemic." The on-demand video recording is available now and well worth a look. There is much solid practical guidance from an experienced panel: Eric Wilson, [...]

The post Forecasting during chaos: notes from an IBF virtual town hall appeared first on The Business Forecasting Deal.

Forecasting is a daunting task during normal conditions, and even more so during a disruption. But in times of greatest stress our smartest and most creative people stand out, and our true leaders emerge. You'll find these kinds of leaders among my colleagues at SAS -- smart and creative people [...]

The post Forecasting during chaos: predicting impact on demand and supply appeared first on The Business Forecasting Deal.

In recent posts (March 26, April 21) we've looked at forecasting in the face of chaos and disruption. We've seen that traditional time series forecasting methods (used during "normal" times) can be creatively augmented with additional methods like clustering, similarity analysis, epidemiologic models, and simulation. While it is unreasonable to [...]

The post Forecasting during denial: when management can't handle the truth appeared first on The Business Forecasting Deal.

ICMR, at present, is only using Watson for backend reporting, but it also needs to deploy it for data analysis and forecasting trends.

Fantasy sports and the energy industry might not have much in common on the surface, but I’ve always personally approached these two passions of mine in similar ways: obsessively reading the breaking news, following my favorite experts in the community on social media, and diving deep into the available statistics to create graphs and try to come up with hot takes. I think the fantasy sports model can be used to encourage an academic and educational exercise in the energy industry, so it struck me—I should establish the first fantasy league for the energy sector!

A prideful heart cannot find rest in God’s sovereignty. A person who values his or her own plans, opinions, and desires above all else has nowhere to turn when worry creeps in. In fact, pride paves the way for an anxious heart.

The director has candidly discussed the troubled 2015 comic book adaptation in a new interview.

The COVID-19 pandemic is impacting the quantity and quality of weather observations and forecasts, according to the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO).

A new global simulation model offers the first long-term look at how urbanization -- the growth of cities and towns--will unfold in the coming decades. The research team projects the total amount of urban areas on Earth can grow anywhere from 1.8 to 5.9-fold by 2100, building approximately 618,000 square miles.

The Department of Justice announced today that it will require Cumulus Media Inc., one of the largest operators of radio stations in the United States, to divest three radio stations in two markets in order for Cumulus to proceed with its acquisition of Citadel Broadcasting Corporation.

Speaking recently at Georgetown University, Mark Zuckerberg told an audience “I’ve focused on building services to do two things: give people voice, and bring people together.” He later said “More people being able to share their perspectives has always been necessary to build a more inclusive society.” The speech anointed Facebook as the “Fifth Estate”…

Researchers combine social media and artificial intelligence to better predict damage from global sea level changes

The celebrated actor had a turbulent upbringing before becoming world-famous for playing two perfect nannies. Now she’s bonding with a new generation of children through her storytelling podcast

“I’ll tell you what, shall I go outside?” Julie Andrews asks. We are talking by phone, but, alas, the reception inside her home on Long Island is, she says, “always terrible”. Torturous minutes pass in which I can hear only fragments of her conversation, and if anyone knows of a sweeter agony than being barely able to hear Andrews’ still lovely, melodious voice, I don’t want to know what it is. Eventually, I have to tell her this phone conversation isn’t working.

“I can stand out in my garden, although it is a bit nippy …” Andrews suggests.

Couple begins 36th anniversary by casting votes
Ranibai and Ramanlal Bakliwala

Ramanlal Bakliwala, an 81-year-old resident of Colaba arrived at the polling booth to cast his vote along with his 77-year-old wife Ranibai. It was a special day for them because it was their 36th anniversary which they started with a "noble" cause. "Every year, we first go to the temple to seek blessings but today, we came here to cast our votes as it is more important. We wanted to start the day with a noble cause. We missed the previous elections as we were out of Mumbai. This time we thought there is no better way to celebrate our anniversary than by first voting for the development of our nation," said Ramanlal holding Ranibai's hand.

'Found name only after searching for two hours'
Sanjay Jain

Like thousands of Mumbai residents, Sanjay Jain, a 48-year-old businessman, left home early with his family to cast his vote at Mumbai Central. But he had to run from pillar-to-post for hours as his name was missing from the voters' list. "When I reached the polling booth, I was told that my name is missing. Then I was told to go to the main office where after almost two hours of searching, I was told that by mistake they have put another similar name in my place. After almost three hours of waiting, I had to return home without casting my vote," he said.

Senior citizen encourages voting
Pervin Daruwalla

Like thousands of Mumbai residents, Sanjay Jain, a 48-year-old businessman, left home early with his family to cast his vote at Mumbai Central. But he had to run from pillar-to-post for hours as his name was missing from the voters' list. "When I reached the polling booth, I was told that my name is missing. All my family members cast their votes except me. Then I was told to go to the main office where after almost two hours of searching, I was told that by mistake they have put another similar name in my place. After almost three hours of waiting, I had to return home without casting my vote," he said.

