This book collects the notes of the lectures given at the Advanced Course on Crossed Products, Groupoids, and Rokhlin dimension, that took place at the Centre de Recerca Matematica (CRM) from March 13 to March 17, 2017. The notes consist of three series of lectures. The first one was given by Dana Williams (Dartmouth College), and served as an introduction to crossed products of C*-algebras and the study of their structure. The second series of lectures was delivered by Aidan Sims (Wollongong), who gave an overview of the theory of topological groupoids (as a model for groups and group actions) and groupoid C*-algebras, with particular emphasis on the case of etale groupoids. Finally, the last series was delivered by Gabor Szabo (Copenhagen), and consisted of an introduction to Rokhlin type properties (mostly centered around the work of Hirshberg, Winter and Zacharias) with hints to the more advanced theory related to groupoids.

Harness the power of social media to predict customer behavior and improve salesSocial media is the biggest source of Big Data. Because of this, 90% of Fortune 500 companies are investing in Big Data initiatives that will help them predict consumer behavior to produce better sales results. Written by Dr. Gabor Szabo, a Senior Data Scientist at Twitter, and Dr. Oscar Boykin, a Software Engineer at Twitter, Social Media Data Mining and Analytics shows analysts how to use sophisticated techniques to mine social media data, obtaining the information they need to generate amazing results for their businesses.Social Media Data Mining and Analytics isn't just another book on the business case for social media. Rather, this book provides hands-on examples for applying state-of-the-art tools and technologies to mine social media - examples include Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Wikipedia, Reddit, Flickr, Web hyperlinks, and other rich data sources. In it, you will learn: The four key characteristics of online services-users, social networks, actions, and contentThe full data discovery lifecycle-data extraction, storage, analysis, and visualizationHow to work with code and extract data to create solutionsHow to use Big Data to make accurate customer predictionsSzabo and Boykin wrote this book to provide businesses with the competitive advantage they need to harness the rich data that is available from social media platforms.

Item Response Theory, though it has become a widely recognized tool in language testing research, is still not used frequently in practical language assessment projects. This book intends to provide a theoretical overview as well as to give practical guidance concerning the application of IRT in item bank building in a language testing context by presenting a particular project in a higher education setting.

This two-fer includes two late-'60s recordings guitarist Gabor Szabo released on his own Skye label (his partners were Gary McFarland and Cal Tjader). As an m.o. in his career as a leader, Szabo found not only commercial viability in covering the pop tunes of the day -- as opposed to the dusty standards that were the norm for jazz pickers at the time -- but creative expression as well. The first, Bacchanal, was the last to feature the band that had previously recorded for Impulse! The group included drummer Jim Keltner, guitarist Jim Stewart, bassist Louis Kabok, and percussionist Hal Gordon (Keltner and Kabok would remain for 1969). Szabo had been raising eyebrows ever since his tenure with Chico Hamilton for his blend of jazz and gypsy styles, but his Impulse! recordings, most notably Spellbinder, Jazz Raga, and Sorcerer, put him in a league of his own as he added pop, rock, and Indian modal and Middle Eastern scales to his intoxicating brew. After leaving Impulse!, Szabo moved toward the mainstream but in a decidedly angular way, moving through the hits of the day with exotic and often poignant and canny arrangements, the center of which was always his scintillating, mysterious guitar tone. Bacchanal is the stronger of the two recordings, but they are both excellent examples of jazz moving into psychedelic terrain. On the former album, whether covering Donovan's "Three King Fishers" or Lee Hazlewood's "Some Velvet Morning" (which bear a remarkable, almost uncomfortable resemblance to one another), "Love Is Blue," "Theme from The Valley of the Dolls," the Bacharach/David classic "The Look of Love," or his two stunning originals, the effect is the same. Szabo takes the listener deeply into a song's lyric melody by building textures and dynamics all around it, surrounding it with different modalities and droning octaves while accenting the beat and providing a polyrhythmic backdrop, making it swing and pop. On the latter recording, Szabo augmented his band with organist Michael Melvoin and cellist George Ricci, and used a second bassist (Randy Cierley plays electric Fender bass along with Kabok's standup) to create another rhythmic dimension to these sides. The songs were shorter, more Baroque, and gentler, with tracks like "Both Sides Now," "Dear Prudence," "Stormy," and the set's hit, "Walk Away Renee," being the most notable. Szabo was very successful in getting his brand of psychedelic pop-jazz on the burgeoning free-format FM stations that were popping up everywhere, but it should also be noted that these unique arrangements and the stunning musical creativity that went into them have weathered the test of time exceptionally well, and these recordings sound less dated than they otherwise might. This is a great place to start with Szabo. ~ Thom Jurek