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How much League of Legends data is enough data?
30th June 2022 | By contenteditor | Reading Time: 4 minutes
Gaweł Paprzycki of Bayes Esports examines a key question for esports betting: how much data is needed to generate an optimal betting model, before the inclusion of older matches stops providing value?
League of Legends is a game of change. Adapting to patches has been a challenge for professionals since the game was launched. Champions, items, and strategies get weaker or stronger every couple of weeks. If a team wants to get an edge over the competition, it is essential for them to find out what works in the current meta. Ideally, they would want to find that out before the meta even exists.
At Bayes Esports, we are facing the same issues as professional players. When we create betting odds, we apply machine learning to predict which side is going to win or get an objective. The probabilities we produce depend on what our models believe is strong or weak.
The more recent the data is, the better the current meta is reflected in our algorithms. In a perfect world we would want to train our models just on yesterday's data. But unfortunately it takes way more matches than are played in one day in League of Legends.
Gaweł Paprzycki
It's tempting then to instead use data from the last five years. This, unfortunately, does not work either. Factors like champion strength can change with each patch or whenever a counter pick is discovered. What is needed are models that understand that the game is constantly evolving while also being resistant to sudden changes.
So how relevant is the data from two years ago? Where is the sweet spot between getting enough matches and maintaining relevant data for our models to work best? We conducted a small research project with some exciting results.
Our experimental setup was very straightforward. Since League of Legends patches last roughly two weeks, we divided our dataset into two-week slices. We then repeatedly trained a model that we would normally use to create map winner odds, giving it data from more and more patches. The results were always tested on the most recent matches, which were not part of the training set. We repeated this experiment with different starting times, equating "now" for example with January 2022.
If the game two years ago is very similar to what it looks like now, we would expect the overall accuracy to increase as we keep adding data. If patches completely change the game, then we would expect there to be a sharp cut off in prediction accuracy. It is important to do similar research on different periods, because the changes in the game are not consistent.
The accuracy of the model peaks with about 21 patches
In order to evaluate model performance, we used a Brier score. This is a metric to measure prediction accuracy. Roughly speaking, the lower the Brier score, the more accurate the model. Comparing Brier scores we consider a difference of at least 0.005 to be significant.
a sample of 5,000 games includes data covering around 21 patches
Our research shows that a model predicting map winners trained on 5,000 games from 21 patches (~10.5 months) is the most accurate. We also clearly see that the size of the dataset from only the most recent 12 patches is too small. It is important to point out that the differences in accuracy are mostly minor, but they are statistically significant. It's precisely these tiny differences that may win or lose you a bet against a clever punter who has studied the current meta.
What's also important to look at is how models trained on different amounts of matches behave. One interesting insight is that different patches will favour different sides. In the plot below, the model trained on the most recent 12 patches is favouring the red side more than the ones trained on 36 or 62, as we see probabilities starting not quite at 0.5 – the case where both teams are equally likely to win.
This, too, makes sense if we think that one side in LoL does have an inherent advantage, and this side can very well change between patches.
The model trained on fewer patches is more likely to favour the redSIDE team, suggesting that recent patches benefIt the redside team
Ultimately our research has shown that the optimal timeframe will always be between 6 and 12 months worth of patches and around 3,000 games will be the minimum sample required in order to obtain the best predictions.
Intuitively, this makes a lot of sense. The game might change abruptly with a patch, but it takes time for the player population to adjust and develop a new meta. And not all patches will be equally significant for the competitive scene either.
With the unique data we have it is important to get the most out of it. The game evolves. If Bayes Esports wants to keep its position at the forefront of the esports betting industry, we have to make sure to stay connected and be aware of the changes to produce the most accurate models and odds.
Kambi to pursue efficiencies as it aims for €150m profit goal
BCLC taps Mark Goldberg as chief information officer
SimWin announces strategic partnership with Sports Illustrated


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Thursday, July 23, 2020 Updated
Kobe | Major Port City
Kobe is the capital of Hyogo Prefecture and one of Japan's ten largest cities. Located between the sea and the Rokko mountain range, Kobe is also considered one of Japan's most attractive cities. Kobe has been an important port city for many centuries. Kobe Port, the second largest trading port in Japan, was one of the first Japanese ports to be opened to foreign trade in the late Edo Period, and the city remains one of Japan's more cosmopolitan cities. Nearby Kobe Harborland has nice stores to enjoy shopping and gourmet food. The two large shopping complexes there are Mosaic and Canal Garden.
Kobe | Mosaic Town
On the seaside of Harborland is "Mosaic" town, a very unique place. Large ferris wheel and carousel, Mosaic Garden, restaurants, boutiques and movie theaters form an almost mosaic-like effect in this commercial park complex. Canal Garden, on the other hand, is a shopping mall with a Hankyu department store, Sofmap electronics store, a sports store and various family fashion outlets. The shopping area is surrounded by walking paths and promenades including a waterfront boardwalk and the Gaslight Street, a street that is lit in the evenings by old fashioned gas street lights. Nightspots and recreational facilities, such as amusement parks, attract people day and night. This area is a popular dating spot as well. Other attractions in the area include a cinema and a few restaurants housed in renovated 19th century brick warehouses which remain from a former dockyard.
Kobe | Related Pages
Kobe's Chinatown
Chinatown in Kobe with great food and vibrant atmosphere
Large shopping and entertainment district along Kobe's port
Himeji Castle - Japan's Finest Castle
Famous for its National Treasure, Himeji Castle; popular cherry blossom viewing spot
Takeda Castle
Floating Castle, Castle in the Sky, Japan's Machu Picchu
Anago (JDT Recommends)
Popular seafood dish in the Hyogo Prefecture served as sushi, tempura, or over rice
Hakutsuru Sake Brewery
Combines traditional sake brewing methods with new techniques
Kobe | Movie

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Researchers at the Virginia Commonwealth University might have come upon a method that will effectively address pancreatic cancer, one of the most pernicious diseases having no real treatment options.
In the July issue of Molecular Cancer Therapeutics, the researchers showed that combining a dietary agent with a gene-delivered cytokine effectively eliminates human pancreatic cancer cells in mice displaying sensitivity to these highly aggressive and lethal cancer cells.
Cytokines are a category of proteins that are secreted into the circulation and can affect cancer cells at distant sites in the body, including metatases. The cytokine used in this study was melanoma differentiation associated gene-7/interleukin-24, known as mda-7/IL-24.
The dietary agent, perillyl alcohol (POH), was combined with mda-7/IL-24, which is already used in other cancer treatments. POH is found in a variety of plants, including citrus plants, and has been well-tolerated by patients who have received it in clinical studies.
The results indicated that the CGT approach not only prevented pancreatic cancer growth and progression, but it also effectively killed established tumors, thereby displaying profound chemopreventive and therapeutic activity.


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NewsOn Special Assignment
Rebuilding Glacier National Parks' Sperry Chalet takes a village
The historic building burned in a 2017 wildfire
By: Maren Siu
GLACIER NATIONAL PARK — The second phase of reconstruction efforts of Glacier National Park's historic Sperry Chalet are almost complete after a 2017 wildfire nearly burned the iconic structure to the ground.
Tucked away in the west side of Glacier National Park – and sitting at 6,000 feet – just getting to the Chalet requires a 12 mile round trip hike.
According to the park, the Chalet was built in 1913 by James J Hill and was part of the Great Northern Railway buildings erected in Glacier National Park
Crew members like Connor Sims say they are honored to be working on such a historic project. "I was actually one of the first volunteers once I heard that Dick Anderson had gotten this job."
Sims travels from Helena every other week to hike the six miles up to the chalet and put in 12 hours daily for restoration efforts.
When he's not working, he and his crew stay in these small tents – but sometimes cabin fever sets in, "I think some people do. But my crew is pretty solid, and we all get along with each other and we make the best of it."
The second phase of the rebuilding of the historic Sperry Chalet is nearly complete.
Site supervisor TJ Lashley says the project is not open to creative interpretation and the builders must stay as close to the original design of the Sperry Chalet.
"The field verifications are kind of fun. Making sure you get everything put back in its original place," Lashley told MTN News. "It's one of the cool parts of working in the park and on a historical preservation project."
Once complete, visitors have access to 18 rooms, one of which is handicap accessible. A total of 53 guests can stay in the chalet at one time, with a dining hall a few hundred feet away.
The only update to the original building will be the stairs, which will be brought up to current building code standards.
MTN News recently was allowed inside the Sperry Chalet to check out the progress crews have made. One interesting note is that most of the wood used in one of the rooms we checked out was burned in the Sprague fire.
The individual rooms have been laid out during the second phase of the project, which is on schedule to be completed by October. The Sperry Chalet itself will be open to visitors next summer.
The Glacier National Park Conservancy is still accepting donations of money and supplies to help finish the project.


The Incredi Soft Cricket Balls is soft and does not cause injuries and is best suited for amateurs. The ball can be used for even indoor cricket and comes in sizes appropriate for both seniors and juniors.
Although the Incredi Soft Cricket Balls has the same stitching as the professional cricket balls, it is soft and does not cause injuries and is best suited for all levels of cricket, for both seniors and juniors. The ball can be used for indoor cricket and come in sizes appropriate for both seniors and juniors.
It comes in a range of colours – Red, White, Orange, Pink, Fluorescent Yellow and Red/White.
Place your order for this training cricket ball and other sports equipment at vks.com and get the maximum value for money.


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Q: Does VMDirectPath help disk IOPS performance? I read the VMDirectPath materials, and they say that it helps the performance on the 10Gbs card case. Sure, if multiple VMs directly access the physical 10GbE card, the VMM bottleneck is avoided with VMDirectPath.
Here I have two questions:

*

*If I have 3 1GbE cards and want to utilize the VMDirectPath benefit, should I first bind the 3 cards? Or should I somehow bind a VM to a physical NIC with the help of VMDirectPath? Is it possible?

