We study the complexity of exchanging probabilistic data between ontology-based probabilistic databases. We consider the Datalog+/- family of languages as ontology and ontology mapping languages, and we assume different compact encodings of the probabilities of the probabilistic source databases via Boolean events. We provide an extensive complexity analysis of the problem of deciding the existence of a probabilistic (universal) solution for a given probabilistic source database relative to a (probabilistic) data exchange problem for the different languages considered.

Over the past two decades, water markets have been successfully fielded in countries such as Australia, the United states, Chile, China, etc. Water users, mainly irrigators, have benefited immensely from water markets. However, the current water market design also faces certain serious barriers. It has been pointed out that transaction costs, which exists in most markets, induce great welfare loss. For example, for water markets in western China discussed in this paper, the influence of transaction costs is significant. Another important barrier is the locality of trades due to geographical constraints. Based on the water market at Xiying Irrigation, one of the most successful water market in western China, we model the water market as a graph with minimum transaction thresholds on edges. Our goal is to maximize the transaction volume or welfare. We prove that the existence of transaction costs results in no polynomial time approximation scheme (PTAS) to maximize social welfare (MAX SNP-hard). The complexities on special graphs are also presented. From a practical point of view, however, optimal social welfare can be obtained via a well-designed mixed integer linear program and can be approximated near optimally at a large scale via a heuristic algorithm. Both algorithms are tested on data sets generated from real historical trading data. Our study also suggests the importance of reducing transaction costs, for example, institutional costs in water market design. Our work opens a potentially important avenue of market design within the agenda of computational sustainability.

Jody Williams received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997 together with the International Campaign to Ban Landmines for their central role in establishing the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty. The US-based political activist is known across the world for her efforts to enhance understandings of security and related issues in the world today. She is also the chair of the Noble Women's Initiative that she founded in 2006 together with five other women Nobel Peace laureates. She, along with 20 of her fellow Nobel Peace laureates have called for a preemptive ban on Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems (LAWS)--weapons that could operate without human supervision once activated even in matters of killing human beings. The UN's Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) held their third informal government's meet in Geneva from 11-15 April.

It's day one at the Singularity University: the opening address has just been delivered by a hologram. Craig Venter, who was one of the first scientists to sequence the human genome and created the first synthetic life form, is up next. And later, we will see two people, paralysed from the waist down, use robotic exoskeletons to rise up and walk. But first, the co-founder of the Singularity University, Peter Diamandis, gives us our instructions for the day. Your task, he says, is to pick one of the "grand challenges of humanity" – the lack of clean drinking water, say. And then come up with an idea that "can positively impact the lives of a billion people". Some of us haven't even had coffee yet. There's about 50 of us present and the room has been divided up into tables, one for education, another for poverty, another for water, and I'm not sure where I should sit. Diane Murphy, the university's PR executive, hesitates for a moment and then directs me over to the table marked "food". "Tell you what," she says.

The threat from such machines is real enough for 100 states to come together and debate the matter of their ban for three consecutive years now. The use of autonomous machines could potentially change the vocabulary of warfare, just like gun powder and nuclear arsenal upon their entry into the battlefield. In April 2013, NGOs associated with successful efforts to ban landmines and cluster munitions got together in London and issued a call to governments urging the negotiation of a treaty preventing the development, deployment and use of what are known as'Killer Robots' in popular parlance. In July 2015, some of the world's leading Artificial Intelligence (AI) scientists including Apple co-founder Steven Wozniak, Skype co-founder Jaan Tallin and Professor Stephen Hawking signed a letter with nearly 21,000 signatures asking for an outright ban on these autonomous weapons systems (AWS). "Autonomous weapons will become the Kalashnikovs of tomorrow," states the letter.

Welcome to California Inc., the weekly newsletter of the L.A. Times Business Section. Expect financial markets to face headwinds today after the Federal Reserve reported Friday that U.S. industrial production fell more than expected in March. This is the latest sign that economic growth slowed significantly in the first quarter. On the plus side, though, many economists still forecast a rebound in growth as the year plods ahead. Tax deadline: Monday is the deadline for most Americans to submit their tax returns.

The days when a Facebook post would reach 90 percent of a page's audience have come and gone. In 2011, I was managing operations for Coca-Cola's global Facebook page, which had just surpassed Starbucks to become the largest CPG brand page on Facebook. The page was shared among dozens of markets because Facebook did not yet support regional pages. And each post was geotargeted to reach the right audience. One fine August day, Facebook dropped the targeting from a post specific to our Brazilian audience.

Chinese workers have seen the future, and it involves artificial intelligence, robots, and other forms of automation replacing them, at least for repetitive tasks. That's how workers responded to interviews about the future of work (pdf) conducted in 13 countries by the ADP Research Institute, part of the payroll systems company ADP. In contrast to China, a minority of workers in Germany think machines will take over repetitive tasks in the future. Workers in Chile, Singapore, the United Kingdom, and France among other countries agree. But American workers and those in India are inclined to see things the Chinese way; nearly two-thirds of those polled said they thought the machines were coming for repetitive work.

The "Artificial Intelligence Market" report provides analysis of the global artificial intelligence market for the period 2014–2024, wherein the years from 2016 to 2024 is the forecast period and 2015 is considered as the base year. The report precisely covers all the major trends and technologies playing a major role in the artificial intelligence market's growth over the forecast period. It also highlights the drivers, restraints, and opportunities expected to influence the market growth during this period. The study provides a holistic perspective on the market's growth in terms of revenue (in US Bn), across different geographies, which includes Asia Pacific (APAC), Latin America (LATAM), North America, Europe, and Middle East & Africa (MEA). Moreover, the report provides the overview of various strategies and the winning imperatives of the key players in the artificial intelligence market and analyzes their behavior in the prevailing market dynamics.

The MSLGROUP goes to SXSW every year with digital specialists from all over the world – Germany, France, India, Singapore, Brazil, the US, etc. – to network, witness new trends, collaborate and share ideas. MSL Germany's Adrian Rosenthal, Head of Digital & Social Media, and Heiko Geibig, Head of Consumer Practice, joined the world's biggest conference on digital technologies this year. They had a closer look at the communication trends and give an overview about the meta trends of the SXSW 2016: 1. Virtual Reality 2. Social Messaging 3. Robotics & Artificial Intelligence Get in touch with us for any further inquiries: Adrian Rosenthal – Head of Digital & Social Media 030 820 82-522 adrian.rosenthal@mslgroup.com Heiko Geibig – Head of Consumer Practice 030 820 82-579 heiko.geibig@mslgroup.com