Webtagr - Technology News Summarizer

Calibration: Fighting Oversimplification and Sparse Data

2025-09-21

This paper addresses a common problem in model calibration: isotonic regression, due to the calibration dataset being much smaller than the original training set, oversimplifies the probability distribution, losing the model's fine-grained distinctions. The paper analyzes this 'data sparsity induced flattening' phenomenon and proposes several diagnostic methods to distinguish between justifiable simplification due to noise and oversimplification due to data limitations. Finally, it introduces the Calibre package, which, by relaxing isotonic constraints or using smooth monotone models, maintains calibration accuracy while preserving as much of the original model's discriminatory power as possible.

(www.gojiberries.io)

Development model calibration isotonic regression data sparsity

Taming the Synchronized Demand Spike: A Principled Approach

2025-08-25

Synchronized demand, where a large number of clients request service almost simultaneously, can overwhelm even well-resourced systems. This article presents a principled approach to mitigate this using randomized jitter to spread requests over time. By calculating a safe window size (W), requests are uniformly distributed, thus reducing peak arrival rate. The article further discusses leveraging server-side hints (like Retry-After headers) and rate limiting to refine the strategy, balancing system stability and fairness. The approach is framed as a control problem, emphasizing the need for telemetry-driven decision-making and verification.

(www.gojiberries.io)

Development

The Grifter Equilibrium: How CPA Advertising Broke Quality Signaling

2025-07-19

This paper explores how the internet, and specifically Cost-Per-Acquisition (CPA) advertising, has broken the traditional quality signaling mechanism in advertising. Historically, high-quality sellers were more willing to invest heavily in advertising due to higher long-term returns. CPA advertising, however, allows low-quality sellers to fund ads from day-one revenue, undermining this signal. Factors like easy brand creation, light penalties for returns, rating compression, and consumer reliance on price heuristics contribute to a "grifter equilibrium" where low-quality products dominate. The paper presents an economic model illustrating this and proposes solutions such as persistent manufacturer IDs and return-adjusted CPA surcharges to deter low-quality sellers.

(www.gojiberries.io)

Tech CPA advertising quality signaling online marketplaces

Unlocking Tabular Data for LLMs: A Mechanical Distillation Approach

2025-05-09

Large language models (LLMs) excel at processing text and images, but struggle with tabular data. Currently, LLMs primarily rely on published statistical summaries, failing to fully leverage the knowledge within tabular datasets like survey data. This article proposes a novel approach using mechanical distillation techniques to create univariate, bivariate, and multivariate summaries. This is augmented by prompting the LLM to suggest relevant questions and learn from the data. The three-step pipeline involves understanding data structure, identifying question types, and generating mechanical summaries and visualizations. The authors suggest this approach can enhance Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) systems and supplement potentially biased 'world knowledge', recommending starting with scientific paper repositories (like Harvard Dataverse) and administrative data for validation.

(www.gojiberries.io)

AI Tabular Data Knowledge Extraction