*If I want to configure my disks into passthrough mode in ESXi, can the performance get boosted?

A: With VMDirectPath don't even try thinking about trying to get multiple VMs to talk to the same physical hardware, it'll either not work at all or not work stably.
Now onto your questions, with only three x 1Gbps NICs you'll see only minor performance gains by using VMDirectPath, and then really only in terms of latency, hardly any additional bandwidth. Using the regular vSwitch/port group method can saturate a single 10Gbps NIC and is easier to setup and manage and doesn't force compromises like VMDirectPath does such an losing vMotion ability. If you want the benefit of the second and third NICs simply add them to the vSwitch, cable them to your switch/es correctly and set the pathing policy - it's far easier than passing them through and teaming them in-VM.
Yes you can pass through your disks if you really want, either using physical mode or via VMDirectPath - if you use the latter you lose the whole controller to a single VM of course. And yes there would be a performance gain, I'd suggest somewhere between 5% and 25% overall depending on system. Again I wouldn't bother though, you're moving to virtualisation yet by using these techniques losing much of the benefits of doing so, I believe it's counter-productive.

A: Assuming you're talking about VMDirectPath, then I think you're looking at the wrong solution for your problem.
When you use VMDirectPath you lose following features:

*

*VMotion Storage

*VMotion

*FT

*Device hot add

*Suspend and resume

*Record and replay

I think you're much better off looking at binding the 3 1Gb ethernet adapters together in a standard link aggregation mode. If you implement NIC teaming in load balancing mode using "Route based on IP hash" as the setting, then for a minor increase in CPU utilisation, you get an effective 3Gb network adapter which handles the failure of 1 of the ethernet cards, and you are still able to using VMotion and all the other nice things in vSphere.
There's lots more information on network configuration in this VMware PDF
Are you actually seeing a performance issue with your disks? It sounds like you're essentially willing to lose all the benefits of virtualisation for a few % increase in performance, which kind of makes me think you'd be better off sticking to dedicated hardware.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


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PGA Tour Professional…
PGA Tour Professional Roger Sloan checks in on this Week's "Picks Up Podcast"
Sports UTEP
Former UTEP golf standout and current PGA Tour professional Roger Sloan is the guest on this week's "Picks Up Podcast" with "Voice of the Miners" Jon Teicher.
Sloan, a four-time member of the Conference USA Commissioners Academic Honor Roll (2006 – 2009) also served as President of UTEP's Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC).
During his senior year, Sloan was named second team All-Conference USA, became UTEP's first NCAA Regionals participant since 2004 and led the Miners in stroke average (72.7), top-10 finishes (five) and top-20 finishes (eight).
Sloan was also a three-time Conference USA Golfer of the Week.
The "Picks Up Podcast" takes an inside look at UTEP Athletics, offering perspectives and analysis not available anywhere else. The podcast airs weekly on www.utepminers.com, with special guests including Miner coaches, staff, student-athletes and alumni.
To go directly to the podcast landing page, click here.
Tags: "Voice of the Miners" Jon Teicher miners Picks Up Podcast utep utep miners utep sports
Staff Reports are just that, Staff Reporting the news. No skew, no opinion just the news. We pride ourselves on making sure that we bring you the news as soon as it is published, submitted or sent to us. No need to have a reporter rewrite or give their opinion. The facts or information, nothing more.
North Texas trounces UTEP 63-33
Borderland's Best Latest News
UTEP Researchers join list of Top Researchers...
UTEP participates in panels to promote Indigenous...


Now it is hardly possible to surprise someone with a multicooker, this most useful invention for the kitchen has already been appreciated by many housewives. And if you have such a miracle of technology, be sure to use it to make delicious and fragrant cupcakes for tea. We offer you a variety of recipes for every taste, as well as tips for cooking.
Allow the cup to cool slightly before removing the cupcake from the slow cooker..
10 grams of soda (no need to extinguish).
Cupcake is baked for 45 minutes in the "Baking" mode.
Do not immediately remove the hot cupcake, it can fall apart. When cool, place it on a serving plate, sprinkle with powdered sugar and / or cocoa on top and garnish with banana slices..
powdered sugar – 90 grams (for making glaze).
Add butter to the egg-sugar mass, and then add flour in small portions, while continuing to beat with a mixer (but at a lower speed).
Add butter to the multi-bowl and pour the dough into it..
Grease the cooled cupcake with glaze and, if desired, decorate with citrus slices or grated zest.
8 grams of baking powder.
Put slices of white and dark chocolate on a hot cupcake.
sunflower oil (for lubricating the bowl).
Bake for 60 minutes using standard Baking mode..
Use for cooking only fresh and high-quality products, buy them from trusted suppliers – this is the key to successful baking.
As you can see, there is nothing difficult in making dough for cupcakes, all the ingredients are easily accessible. And with a slow cooker, you can be sure that the bottom of the culinary product will not burn. If you follow the recipe and the above tips, you will receive excellent pastries for tea, pleasing their taste and aroma. But the most important condition – you need to cook with love! Have a nice tea party!
Транс мазнините са вредни за организма?


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Emma Tomkinson
A stream of social consciousness
Social Impact Bonds
Definition of a Social Impact Bond
Peterborough SIB
Australian Social Benefit Bonds
Augsberg Germany SIB
Rotterdam SIB
Evidence-based policy
Social Impact Measurement
Map of social impact measurement
Outcomes matrix
Outcomes Map: Education and Learning (UK)
Indicators: Journey to Employment for young people
Outcomes Map: Employment and Training (UK)
SIAA International Survey 2014
Measures of financial health
Financial data/accounts
Interview with Social Investment Lab (Portugal) – April 2014
SIB Researchers
Social impact bond (SIB) research questions
HomePosts tagged 'SIBs'
What do we know about the Utah SIB results (without a counterfactual)?
November 9, 2015 November 9, 2015 Emma Tomkinson Social Impact Bonds, Utah SIB SIB, SIBs, social impact bond, Utah
The Utah SIB recently paid a return for Goldman Sachs, and press releases from both Goldman Sachs and United Way of Salt Lake deemed the program a success. But this was met with some criticism, most notably by the New York Times in Nathaniel Popper's article Success Metrics Questioned in School Program Funded by Goldman. Now I would argue that success for each stakeholder is achieving whatever they wanted to achieve. So as far as I'm concerned, claiming success simply means that things happened as you wanted. But we might also assume that a government's objectives are what it's prepared to pay for via the SIB payment metric.
So how does the payment metric for the Utah SIB work?
For the first year results, Goldman Sachs was paid 95% of the savings to the state. Savings to the state are calculated from the number of children identified as 'likely to use special education in grade school'[i] (110 in year 1) minus the number of children who used special education (1 in kindergarten) multiplied by the cost of a special education add-on for one year ($2607).
Is that a success?
Well, the program is doing very well at delivering on its payment metric. Of the 110 children identified as likely to use special education, only one of them is using special education in kindergarten. If this is the definition of success, then the program is definitely a success!
(United Way (2015) SIB fact sheet)
So what's the problem?
Many people who aren't involved in the SIB would define success a little differently to the payment metric. They would define the success of the program by the reduction in how many children would require special education support. What we don't know is how many of the 110 children would have needed special education without the program. I teach my probability classes that 'likely' means 50%-80%. But the payment metric seems to assume that 100% of the children would have needed special education without the program, according to the savings-to-government calculation. In order to know how much the program improved things for the children involved, we need a comparison group or 'counterfactual', an estimate of how many of the children would have ended up using special education. A counterfactual means you can claim you caused the results, the absence of a counterfactual means you can only say you contributed to them.
What's a counterfactual?
A counterfactual or comparison group can be constructed in several ways. "A good comparison group is as similar as possible to the group of service users who are receiving an intervention, thus allowing you to be confident that the difference in outcomes between the groups is only caused by the intervention."[ii] Some of the more commonly used counterfactuals in SIBs are shown below.
If you would like to know more, I recommend this Guide to Using Comparison Group Approaches from NPC and Clinks in the UK. And for guidance on randomised control trials in public policy setting you can't go past the UK Cabinet Office's Test, Learn, Adapt.
The Utah SIB involved no comparison group – certainly the payment metric didn't.
So without a counterfactual, what can we say about this SIB?
"Of the 110 four-year-olds had been previously identified as likely to use special education in grade school…only one went on to use special education services in kindergarten."[iii]
"These results triggered the first payment to investors for any SIB in the United States."[iv]
"As a result of entering kindergarten better prepared, fewer children are expected to use special education and remedial services in kindergarten through 12th grade, which results in cost savings for school districts, the state of Utah and other government entities."[v] [note this says 'fewer children are expected to use', not 'fewer children use']
"109 of 110 At-Risk Utah Students Avoid Special Education Services Following High-quality Preschool"[vi] [this would be untrue if the word 'following' was changed to 'due to' or 'because of']
"Utah's [curriculum and testing] methodology was vetted both locally and nationally by early education and special education experts and leaders"[vii]
"They lacked certain basic data on what would have been expected to have happened to the students without the Goldman-funded preschool"[viii]
"My kids have really grown. I don't think [my kids] would be where they are if it wasn't for the preschool. That basic step is what prepares you to succeed in school, and later, in life."[ix]
What can't we say?
"School districts and government entities saved $281,550 in a single year, based on a state resource special education add-on of $2,607 per child."[x][we have no idea what they would have spent on this group otherwise]
"High-quality preschool changes the odds"[xi][we simply don't know what the odds would have been without the preschool program, so we can't say that they've changed]
"Fewer children used special education services and remedial services by attending the SIB-financed Preschool Program, saving money for school districts and government entities"[xii]
What other SIBs don't have a counterfactual?
UK: ten DWP Innovation Fund programs (seven of which were SIBs) [the Impetus-PEF ThinkForward SIB press release shows similar difficulty to the Utah SIB in understanding the difference made to young people. While 90% of young people engaged in further education, employment or training seems a wonderful result, there is no estimate of what might have happened otherwise.]
UK: seven Fair Chance Fund SIBs
UK: four Youth Engagement Fund SIBs
UK: Manchester Children in Care
UK: It's All About Me – Adoption SIB
Canada: Saskatchewan single mothers' SIB
Australia: Newpin SIB (for the first three years while a control group is established)
Note that most government spending on social services is not compared to a counterfactual. Some people argue that the perceived requirement for a SIB counterfactual creates an unnecessary additional barrier to SIB development, but others argue that it's the best thing about SIBs – for the first time we are having mainstream discussions about standards of measurement and evidence in social services.
If you know of any government-funded social programs other than SIBs that do have a counterfactual, please post a link to them in the comment box below.
Why doesn't every SIB have a counterfactual?
In order to estimate the effect of an intervention with any confidence, you need a large sample size. This is called 'statistical power' – I've tried to explain it in SIB Knowledge Box: Statistical Power. If a program is working intensively with just a few people, as is the case in Saskatchewan (22 children in SIB), then a reliable comparison to a counterfactual is not possible.
It is more work to set up a counterfactual – a similar comparison group must be established and this can take varying degrees of effort. It also takes skill that is in short supply. Biostatisticians are one of the the best resources for this kind of work. Most government stats units do not have experience in this kind of work.
Without a counterfactual, results can be counted as they are achieved, rather than waiting for a statistical comparison for the group, so investors can get paid earlier and more frequently and managers can 'track' performance.
As always, if there's anything in this article that needs correcting or information that should be included, please either comment below or use the contact page to send me an email.
[i] United Way (2015) SIB fact sheet
[ii] NPC & Clinks (2014) Using comparison group approaches to understand impact
[iii] Edmondson, Crim, & Grossman (2015) Pay-For-Success is Working in Utah, Stanford Social Innovation Review
[iv] Edmondson, Crim, & Grossman (2015) Pay-For-Success is Working in Utah, Stanford Social Innovation Review
[v] United Way of Salt Lake 2015, Social Impact Bond for Early Childhood Education Shows Success
[vi] United Way of Salt Lake 2015, Social Impact Bond for Early Childhood Education Shows Success
[vii] Bill Crim, 2015, When Solid Data Leads to Action – Kids' Lives Improve
[viii] Nathaniel Popper, 2015, Success Metrics Questioned in School Program Funded by Goldman
[ix] United Way (2015) SIB fact sheet
[x] Edmondson, Crim, & Grossman (2015) Pay-For-Success is Working in Utah, Stanford Social Innovation Review
[xi] United Way (2015) SIB fact sheet
[xii] United Way (2015) SIB fact sheet
Delivering the Promise of Social Outcomes: The Role of the Performance Analyst
February 10, 2015 February 10, 2015 Emma Tomkinson Social Impact Bonds, Social Impact Measurement, Social Innovation collective impact, Delivering the Promise, Impetus-PEF, Laboratorio de Investimento Social, performance analyst, performance analysts, performance management, SIB, SIBs, social finance, social impact bond, social impact bonds, Social Investment Lab, social outcomes, Think Impact
I've wanted to write about performance management systems for a long time. I knew there were people drawing insights from data to improve social programs and I wanted to know more about them. I wanted to know all about their work and highlight the importance of these quiet, back-office champions. But they weren't easy to find, or find time with.
Dan Miodovnik, Social Finance
I worked at Social Finance in London for three months in late 2013, a fair chunk of that time spent skulking around behind Dan Miodovnik's desk. I'd peer over his shoulders at his computer screen as he worked flat out, trying to catch a glimpse of these magic performance management 'systems' he'd developed. At the end of my time at Social Finance, I understood how valuable the performance management role was to their social impact bonds (SIBs), but I still had no idea of what it actually entailed.
Antonio Miguel, The Social Investment Lab
Then early 2014 Antonio Miguel and I took a 2-hour bullet train ride through Japan while on a SIB speaking tour. On this train journey I asked Antonio to open his computer and show me the performance management systems he'd worked on with Social Finance. Two hours later, I understood the essential components of a performance management system, but I didn't fully grasp the detail of how these components worked together.
So I proposed to Dan that we join Antonio on the beaches of Cascais in Portugal in August 2014. My cunning research plan was to catch them at their most relaxed and pick their brains over beach time and beers. Around this time I saw a blog written by Jenny North, from Impetus-PEF that mentioned performance management. A call with her confirmed that they were as enthused about performance management as I was. So I drafted a clean, six-step 'how to' guide for constructing a performance management system. I hoped that a quick edit from Dan and Antonio, a couple of quotes and I'd be done.
Interviewing Dan and Antonio blew me away. Only when I heard them talk freely about their work did I realise the magic wasn't in their computer systems, it was in their attitudes. It was their attitude to forming relationships with everyone who needed to use their data. It was their attitude to their role – as the couriers, rather than the policemen, of data.
They told me that there were plenty of 'how to' guides for setting up systems like theirs, but that the difficult thing was getting people to read and implement them.
Isaac Castillo, DC Promise Neighbourhood Initiative
They suggested I throw out my draft and interview more people. People who were delivering services and their investors. I didn't just need to understand the system itself, I needed to understand what it meant for the people who delivered and funded services. I gathered many of these people at San Francisco's Social Capital Markets (SOCAP) conference and several more from recommendations. One of these recommendations was Isaac Castillo, who works with the DC Promise Neighbourhood Initiative's collective impact project. He is now managing not only his team of performance analysts, but the service delivery team too. It's revolutionary, but it makes complete sense.
Interviewing these people has been a most humbling experience. It has revealed to me the extent of their dedication, innovation and intelligence. It has also revealed to me how little I knew, and in turn, how little we, as a sector, know about these people and their work. I am honoured to share their stories with you – please read them at deliveringthepromise.org.
This research is published by The Social Investment Lab (Portugal), Impetus-PEF (UK) and Think Impact (Australia).
Malaysian Innovation: Building a Social Impact Bond (SIB) Pipeline
February 3, 2015 February 3, 2015 Emma Tomkinson Social Impact Bonds Agensi Inovasi Malaysia, impact investing, Islamic finance, SIB, SIBs, social finance, social impact, social impact bond, social impact bonds, social innovation
Agensi Inovasi Malaysia, part of the Malaysian Government, has embarked on a journey towards Social Impact Bonds that reflects the Malaysian social and policy context. There are three innovative features of their program, 'Social Service Delivery', worth highlighting:
Explaining SIBs as a public-private partnership for social good
Creating a market of new interventions to contract via a SIB
Exploring Islamic finance as a source of SIB funding
Let's explore each of these innovations in turn.
Social Impact Bonds were first implemented by an organisation called Social Finance in the UK in 2010. The idea has since generated interest all over the world. The concept can be overwhelming for stakeholders, who seek to understand how far away this model might be from their current reality. In Malaysia, Social Impact Bonds have been framed as the logical next step after the recent introduction of other long-term partnerships and privately financed initiatives (PFIs) towards new infrastructure such as buildings and roads. The 2010 New Economic Model for Malaysia from the National Economic Advisory Council called for 'academia, business, the civil service, and civil society' to 'work together in partnership for the greater good of the nation as a whole' (Part 1, p. 68). Social Impact Bonds are one vehicle by which these recommendations will be delivered. They are an arrangement where a non-government organisation delivers an intervention that is first financed by private investors who stand to be repaid with interest from government funding if a social outcome is achieved. There are incentives for each stakeholder to be involved (see the Agensi Inovasi Malaysia diagram below).
(Agensi Inovasi Malaysia)
Most jurisdictions that have developed a SIB have first scanned their market for investors, intermediaries and proven or promising social delivery organisations. And then they've thought about how to run a procurement process that brings the best of these players together, along with an intervention to achieve a priority outcome for Government. Although procurement approaches have varied, all have rested on the ability of the market to delivery suitable interventions that can be managed by organisations with sufficient capabilities to produce the desired social outcomes. Agensi Inovasi Malaysia has enhanced their opportunity to engage with capable service providers by holding a competition for new ideas in priority areas, and then incubating and collecting evidence on these new initiatives, with the end goal of a Social Service Delivery contract. This is not only a way to provide services that are suitable for the first Social Impact Bonds in Malaysia, but creates a pipeline of evidenced programs for the future.
Social impact bonds emerged in the UK in 2010, with 23 currently in operation. Development plateaued, however, during 2013 and 2014 (see chart below).
In the latter half of 2013, attention turned to the development of a pipeline of SIBs to bring to market. Big Lottery Fund and the UK Cabinet Office are working together on "a joint mission to support the development of more SIBs" through their social outcomes funds totalling £60 million. Social Finance, in partnership with the Local Government Association, has been commissioned to support applicants to their funds and there is also a program of grants for organisations requiring specialist technical support to apply (Big Lottery Fund).
Agensi Inovasi Malaysia will potentially avoid the problems of the UK, by seeding and supporting a pipeline of interventions up front. This pipeline has been created through the 'Berbudi Berganda: Social Impact Innovation Challenge' which called for social organisations to submit their ideas for interventions to tackle the priority issues of:
elderly care.
The top 12 organisations won funds and support to implement their ideas, the impact of which will be the subject of action research over their first four months. This research will form the basis of a framework and delivery model addressing the priority issues. The pilot program timeline is below.
Apr 2014 Feasibility study
Sep 2014 Focus group discussion
Oct – Nov 2014 Social Innovation Challenge
Jan – Apr 2015 Incubation
Jan – Apr 2015 Intervention
Jan – Apr 2015 Action research and impact study
2015 Social Finance Policy Framework
2015-16 Model for 'Social Service Delivery'
The benefits of the competition and incubation approach include:
focusing NGO innovation in government priority issue areas
government being able to work with NGOs over a longer period of time, thus gaining a better understanding of the ability of the organisation to deliver effective programs and outcomes
creating an evidence base that will inform the design of 'Social Service Delivery'
supporting organisations to build and test interventions suitable for a Social Impact Bond.
The Agensi Inovasi Malaysia approach might require more up-front government funding than other jurisdictions have been or will be able to provide. But for a government that has limited experience outsourcing social services, it is a collaborative and supportive way to create a market of interventions that might otherwise not exist.
The potential for Islamic finance to become a source of funding for Social Impact Bonds is significant and has not yet been explored. The Islamic religion obliges its followers to give the zakat, a portion of their wealth to ease inequality and suffering. The total given each year is estimated at 15 times that of global humanitarian aid contributions, and in Malaysia the zakat collected by Government is over US $400 million (Irin News).
Islamic finance includes Musharakah (Joint Venture Partnership), Waqaf (charitable donations), Debt Structure, and Sukuk (Islamic Bonds). A Musharakah could be used as the structure that holds the contracts with other parties. Sukuk could be used for investment, although their flexibility in terms of repayments that are dependent on outcomes will need to be determined. Waqaf could be used to fund a specific fixed cost such as legal fees, extra staff for development of a SIB, software, premises, audit, insurance, performance management or evaluation. The way this could fit into a Social Impact Bond structure is shown below.
Agensi Inovasi Malaysia has created a unique pathway towards Social Impact Bonds. Their approach mitigates the risks of implementing the model in a country without a history of outsourcing social services. They have framed this new contracting model in the broader policy context of public-private partnerships, which aids wider understanding of both the model and the objectives of government. By seeding and supporting new programs that address priority issues, the Government will be able to understand and evidence the impact of these new programs, before contracting them for 'Social Service Delivery'. Finally, the exploration of the role Islamic finance can play in a Social Impact Bond has the potential to be applied in other jurisdictions and extends the ability of Islamic finance to achieve social outcomes.
This blog was written as a result of a project Emma is working on with Agensi Inovasi Malaysia. It describes aspects of their programs that she found interesting and relevant. These are Emma's personal views and should not be taken as representative of Agensi Inovasi Malaysia or any other organisation.
Procurement precedents for social impact bonds (SIBs)
January 14, 2015 January 14, 2015 Emma Tomkinson Procurement SIB, SIBs, social finance, social impact bond, social impact bonds, social investment
There are many ways to procure for a SIB. The following examples of procurement processes have been chosen to demonstrate variation. The advantages and disadvantages of each are context specific – if you are developing a new procurement process you might want to think about whether each variation promotes or hinders your objectives.
I the word 'procurement' to refer to any of the means by which governments might ask external organisations to deliver a service under contract.
Please refer to the source information if you are producing further publications – I have tried to faithfully summarise each procurement process, but my interpretations have not been checked with the parties involved. Happy to accept corrections or suggestions.
Deloitte won the initial RFP is currently in the final stages of that contract, with an Ontario Government decision expected in the next few months. An interesting feature of this process is the parallel 'internal' and 'external' streams, where public servants are proposing their outcome ideas at the same time as people in the market are also proposing. External 'registrations' of interest were called for in the following priority areas:
Housing – Improving access to affordable, suitable and adequate housing for individuals and families in need.
Youth at Risk – Supporting children and youth with one or more of the following: overcoming mental health challenges, escaping poverty, avoiding conflict with the law, youth leaving care, Aboriginal, racialized youth, and other specific challenges facing children and youth at risk, for example employment.
Employment – Improving opportunities for persons facing barriers to employment, including persons with disabilities.
In New South Wales we suffered from locking ourselves out of developing the idea with organisations over the 6 months it took to run RFP and negotiate the contracts for the next stage. We did not agree a maximum budget or referral mechanism until the joint development stage – we asked for organisations to come up with these as well as a full economic and financial model in their RFP. None of us who were involved in designing the procurement process feel we got it quite right, yet given the opportunity, we would all redesign it in different ways! (See NSW Treasury page on 'Social Benefit Bonds')
Procurement timeline:
November 2010 NSW Government commissions a feasibility study from Centre for Social Impact
February 2011 SIB Feasibility Study report submitted and published
March 2011 State government elections and change of government (left to right)
September 2011 (due Nov) SBB Trial Request for Proposal released
March 2012 3 consortia announced joint development phase begins
March 2013 Newpin Social Benefit Bond contracts agreed
June 2013 Benevolent Society + 2 banks Social Benefit Bond contracts agreed
An interesting feature of the New York City SIB development process was that service delivery partners were procured for first, and started delivering services while being involved in developing a SIB for future financing of the service.
The New Zealand process appears to be the only one where the government procured for the intermediaries and service providers separately. It is not yet clear what the benefits of this might have been or how they will be matched up.
Several US states have followed a similar procurement process to Massachusetts, which first involved a Request for Information from organisations external to government. This approach allows the market to shape government thinking and recognises that there may be social issues and intervention types that government hasn't previously considered. Some jurisdictions have accomplished this with less formal consultations e.g. Queensland Government's cross-sector payment-by-outcomes design forum and Nova Scotia Government's cross-sector SIB Working Group.
Massachusetts Selection Criteria:
Government leadership to address and spearhead a public/private innovation.
Social needs that are unmet, high-priority and large-scale.
Target populations that are well-defined and can be measured with scientific rigor.
Proven outcomes from administrative data that is credible and readily available in a cost effective means.
Interventions that are highly likely to achieve targeted impact goals.
Proven service providers that are prepared to scale with quality.
Safeguards to protect the well-being of populations served.
Cost effective programs that can demonstrate fiscal savings for Government.
Department of WOrk and Pensions UK
The Department of Work and Pensions developed a 'rate card' for payment per individual outcome for their procurement. They asked organisations to choose a subset of outcomes to deliver, nominate a price per outcome and the intervention that would achieve them. A social impact bond structure was not mandated – seven out of the ten chosen programs involved external investors. The following process occurred twice in 2012:
DWP Rate Card: DWP pays for one or more outcomes per participant which can be linked to improved employability. A definitive list of outcomes and maximum prices DWP was willing to pay for Round 2 is:
This process may be followed if an unsolicited proposal is received. An interesting feature of the Saskatchewan SIB is that the investor has also signed the contract with government.
The process of developing the Essex social impact bond is described in Social Finance's Technical Guide to Developing Social Impact Bonds. Social Finance worked closely with Essex County Council to research and develop a SIB, with the final step being procuring for a service provider.
Governments need to think about which information need to be included in a procurement document. For example, if it is desired that organisations external to government come up with completely new service areas, then a procurement process that does not state the social issue to be addressed or contracting department might be suitable. But information and constraints that are known should be included in a tender document. It's simply irresponsible to have a criminal justice organisation spend time working on a response offering intensive services for 30 female offenders if there was never any possibility the SIB was going to be in justice, or with female offenders, or with a small group of people.
Key questions when procuring for a social impact bond (SIB)
January 5, 2015 January 5, 2015 Emma Tomkinson Procurement SIB, SIBs, social finance
While SIBs can be brought to government through unsolicited proposals (in jurisdictions that allow this), most governments will procure for a SIB by going to market and asking for organisations to respond. (This approach to market is usually called a tender or Expression of Interest or Request for Proposals or something else with a different name but similar meaning.)
The question is, what to procure for?
an outcome?
an intermediary?
a service provider?
ideas for procurement?
ideas for SIBs that could be constructed in the future, should procurement proceed?
an organisation to tell government what to procure for?
The first step for government is clarifying its objectives in pursuing a SIB. SIBs are a catalyst for change, but different governments use them to change different things. (See analysis of stated objectives for the first few SIBs.) The objectives of government will make a big difference to how procurement is approached. For example, if a key objective is rigorous measurement of attribution, then a large population and randomised control trial might be required. If a key objective is to adequately fund small providers in remote locations to work together to help their communities, then 'roadshows' for awareness, accessible information and additional resources for capacity building might be part of the procurement process. If long-term funding for outsourced social programs is a big change for government, then it may require legislative change or significant work with internal government stakeholders to understand and manage perceived risks.
The main decisions government will need to make in deciding a SIB are:
Social issue area / Contracting department
Payment metric e.g. number of reconviction events or number of days happily employed
Maximum budget OR value per payment metric
Period of time over which budget will be deployed
Cohort / Referral mechanism
These decisions can be made before an approach to market, or after responses have been received. Some jurisdictions have asked their markets to suggest responses to almost all the above decisions, and some have made almost all of them internally before approaching the market.
The final decision is which organisation to contract with, which is usually (but not always e.g. Peterborough, Saskatoon) the result of a procurement process.
I haven't spoken to anyone so far who thinks their procurement process was perfect, so let me know if you find one where all stakeholders agree it's good!
Governments going to market with as much of the draft contract as possible may help speed and clarify the process. A lot of the contract will be relevant to most situations, so provision of basic clauses provides clarity and allows negotiation time to be focused on the issues that are new.
The following questions might be useful for governments to ask themselves when approaching procurement:
What are we trying to achieve or test?
Does it matter how much investors stand to return?
Does it matter how many organisations are involved in delivering the SIB and what their relationship is?
Does it matter how money flows?
What really matters to us?
service improvements in difficult areas?
innovation in services for populations of service failure?
a service model that can be used in other locations or service areas?
savings?
a shift of focus into preventative services?
Using SROI for a Social Impact Bond
May 7, 2014 October 29, 2014 Emma Tomkinson Social Impact Bonds, Social Impact Measurement global value exchange, GVE, outcome measurement, outcome valuation, pay for success, SIB, SIBs, Social Benefit Bond, social impact bond, social impact bonds
Social Return on Investment (SROI) and Social Impact Bonds (SIBs) are two ideas that are increasingly mentioned in the same breath. SROI is a measurement and accounting framework and SIBs are a way to contract and finance a service. Both require three common ingredients:
the quantification of one or more social outcomes for beneficiaries,
a valuation of these outcomes, and
an estimation of the cost of delivering these outcomes.
While not a necessary ingredient, SROI can contribute to the design, operation and evaluation of SIBs.
*NB the word 'outcome' is used here to represent a change in someone's life – some readers (particularly from the US) may use the word 'impact' to mean the same
April 11, 2014 May 30, 2014 Emma Tomkinson Social Impact Bonds academic, evidence, legacy, research, SIBs, social impact bonds
It seems that more and more students around the world are keen to do some research on social impact bonds. Great! But we can do better than 'Do SIBs work?' (try defining success first…) or 'What's the relationship between financial return and effect size?' We don't have the data for questions like this yet, but there are so many other wonderful questions we can be asking. There's also a lot of data on twitter and in the media that could be used for interesting studies of stakeholder perception and reaction.
If you are a student researching SIBs and would like to be connected with other students, please use the contact form and include your university, level of study and research topic. I will connect you via email with other students around the world. If anyone else has more questions they'd like on this list, please pop them in the comment box.
Some questions
What are the effects of publicly announcing a SIB? How does timing affect whether a SIB gets agreed and how long it takes to agree?
What are the key characteristics of SIBs that have been announced by haven't happened? How is this different from those that have happened? What has been the result of these projects e.g. funded by other means, directly commissioned etc.
Beyond risk and return: what are investors in social impact bonds looking for and attracted to? On what factors does the success of a SIB fund-raising effort rest? E.g. SVA great brochure, Westpac worked with existing customers, Social Finance builds closer relationships and confidence with investors.
Procurement – how do SIBs challenge the assumptions, processes of procurement? Comparison of jurisdictions. Implications for changes in law.
What do you procure for i.e. organisation, idea, full blown proposal or service – advantages and disadvantages from cases around the world.
Making responses public – e.g. Illinois for their request for information – does this impede or encourage innovation?
Appropriation risk (US only?) – how is this quantified, perceived, legislated against and what are the effects of that on a SIB? Conversely, how might the increased profile of a SIB affect appropriation risk?
Unstable governments – what are the implications for contractual partnerships in those countries? What's the financial cost too?
Relationship between payment metric, measurement confidence and timing of payments – perhaps already in existing literature on performance-based contracting.
The role of guarantees – how does it change perception of what you're doing by different stakeholders?
Who initiates and drives a SIB – how does this shape perceptions of risks and benefits by different stakeholders?
Alex Nicholls and I published a set of questions in our Case Study: The Peterborough Pilot Social Impact Bond (2013, published by Saïd Business School, University of Oxford) around the often overlooked issue of legacy: what happens when the SIB is over. Not all of these are research questions, but studies that go some way to addressing these broader questions might be useful. The following is quoted directly from the paper.
One key question of a SIB is when and why should it end? Other key questions to consider are set out below from the perspective of each stakeholder typically involved in a SIB:
How to institutionalise innovation into future welfare programmes and in the wider social services market?
If early prevention is successful, how to maintain and fund preventative services after SIB ends? Do SIBs need to 'rollover' to produce sustainable change?
How can SIB outcomes data (likelihood, effect size, cost of delivery, value or savings to tax payer, related externalities/proxy outcomes) drive better commissioning across government?
How to achieve key outcomes post SIB?
How to continue to grow the social finance market to fund welfare services?
How to report on and share SIB learning and data more widely?
How to calculate savings from SIB interventions?
How to develop a secondary market exit?
How to develop a follow-on SIB investment?
How to adjust risk and return dynamically to the availability of new information from SIBs in the market?
How to tranche investments in a single SIB according to different risk and return profiles and different personal costs of capital?
How to ensure continuity of funding of increased capacity?
How to institutionalize SIB performance data?
How to build capacity to engage in future SIBs?
How to manage on-going collaborative relationships?
How to disseminate learning?
How to leave a community stronger when a service ends?
How to build a pipeline of SIB deals?
How to build capacity in providers so that they are stronger for having worked on a SIB?
How to continuously innovate?
Where to apply SIBs and develop other models that build upon SIB learning?
When are SIBs no longer necessary, if ever?
How to build a business model, given high transaction costs?
How better to segment the investor market to the real, rather than perceived, risk and return opportunities of SIBs?
How to manage the involvement of commercial, rather than purely social, investors in terms of expectations of high returns and the potential for risk dumping?
How to ensure that a service gap does not arise for current participants and relevant future populations/cohorts?
How to avoid worse outcomes in the long term?
Will improved outcomes be sustained for those who participated in a SIB?
Who do you need in government to get a SIB off the ground?
December 9, 2013 December 9, 2013 Emma Tomkinson Social Impact Bonds DWP Innovation Fund, government, Harvard SIB Lab, resourcing, SIBs, social impact bonds
The social impact bonds (SIBs) so far agreed have displayed striking similarities in how they have been resourced. They have, at a minimum, featured two key roles: (1) the worker and (2) the senior champion. After speaking to most of the people responsible for SIBs agreed across the globe, it appears to me that these two roles are essential to driving SIB development all the way to signing a contract. These two roles are by no means sufficient to achieve a SIB contract, but they are necessary.
Somebody needs to take responsibility for doing the bulk of the work within the commissioning body. This involves briefing and negotiating with internal stakeholders, acting as secretariat for decision-making committees, collecting and analysing data analysis and liaising with external stakeholders. Imagine this person researching, writing and then physically chasing up decision documents and moving them from one desk to the next. They need the flexibility to work in this way, requiring different processes and a broader scope than those in established roles, and they need to be enough of a risk-taker to keep fighting the barriers to change. They need to enjoy the exploration of something unknown and be naturally inclined to include both internal and external stakeholders on the journey. They cannot do this work on top of their normal day job. People who have performed this role say:
"I almost created my own job"
"I was never part of the wider set-up – I was never a civil servant within the hierarchy."
"I'm a bit of a square peg in a round hole"
The focus of developing a SIB is to get everyone to agree. Working towards an agreement necessarily involves a range of stakeholders as the project progresses in an iterative manner. Sometimes external service delivery providers, data custodians, other government agencies and investors have been involved in discussions before a government decision has been sought to work on development. Sometimes the government decision is made first and then work with stakeholders sets the direction of the development process. A SIB won't happen because one person worked very hard, alone at their desk for a long time, they need to be saying, "I'm a networker – I connect with people and get things done".
All successful SIBs have been driven by people who are passionate about the project, who won't give up on finding solutions to new problems on a daily basis "it was about keeping the energy going – you can't recreate that in someone that is not interested". Several SIB development projects have stalled within public agencies due to the nominated SIB producer rationally declaring this mountain too high to climb.
The senior champion
Doing the legwork on a project that breaks new ground every day is too hard a task if the 'worker' also has to justify why they are creating work for everyone by pushing through change. A senior champion is crucial to validate the project and its resourcing, as well as compelling the necessary people at all levels across government to participate in discussions. Interviewees said things like, "My boss allowing me to have time to work on it was absolutely key" or "Having them state this was their pet project opened doors." The senior champion is also responsible for political negotiation and positioning.
Informal connections may lead to successful formal ones
Vital SIB partnerships have been started in unlikely places. These include parties, running groups and corridors. This reflects the cross-sectoral nature of SIBs and that at the moment, they are built by alliances between first-movers, rather than through established communication channels.
Why are SIBs so difficult for government agencies to develop?
SIBs are difficult because they involve change. Public service agencies aren't set up to change often – they are structured to maintain huge, vital service systems and every public servant is a dedicated cog in this machinery. SIBs ask for a whole lot of changes at once. The first is the measurement of outcomes and the valuation of those outcomes, such that payment may be made on the basis of measurement. That's pretty new for most public agencies delivering services. SIBs also involve procurement practices that don't specify 'how' services should be delivered, which can be contrary to traditional risk and quality management practices. Social impact bonds require new ways of thinking and decisions from public service units responsible for legal, finance, procurement, service design and data. And then all the external stakeholders are required to change the way they've been thinking and operating too!
The Harvard SIB Lab
The Harvard SIB Lab is a clever model because it recognises the difficulty public agencies have with resourcing SIB development. The Lab rewards successful applicants with someone dedicated to working on the project. This person may or may not take on the role of owner of the work, depending on the person and situation.
Department of Work and Pensions Innovation Fund
This suite of programs, which includes several SIBs, was developed differently to other SIBs so far. An allocation of £30m was made for an innovation fund to explore early intervention programs with young people. The next step was to think about how to distribute this funding and a decision made to tender for ten programs financed by social investment, some of which are SIBs. Public servants involved in this project seem to have been able to do so within their existing roles.
Did we already have social impact bonds?
November 12, 2013 November 22, 2013 Emma Tomkinson Social Impact Bonds definition, not-for-profits, outcomes-based contracting, performance-based contracting, SIBs, social impact bonds, UK Cabinet Office, US
(Social Finance, Towards a New Social Economy, 2010)
During a recent lecture on social impact bonds for the Saïd Business School's Executive Education Impact Investing course, one of the students asked me, "Am I already part of a social impact bond?"
Social impact bonds (SIBs) are a new construct, with the term coined in 2008 and the concept piloted by Social Finance in Peterborough in 2010. But arrangements that fit our current understanding of SIBs already existed and continue to operate. For organisations involved in these arrangements, the benefits and challenges of identifying with the SIB phenomenon will determine whether or not they associate themselves with the term.
The lady who asked the question was running a non-profit organisation that had an outcomes-based contract with the Louisiana State Government to provide a service. A loan from a local finance institution helped to cover their working capital.
In order to examine whether she was indeed part of a SIB, we turned to the Cabinet Office definition.
In this arrangement, the first two conditions were certainly met.
To determine whether the third was, we examined whether her creditor could be considered an investor. Her organisation existed for the purpose of providing the service and the contract accounted for the entirety of their service provision. The loan was made on the basis of this single contract with government. The lender was a legally separate entity from both the non-profit and the government. So it looked like her creditor could be considered an investor.
The fourth condition relates to the financial risk of the investor. Was the finance institution truly taking on any financial risk? Indeed, there were two distinct types of financial risk taken on in this situation. Firstly, there was the risk of non-performance; that the non-profit would fail to deliver the results that would trigger payment from government. Secondly, there was 'appropriations risk', the risk that government doesn't approve the payment of a previously agreed contract [1]. If the non-profit, for either of these reasons, did not receive sufficient funds from the government to pay the loan, they would become insolvent and the finance institution would not have the loan repaid. So the fourth condition was met.
This non-profit was certainly part of a social impact bond as defined by the UK Cabinet Office, although none of the parties involved were using the term.
Other examples that may meet the definition of a SIB but not identify with the term include charter schools, which are independently run with three year contracts based on outcomes. If they establish a bridge loan fund to cover the cash flow gap, they may meet the four necessary criteria. These bridge loans are often used for capital infrastructure spend and the financial risk for the lender is sometimes rated, so certainly exists.
When we assess SIBs and compile data or 'track record', it may be worth looking at these existing arrangements that fit the SIB definition.
Organisations that are part of arrangements that fit the SIB definition might consider the benefits and challenges associated with the SIB label (e.g. will appropriation and other payment risks be reduced if the contract is 'announced' as a SIB).
The Cabinet Office definition came after several SIBs had already been developed and was not written by the Social Finance visionaries responsible for articulating and implementing the original concept. Does it misrepresent the concept? If so, do we need to change the definition?
[1] Appropriations risk is a feature of the US governmental systems and is described by Steve Goldberg in his fourth SIB Trib: "Even if a state signs a valid contract calling for the payment of money, it doesn't (indeed, can't) pay what the contract says it owes unless and until the state adopts an appropriation law specifically and affirmatively authorizing the expenditure. What's more, legislative authority to appropriate funds only lasts as long as the state's constitution allows budgets to remain in force. In most states that's one year, in some, two. So not only does a state have to enact budget legislation and then pass separate appropriations bills to legally spend any money, they can only do the latter within the one- to two-year time horizon of the former" (Goldberg, 2013).
The Justice Data Lab – an overview
July 16, 2013 April 3, 2015 Emma Tomkinson Criminal Justice, Evidence-based policy, Open project/source/data/government, Social Impact Bonds, Social Impact Measurement Minstry of Justice, NPC, reoffending, SIBs, social impact, social impact bonds, Transforming Rehabilitation
What is the Justice Data Lab?
The Justice Data Lab allows non-government organisations to compare the reoffending of the participants in their programmes with the reoffending of other similar ex-offenders. It "will allow them to understand their specific impact in reducing re-offending… providing easy access to high-quality re-offending information" (Ministry of Justice, Justice Data Lab User Journey p.10). There is no charge to organisations that use the Justice Data Lab.
The Justice Data Lab is a pilot run by the Ministry of Justice. The pilot began in April 2013. Each month, summaries of results and data are published, including Forest plots of all results so far.
Who might use it?
The Justice Data Lab can be used by "organisations that genuinely work with offenders" (Justice Data Lab User Journey p.11). One request will provide evidence of a programme's effect on its service users' reoffending. Several requests could compare services within an organisation or over time to answer more sophisticated questions about what is more effective.
This information could be used by non-government organisation for internal programme improvements, to report impact to stakeholders or to bid for contracts. It was set up at the time the Ministry of Justice's Transforming Rehabilitation Programme was encouraging bids from voluntary and community sector organisations to deliver services to reduce reoffending.
What are the inputs?
Input data are required to identify the service users from a specific program and match them with a comparison group. Information on at least 60 service users is required and the organisation must have worked with the offender between 2002 and 2010.
At least one of the following:
Conviction Date
Intervention Start Date [note: feedback from applicants is that this is required]
Intervention End Date [note:feedback from applicants is that this is required]
Highly Desirable: PNC ID and/or Prison Number
Optional: User Reference Fields
What are the outputs?
The one year proven re‐offending rate – defined as the proportion of offenders in a cohort who commit an offence in a one year follow‐up period which received a court conviction, caution, reprimand or warning during the one year follow‐up or in a further six month waiting period. The one year follow‐up period begins when offenders leave custody or start their probation sentence. A fictional example of the output provided by the Ministry of Justice is quoted below:
The analysis assessed the impact of the Granville Literacy Project (GLP) on re‐ offending. The one year proven re‐offending rate for 72 offenders on the GLP was 35%, compared with 41% for a matched control group of similar offenders. The best estimate for the reduction in re‐offending is 6 percentage points, and we can be confident that the reduction in re‐offending is between 2 and 10 percentage points.
What you can say: The evidence indicates that the GLP reduced re‐offending by between 2 and 10 percentage points.
Applicants should note the following requirement: "an organisation requesting data through the Justice Data Lab must publish the final report, in full, on the organisation's website within four months of receiving the final report."
I'd be very interested in the opinions of applicants on this requirement. Is it an issue? Does it create perverse incentives?
What are the implications?
The implications are huge. Prior to the Justice Data Lab it was very difficult for non-government organisations to establish a comparison group against which to measure their effect. Evaluations of effect are expensive and thus prohibitive, particularly for smaller organisations. In addition, the differences in their methods and definitions meant that evidence was more difficult to interpret and compare.
This is exactly the type of evidence that developers of social impact bonds find so difficult to establish and will be essential to constructing social impact bonds to deliver Transforming Rehabilitation services. It is a measure of outcome, which is desirable, but often more difficult to quantify than input (e.g. how much money went into the programme), activity (e.g. what services were delivered) or output (e.g. how many people completed the programme).
New Philanthropy Capital (NPC) were involved in designing the Justice Data Lab and their Data for Impact Manager, Tracey Gyateng, is specifically thinking about applications to other policy areas.
How is it going?
See my November 2014 post on information coming out of the Justice Data Lab.
Also note the announcement of an Employment Data Lab by NPC and the Department of Work and Pensions.
Information on the Justice Data Lab home page includes links to a series of useful documents:
User journey document – information on what the justice data lab is, and how to use its services.
Data upload template – use this template to supply data to the justice data lab. Further descriptions of the variables requested are given, and there are key areas which must be filled in on the specific activities of the organisation in relation to offenders.
Methodology paper – this document gives details of the specific methodology used by justice data lab to generate the analysis
Privacy impact assessment – this is a detailed analysis of how an organisations' data will be protected at all stages of a request to the justice data lab
Example report template – two examples of a standard report, completed for two fictional organisations showing what will be provided.
Criminal justice service providers might also benefit from getting involved in the Improving Your Evidence project, a partnership between Clinks, NPC and Project Oracle. The project will produce resources and support, so follow the link and let them know what would be of most use. The page also links to an introduction to the Justice Data Lab – a useful explanation of the service.
The bulk of this post has been copied directly from the Ministry of Justice documents listed above. It is intended to act as a summary of these documents for quick digestion by potential users of the Justice Data Lab. The author is not affiliated with the Ministry of Justice and does not claim to represent them.
Emma's businesses
Community Insight Australia a social enterprise that maps Australian data so you can understand the communities you live and work in.
Delivering the Promise of Social Outcomes: The Role of the Performance Analyst, stories of people who manage services to achieve outcomes and descriptions of how they do it.
Outcomes-based building contracts
Social impact bonds (SIBs) in Australia
What limits the spread of SIBs?
What if government doesn't refer enough people into your social impact bond (SIB)?
Across the sector Augsberg Germany SIB Australian Not-for-profit Reform Australian Social Benefit Bonds Criminal Justice crowdfunding Decision Science Evidence-based policy Great ideas for socially responsible living! Judging social organisations on their financial data microfinance Open project/source/data/government Peterborough SIB Procurement Rikers Island Rotterdam SIB Social Impact Bonds Social Impact Measurement Social Innovation Social Investment & Finance Uncategorized Utah SIB World map


text:
Brown bear population increase divides opinion
Samantha David
Wed 5 Apr 2017 11h58
© Francis C. Franklin / CC-BY-SA-3.0
Record number of bears in Pyrenees but sheep farmers are not happy
The bear population in the Central Pyrenees reached a record 39 animals in 2016, including 10 new cubs.
The figures, which are the highest since bears were reintroduced, has been welcomed by animal conservationists but farmers have expressed concerns.
According to the Association Pays de l'Ours - Adet, responsible for the reintroduction of bears into the region, these latest figures represent a lesson in how to successfully cultivate a wild bear population.
Its president, Alain Reynes, said: "It proves what we've always said: the Pyrenees is a good habitat for bears, the reintroduced bears are well adapted to life there, and that it is possible for sheep farmers and bears to live alongside each other. The target of establishing a self-sufficient breeding colony is within our grasp. We just need to release a few more unrelated females, to avoid interbreeding."
Pyreneen sheep farmers, however, are not as convinced of this happy cohabitation. They continue to decry attacks on their animals, which they say can result in losing up to 10% of the herd. According to Bruno Besche-Commenge, spokesperson of the Association for the Sustainable development of the identity of the Pyrenees (ADDIP), the impact also affects birth rates, down an estimated 25% in those summer pastures monitored.
Last October, 70 sheep breeders of the Pyrenees demonstrated in Saint-Béat (Haute-Garonne) to highlight the attacks on herds, committed according to them by a bear called Goiat, released in Spain.
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The reintroduction of bears into the French wild is a sensitive issue that reaches beyond just the sheep farmers and bear breeders involved. On March 8, 6,000 people took part in a public consultation about the government's 10-year bear conservation plan. Results of this consultation will result in a report presented to the Minister of the Environment Ségolène Royal and could lead to an emergency release of females in the Pyrenees (which she opposed in 2014).
Brown bears roamed the Pyrenees until the 20th century, when they were progressively wiped out. By 1970, when it became clear that wild bears were set to become extinct in France, the government was stirred to action but by the time a plan was evolved in the 1980s, it was too late. The last bear disappeared from the central Pyrenees in the early 1990s.
In 2005, more bears were introduced from Slovenia and gradually they have established a population. However, this brown bear population is still not considered viable and the species has been classified as endangered in France since 2009.
Female bears can roam across 100 square kilometres, and males will roam up to 1,000 square kilometres looking for food, shelter, breeding grounds and suitable hibernation
Walkers are highly unlikely to meet a bear in the Pyrenees, however; they are mainly nocturnal and avoid human contact if at all possible. If you do have the luck to spot one, do not attempt to approach or track it. Keep dogs at heel and move slowly away. Never ever run.
More articles from Nature
Snakes on the plains
Eric Bryan's guide to the varied serpents living in hiking country in the south of France – and what you ... Published: May 29 2019
Open Gardens: June in full bloom
The Anglo-French association Open Gardens is in full swing this month. The Connexion previews the season's picks Published: May 29 2019 A monthly update on environmental events and occurrences in France: mussel mortality, school pollution and eco-friendly farmer payouts Published: May 29 2019
Hiker nearly dies after viper bite in SE France
Victim suffered allergic reaction after sucking at wound on his hand Published: July 15 2019
A campaign against bed bugs in France has been launched by MPs to spread knowledge of how to get rid ... Published: July 5 2019
Walkers attacked by bees in southern France
Normally peaceful insects 'had probably been disturbed and irritated' by keeper, expert believes Published: July 4 2019
animal protection , animals , bears , sheep


text:
Q: Confusing closures and completion handles Im a new programmer and am very lost.
I am taking this online iOS dev course and I was configuring collection view cell.
However, closures and completion handles were used and it was never mentioned before.
import UIKit

class PersonCell: UICollectionViewCell {

@IBOutlet weak var img: UIImageView!

func configureCell(imgUrl: String) {
    if let url = NSURL(string: imgUrl) {
        downloadImg(url)
    }
}

func downloadImg(url: NSURL) {
    getDataFromURL(url) { (data, response, error) in
        dispatch_async(dispatch_get_main_queue()) { () -> Void in
            guard let data = data where error == nil else {return}
            self.img.image = UIImage(data: data)
        }
    }
}

func getDataFromURL(url: NSURL, completion: ((data: NSData?, response: NSURLResponse?, error: NSError?) -> Void)) {

    NSURLSession.sharedSession().dataTaskWithURL(url) { (data, response, error) in
        completion(data: data, response: response, error: error)
    } .resume()

}
}

Can someone explain to me what the completion handler is doing after the "getDataFromURL" function. Also what are the closures doing? is "(data, response, error)" getting passed around? How does swift know that "data" is suppose to be NSData and etc in the "(data, response, error)"?
What does the closure after the "dataTaskWithURL" do (is it setting up the completion handler"?
Thank you!

A: These are good questions!
A closure is simply a collection (aka block) of lines of code that you can treat like a variable and execute like a function. You can refer to a closure with a variable name and you can pass a closure around as a parameter in function calls just like any other variable, eventually executing the code when appropriate. A closure can accept certain parameters to use in its code and it can include a return value.
Example:
This is a closure that accepts two strings as parameters and returns a string.
let closure: (String, String) -> String = { (a: String, b: String) -> String in
                                              return a + b
                                          }

Thus, the following will print "Hello Jack!":
print(closure("Hello ", "Jack!"))

A closure also has a variable type (just like "hello" is a String and 1 is an Int). The variable type is based on the parameters that the closure accepts and the value that the closure returns. Thus, since the closure above accepts two strings as parameters and returns a string, its variable type is (String, String) -> String. Note: when nothing is returned (i.e. the return type is Void), you can omit the return type (so (Int, String) -> Void is the same thing as (Int, String)).
A completion handler is a closure that you can pass to certain functions. When the function completes, it executes the closure (e.g. when a view finished animating onto the screen, when a file finished downloading, etc.).
Example:
"Done!" will be printed when the view controller is finished presenting.
let newClosure: () -> Void = { () -> Void in
    print("Done!")
}
let someViewController = UIViewController(nibName: nil, bundle: nil)
self.presentViewController(someViewController, animated: true, completion: newClosure)

Let's focus on the getDataFromURL function you wrote first. It takes two parameters: a variable of type NSData and a closure of type (NSData?, NSURLResponse?, NSError?) -> Void. Thus, the closure (which is named completion) takes three parameters of types NSData?, NSURLResponse?, and NSError?, and returns nothing, because this is how you defined the closure in the function declaration.
You then call getDataFromURL. If you read the documentation, you'll see that the closure you pass to this function as the second parameter is executed when the load task is complete. The function declaration for dataTaskWithURL is what defines the variable types that the closure accepts and returns. Within this closure, you are then calling the closure you passed to the getDataFromURL function.
Within this latter closure (the one you define in downloadImg when you are calling getDataFromURL), you are checking to see if the data that you downloaded is not nil, and if not, you are then setting the data as an image in a UIImageView. The dispatch_async(dispatch_get_main_queue(), ...) call simply ensures that you are setting the new image on the main thread, as per Apple's specifications (you can read more about threads elsewhere).

A: make an typealias to understand this is easy :
typealias Handle = (data: NSData?, response: NSURLResponse?, error: NSError?) -> Void
//the func should be
func getDataFromURL(url: NSURL, completion: Handle)
//when you call it. it needs an url and an Handle
getDataFromURL(url:NSURL, completion: Handle)
// so we pass the url and handle to it
getDataFromURL(url) { (data, response, error) in
        dispatch_async(dispatch_get_main_queue()) { () -> Void in
            guard let data = data where error == nil else {return}
            self.img.image = UIImage(data: data)
        }
    }
//setp into the func
func getDataFromURL(url: NSURL, completion: Handle){
    // call async net work by pass url
    NSURLSession.sharedSession().dataTaskWithURL(url) { (data, response, error) in
        // now data / response / error  we have and we invoke the handle
        completion(data: data, response: response, error: error)
        } .resume()

}
hope it be helpful :D


text:
import * as PouchDB from 'pouchdb';

import { DatabaseDocument } from '../../models/databaseDocument';

interface PouchResponse {
  ok: boolean;
  id: string;
  rev: string;
}

export abstract class Resource<T extends DatabaseDocument> {
  // If you don't have CouchDB installed locally, change baseUrl value to empty string.
  private baseUrl: string = 'https://couchdb-4a0ddc.smileupps.com/';
  private db: PouchDB.Database<any>;

  protected abstract dbUrl: string;

  public lastId: number;

  constructor() {
  }

  getAll(): Promise<T[]> {
    // TODO: https://pouchdb.com/guides/queries.html

    return this.db.allDocs({include_docs: true, attachments: true})
      .then(data => {
        return data.rows
          .filter(row => !row.doc.deleted)
          .map(row => row.doc);
    });
  }

  create(data: T): Promise<PouchResponse> {
    data._id = this.lastId.toString();

    return this.db.put(data)
      .then((response: PouchResponse) => {
        this.lastId++;

        return response;
      });
  }

  get(id: string): Promise<T> {
    return this.db.get(id, {attachments: true});
  }

  update(id: string, body: T): Promise<PouchResponse> {
    return this.db.get(id)
      .then(doc => {
        body._rev = doc._rev;

        return this.db.put(body);
    });
  }

  remove(id: string): Promise<PouchResponse> {
    return this.db.get(id)
      .then(doc => {
        doc.deleted = true;

        return this.db.put(doc);
    });
  }

  protected init() {
    this.db = new PouchDB(this.baseUrl + this.dbUrl);

    this.db.info()
      .then(result => {
        this.lastId = result.doc_count;
      });
  }
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Pub Visit England
Pub Visit IOM/NI/Wales
Pub Visit Europe (except Germany)
Pub Visit Germany
Pub Visit USA/Canada
Pub Visit Rest of the World
Pub Visit Scotland
Brewery Visit UK
Brewery Visit Europe
Brewery Visit USA/Canada
Beer Festival Visit UK
Beer Festival Visit USA/Canada
Cider Visit UK
Cider Visit Europe
Cider Writings
Beer Writings
General or Historical Articles
BeerVisits - UK - Europe - USA/Canada - World
Pub Visit - England
Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Tyne and Wear: Bodega
Bob Thompson
This is a quite beautiful pub from the 19th Century that is quite close to Newcastle Central station; less than ten minutes walk. It is owned by Sir John Fitzgerald Ltd, a small pub chain (around 15) based in the North-East. If all pub-owning companies were as good as this one then our pubs wouldn't be in crisis mode today. They spend money on their houses and use quality materials to decorate them. One only has to walk a short distance along Westgate Street to see pubs owned by the national chains that provide a telling comparison.
Whilst researching the pub's story I noticed multiple references that state it has a lot of history, yet very little information on what that actually is. I have details of its beginnings and its later life, with nothing much in between.
It opened around 1862 as the Black Bull Inn. There was a three storey brew house out the back and around the turn of the century, during the construction of the Pavilion Theatre nearby, the brewery collapsed. However it was rebuilt and re-opened in 1903.
The history of the pub after then is a little vague and I can find no references to it until it was purchased by Sir John Fitzgerald in 1995 when it had already closed. I did see one mention of it being a music hall at one time. I wonder if this was as a stand alone enterprise or as part of the pub, a not uncommon situation. Inside there is evidence of what was a division around half way down the bar room, so maybe there was a music hall at the rear.
It seems that the frontage to Westgate Street was new when it became a Fitzgerald's pub, even though it is in an old style. Inside its true beauty becomes apparent. The bar is varnished dark wood and at the far end beyond the former wall it becomes curved with shiny metal bands in the style of a barrel. The fitted bench seating around the walls is in many styles with comfortable stuffed leather cushioning. I also noticed the magnificent tiled floor.
The most noticeable architectural features are the two stained glass domes in the ceiling that give the pub an airy feeling during daylight. There are absolutely fabulous, please see the photographs.
There is more beauty in glass provided by the brewery advertising mirrors that decorate the walls. I was amazed by their superb condition; they look as if they are almost new. There are many historic framed photographs on the other walls. In some parts of the room there is wood panelling to half height.
When I visited, I thought the beer selection was quite superb. I had a choice of the following: Oakham (Peterborough, Cambs) Citra (4.2%); Big Lamp (Newburn, Tyne & Wear) Prince Bishop Ale (4.8%); Harbour Brewing (Trekillick, Cornwall) India Pale Ale (5.0%); Fyne Ales (Achadunan, Argyllshire, Scotland) Jarl (3.8%); Allendale (Allendale, Northumberland) Oat Stout (4.0%) and Sauvin 600 (4.9%); Wild Beer (Evercreech, Somerset) Scarlet Fever (4.8%) and finally: Wentworth (Wentworth, South Yorks) Mr Monaco (3.8%).
There is a very extensive selection of foreign bottled beers for those who like that sort of thing. They are also noted for a good selection of Scotch whiskies. The pub holds a popular prize quiz every Wednesday at 20.30. This is a great pub and should on everybody's list of "must do" pubs amongst the excellent selection available in central Newcastle.
Just after publishing this article we heard that Congratulations should go to the Bodega for becoming the CAMRA Tyneside Pub of the Year 2014. Well done.
The Bodega, 125 Westgate Road, Newcastle NE1 6BX. Tel: 0191 221 1552
Open: Monday-Thursday 11.00-23.00; Friday-Saturday 11.00-24.00; Sunday 12.00-22.30
The Bodega is around five to ten minutes walk from the Central station. This has train services to many parts of the country provided by many companies. It also has a station on the Tyne & Wear Metro. It is also less than ten minutes from Eldon Square Bus Station, which is served by many routes.
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Chicago (Near West Side), Illinois: All Rise Brewing at the Cobra Lounge
Chicago (Irving Park), Illinois: Begyle Brewing Co.
Chicago (West Lakeview), Illinois: Corridor Brewery and Provisions
Chicago (Irving Park), Illinois: Dovetail Brewing Co.
Chicago (River North), Illinois: Gino's East (River North)
Chicago (Lincoln Park), Illinois: Goose Island Brewhouse (formerly Goose Island-Clybourn)
Chicago (Wicker Park), Illinois: Piece Brewery and Pizzeria
Chicago (Logan Square), Illinois: Revolution Brewing - Milwaukee Avenue Brewpub
Amersfoort: De Drie Ringen
Amersfoort: Rock City Brewing
Berlin-Mitte: Brauhaus Lemke am Alex
Perry Wood, Kent: Rose & Crown Beer Festival
Edinburgh (Dalry): Diggers (Athletic Arms)
Queenborough, Kent: Admiral's Arm
Margate, Kent: Harbour Arms
Rothenburg ob der Tauber, Bayern (Bavaria): Landwehr Bräu am Türm
Nottingham (Canning Circus), Nottinghamshire: Organ Grinder
Heidelberg-Altstadt (Old Town), Baden-Württemburg: Scheffel's Kulturbrauerei Heidelberg
München (Munich), Bayern (Bavaria): Hofbräukeller
Mitterteich, Bayern (Bavaria): Brauereigasthof Hösl
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text:
Q: Our VPS is being used as a Warez mule The company I work for runs a series of ecommerce stores on a VPS. It's a WAMP stack, 50gb storage.
We use an archaic piece of ecommerce software which operates almost entirely client-side. When an order is taken, it writes it to disk and then we schedule a task to download the orders once every 10 minutes.
A few days ago, we ran out of disk space, which caused orders to fail to be written. I quickly hopped on to delete some old logs from the mailserver and freed up a couple of GB pretty quickly, but I wondered how we could fill up 50gb will nothing much more than logs.
Turns out, we didn't. Hidden deep within the c:\System Volume Information directory, we have a stack of pirated videos, which seem to have appeared (looking at the timestamps) over the past three weeks. Porn, American Sports, Australian cooking shows. A very odd collection. Doesn't look like an individual's personal tastes - more like the VPS is being used as a mule.
We have a 5-attempts and you're blocked policy on our FTP server (plus, there is no FTP account with access to that directory), and the windows user account has had it's password changed recently. The main avenues are sealed - and logs can verify that. I thought I'd watch and see if it happened again, and yes, another cooking show has appeared this morning.
I am the only one to know of this problem at my company, and only one of two with access to the VPS (the other being my boss, but no - it's not him).
So how is this happening?
Is there a vulnerability in some of the software on the VPS?
Are the VPS owners peddling warez across our rented space? (can they do this?)
I don't want to delete the warez in case it is seen as a hostile action against this outside force, and they choose to retaliate.
What should I do? How do I troubleshoot this?
Has this happened to anyone else before?

A: without auditing code (are you using custom store software?), you can't know if there's a bug that's being exploited (and even if you didn't find anything that doesn't mean it isn't there). Are you using custom SQL code, for example? With sanity checking and cleaning of input?
I'm assuming all your systems are fully up to date? Malware checks? Antivirus up to date?
Once someone cracks the system, they could have rootkitted it. No matter how you put in password changes or alterations, if something in the system has been changed to allow backdoor access, you're not going to keep it out. On top of that it could be logging your password changes and keystrokes, so you're just feeding more passwords to the attacker.
You can put in auditing to see where connections are coming from, but I doubt that'll help a heckuva lot.
In the end, you need to consider a wipe and reinstall from scratch. It's the only way you can trust the installation again and know that it's clean from trojan code, since the infection can mask itself once it's in control.
Scarier, if you're taking credit cards, this information could be getting swiped and you'll be liable for having customer identities swiped. If you're in the US this has ramifications where you need to notify customers of possible identity theft.
If this is a server that handles anything involving money you might need to consider calling in contractors to audit the system. Take images of the system for forensic use and wipe and reinstall. The longer you wait, the more liability you open yourself to.
To answer how it's happening, if the server is a dedicated server, it could be
cracking something in your storefront (SQL injection, for example)
vulnerability in Windows not patched
anything web browse with that system? "Drive by" downloaders from a website.
Run software on it that's not from the system? Could have been infected with something.
Weak passwords. Audit them ever?
And there's the possibility that you won't easily know how they did it. My bets are on the storefront software, especially if it's niche, as it's easy for developers to not clean input from the URL and open it to injection attacks. Or if it's using PHP open to an outside interface; you do keep that up to date? You don't mention if it uses something like a php administrative interface, but sloppy php coding can add an easy attack vector as well.
If you're at a total loss of how to fight this, seriously, hire outside help. No shame in getting help, and the rule of thumb is that once you're hacked, you CANNOT be sure it's fixed, and if customer data is flowing on that system you're opening yourself to liability and harming innocent customers. Plus if that system isn't partitioned off from other systems on the network, it could try to intercept other system's data.

A: First off, I think you'll find there are at least three people with access to the VPS, not just the two you know about. I believe the system has been hacked and taken over. I also suspect that it is now hosting files for a P2P network, most likely torrents. You could have a search for *.torrent files but they're probably hidden from your view anyway.
You are no longer in control of the system. They have simply left you with that illusion. Had they not been so careless as to use up all that disk space they may well have got away with it for a lot longer. Incidentally, even a rudimentary monitoring system should have alerted you to diminishing disk space.
At this point you need to take Bart's advice and gather forensic evidence in the form of a system snapshot. Then wipe it completely and reinstall from scratch. Your backups at this point are probably worthless, as you have no real way of knowing when the hacking took place.
You need to look at what can be done to better secure your newly rebuilt system. For that matter, I'd consider rebuilding it on a new host and continue to use the existing one till it's ready, then do a cut-over.


The CONCAT string function, which is short for concatenate, returns a string that is the result of concatenating two or more string values.
The input parameters, string_value1, string_value2, string_valueN, are the string values that will be concatenated together in the order specified. All arguments are implicitly converted to string types and then concatenated. NULL values are implicitly converted to an empty string. If all arguments are NULL, an empty string of type VARCHAR(1) is returned. The implicit conversion of strings follows the existing rules for data type conversions.
Prior to SQL Server 2012, to concatenate strings the string concatenation operator used is the plus (+) sign. This string concatenation operator is still valid in SQL Server 2012. There are 2 notable differences between these 2 ways of concatenating strings.
The first difference is in the handling NULL values. Using the + string concatenation operator, if any of the string values being concatenated is NULL and the CONCAT_NULL_YIELDS_NULL setting is set to ON, then the result will be NULL. With the CONCAT string function, regardless of the setting of the CONCAT_NULL_YIELDS_NULL option, all NULL values are implicitly converted to an empty string.
Another notable difference is in concatenating values of different data types. With the CONCAT string function, all non-string data types are implicitly converted to string data type before being concatenated. With the + string concatenation operator, if the values being concatenated are of different data types, the rules of data precedence will convert the data type of the lower precedence to the data type with the higher precedence. If the conversion is not a supported implicit conversion then an error is generated.
The FORMAT string function returns a value formatted with the specified format and optional culture.
The first argument, <value>, is the expression to be formatted. It has to be one of the supported data types, which are either numeric data types (BIGINT, INT, SMALLINT, TINYINT, DECIMAL, NUMERIC, FLOAT, REAL, SMALLMONEY or MONEY) or date and time data types (DATE, TIME, DATETIME, SMALLDATETIME, DATETIME2 or DATETIMEOFFSET).
The second argument, <format>, must contain a valid .NET Framework format string, either as a standard format string, such as 'd' (short date pattern) or 'F' (full date/time pattern) for date/time data type format or 'C' (currency), 'N' (number) or 'P' (percent) for numeric data type format, or as a pattern of custom characters for dates and numeric values (for example, 'MM/dd/yyyy hh:mm:ss tt').
The third argument, <culture>, is optional and is used to specify the culture, which is any culture supported by the .NET Framework. If this argument is not provided, then the language of the current session is used.