Kun Li

Kun Li, Liangshu Zhu

Uplift modeling has been used effectively in fields such as marketing and customer retention, to target those customers who are more likely to respond due to the campaign or treatment. Essentially, it is a machine learning technique that predicts the gain from performing some action with respect to not taking it. A popular class of uplift models is the transformation approach that redefines the target variable with the original treatment indicator. These transformation approaches only need to train and predict the difference in outcomes directly. The main drawback of these approaches is that in general it does not use the information in the treatment indicator beyond the construction of the transformed outcome and usually is not efficient. In this paper, we design a novel transformed outcome for the case of the binary target variable and unlock the full value of the samples with zero outcome. From a practical perspective, our new approach is flexible and easy to use. Experimental results on synthetic and real-world datasets obviously show that our new approach outperforms the traditional one. At present, our new approach has already been applied to precision marketing in a China nation-wide financial holdings group.

Li Kun, Milena Radenkovic

Currently, deep learning has been utilised to tackle several difficulties in our everyday lives. It not only exhibits progress in computer vision but also constitutes the foundation for several revolutionary technologies. Nonetheless, similar to all phenomena, the use of deep learning in diverse domains has produced a multifaceted interaction of advantages and disadvantages for human society. Deepfake technology has advanced, significantly impacting social life. However, developments in this technology can affect privacy, the reputations of prominent personalities, and national security via software development. It can produce indistinguishable counterfeit photographs and films, potentially impairing the functionality of facial recognition systems, so presenting a significant risk. The improper application of deepfake technology produces several detrimental effects on society. Face-swapping programs mislead users by altering persons' appearances or expressions to fulfil particular aims or to appropriate personal information. Deepfake technology permeates daily life through such techniques. Certain individuals endeavour to sabotage election campaigns or subvert prominent political figures by creating deceptive pictures to influence public perception, causing significant harm to a nation's political and economic structure.

Zihao Wang, Kun Li, Steve Q. Xia et al.

We investigate the effectiveness of different machine learning methodologies in predicting economic cycles. We identify the deep learning methodology of Bi-LSTM with Autoencoder as the most accurate model to forecast the beginning and end of economic recessions in the U.S. We adopt commonly-available macro and market-condition features to compare the ability of different machine learning models to generate good predictions both in-sample and out-of-sample. The proposed model is flexible and dynamic when both predictive variables and model coefficients vary over time. It provided good out-of-sample predictions for the past two recessions and early warning about the COVID-19 recession.