Also Read: Elections 2019 in Mumbai: Physically challenged, elderly, get little help at polling stations

Lack of facilities
Anil Kejarival shows his mother's voting ID

Lalitadevi Deviprasad Kejarival, an 81-year-old resident of Pedder Road, fractured her leg few months back and was advised bed-rest. On Monday, she was determined to cast her vote. But the lack of basic facilities at the polling station meant she couldn't do so. "Her serial number was at booth No 2 which was on the first floor. She can't move so it was impossible for her to climb 22 steps. She requested she be allowed to cast her vote on the ground floor but the officials told her that it is not allowed. But don't rules say that for senior citizens there should be volunteers and other facilities? This is a very sad state of affairs," said her son, Anil Kejarival.

Also Read: Elections 2019 in Mumbai: Official inks both fingers of mid-day photographer

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The casting couch is a dark and depressing reality of the Hindi film industry that has time and again exposed the grime tucked beneath the glamour. Some of the most successful actors and actresses have gone through this horrific process and exposed this brutal truth. The latest one to do the same is someone who's currently going through the best phase of his career - Ayushmann Khurrana.

Talking to Pinkvilla about facing the casting couch during the initial days of his struggles in Bollywood, he made some shocking revelations. He said, "A casting director had told me, 'I'll give you the lead role if you showed me your tool.' I told him I'm straight and I politely refused his offer." He also shed some light on how the process of auditions began to change as years passed by and how it was accompanied by rejections.

He stated, "Initially, there used to be auditions where they would take your solo test. Then suddenly, the number started increasing and there would be 50 people in the same room. When I protested, they asked me to leave. So I have faced rejections. Also, I'm well equipped to handle failure now because of the failures I saw at the very beginning of my career. Had I never witnessed the lows, I don't think I would be able to handle it if it came now."

Today, the actor, who's become a bonafide movie star, has eight consecutive hits in a row and will be now seen in three films very soon, which include Gulabo Sitabo with Amitabh Bachchan, an untitled crime thriller directed by Anubhav Sinha, and a comedy with Alaya F directed by Anurag Kashyap's sister Anubhuti Kashyap.

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Actress Adah Sharma, who has worked in both southern cinema and Bollywood, says that the casting couch exists everywhere. Several Bollywood personalities have previously spoken out about their horrific casting couch experience in southern cinema.

"Casting couch isn't something that just exists in the South or the North. I think it is something that has been spoken about worldwide. The production of couches exists universally," Adah told IANS.

Adah, who has worked in Tamil, Telugu and Kannada film industries apart from Bollywood, says there is always a choice. "I think you always have a choice of whether you want to sit on it, lay on it, stand on it or not do anything on the couch. You can sit on the floor," quipped the actress.

On the acting front, Adah, who was last seen on screen in Bypass Road, will next be seen in the film Man To Man. The film revolves around actor Naveen Kasturia's character falling in love with and marrying Sharma's character, only to realise she was biologically a man who became a woman after surgery.

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This story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed, agencies. Mid-day accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability, trustworthiness, reliability and data of the text. Mid-day management/mid-day.com reserves the sole right to alter, delete or remove (without notice) the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever

Parag Rawool is a well know reality show casting director in the Indian Television industry who started his career as an event planner and floor manager for many media events back in 2007.

Parag is an Engineering student who grew fondness towards events and reality shows which led him to aspire his dreams in the entertainment industry, who's now a Talent head for most of the prominent channels in India like Starplus, Zee Tv, Colors, History TV 18 etc. With an interesting journey of more than 12 years, Parag has successfully worked on television and reality shows which have gone ahead to become audiences favourite.

Parag Rawool has a track record of having done more than 100 promotional events across India and a bunch of ad shoots in addition. This young lad has worked as a senior talent producer on some of the top-rated shows like Dance +, Saregamapa Lil champs, Master dance, Rising star and many more.

This young talented casting director has not only worked for television reality shows but has also been part of movies like Ye Re Ye Re Paisa as a production manager and an assistant location manager for Ferrari Ki Sawari. After successfully working for 12 consecutive years, Parag started his own agency named Team Aspiring, a 360-degree media and entertainment agency which consists of media professionals from every department and strata of the industry.

The casting director is currently working on his upcoming projects which are currently in the pipeline.

Catch up on all the latest entertainment news and gossip here. Also, download the new mid-day Android and iOS apps.

Mid-Day is now on Telegram. Click here to join our channel (@middayinfomedialtd) and stay updated with the latest news

This story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed, agencies. Mid-day accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability, trustworthiness, reliability and data of the text. Mid-day management/mid-day.com reserves the sole right to alter, delete or remove (without notice) the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever.