Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Mechanisms of collective learning: how can animal groups improve collective performance when repeating a task?

Learning is ubiquitous in animals: individuals can use their experience to fine-tune behaviour and thus to better adapt to the environment during their lifetime. Observations have accumulated that, at the collective level, groups can also use their experience to improve collective performance. Yet, despite apparent simplicity, the links between individual learning capacities and a collective's performance can be extremely complex. Here we propose a centralized and broadly applicable framework to begin classifying this complexity. Focusing principally on groups with stable composition, we first identify three distinct ways through which groups can improve their collective performance when repeating a task: each member learning to better solve the task on its own, members learning about each other to better respond to one another and members learning to improve their complementarity. We show through selected empirical examples, simulations and theoretical treatments that these three categories identify distinct mechanisms with distinct consequences and predictions. These mechanisms extend well beyond current social learning and collective decision-making theories in explaining collective learning. Finally, our approach, definitions and categories help generate new empirical and theoretical research avenues, including charting the expected distribution of collective learning capacities across taxa and its links to social stability and evolution. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue ‘Collective behaviour through time’.
Molecular patterns and processes in evolving sociality: lessons from insects

Social insects have provided some of the clearest insights into the origins and evolution of collective behaviour. Over 20 years ago, Maynard Smith and Szathmáry defined the most complex form of insect social behaviour—superorganismality—among the eight major transitions in evolution that explain the emergence of biological complexity. However, the mechanistic processes underlying the transition from solitary life to superorganismal living in insects remain rather elusive. An overlooked question is whether this major transition arose via incremental or step-wise modes of evolution. We suggest that examination of the molecular processes underpinning different levels of social complexity represented across the major transition from solitary to complex sociality can help address this question. We present a framework for using molecular data to assess to what extent the mechanistic processes that take place in the major transition to complex sociality and superorganismality involve nonlinear (implying step-wise evolution) or linear (implying incremental evolution) changes in the underlying molecular mechanisms. We assess the evidence for these two modes using data from social insects and discuss how this framework can be used to test the generality of molecular patterns and processes across other major transitions. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue ‘Collective behaviour through time’.
Shakhbazian compact galaxy groups - I. Photometric, spectroscopic and X-ray study of ShCG 154, ShCG 166, ShCG 328, ShCG 360

Shakhbazian compact galaxy groups belong to the interesting class of compact groups. Because of their large number (the catalogue contains 377 entries) we are able to study the groups in dierent stages of evolution. Here we give the results of detailed study of four groups, ShCG 154, ShCG 166, ShCG 328 and ShCG 360. We present the redshifts of individual galaxies in groups, the results of the surface photometry in BVR, the contourplots of the surface brightness versus eective radius of galaxies, the twisting postion angle versus eective radius of galaxies, the radial velocity dispersions, the crossing times, the mass-to-luminosity ratios of groups and the results of the X-ray study. The dynamical state of groups, interactions between member galaxies, and the physical parameters of groups are discussed.
POETS: An Event-driven Approach to Dissipative Particle Dynamics

HPC clusters have become ever more expensive, both in terms of capital cost and energy consumption; some estimates suggest that competitive installations at the end of the next decade will require their own power station. One way around this looming problem is to design bespoke computing engines, but while the performance benefits are good, the design costs are huge and cannot easily be amortized. Partially Ordered Event Triggered System (POETS)—the focus of this article—seeks to exploit a middle way: The architecture is tuned to a specific algorithmic pattern but, within that constraint, is fully programmable. POETS software is quasi-imperative: The user defines a set of sequential event handlers, defines the topology of a (typically large) concurrent ensemble of these, and lets them interact. The “solution” may be exfiltrated from the emergent behaviour of the ensemble. In this article, we describe (briefly) the architecture, and an example computational chemistry application, dissipative particle dynamics (DPD). The DPD algorithm is traditionally implemented using parallel computational techniques, but we re-cast it as a concurrent compute problem that is then ideally suited to POETS. Our prototype system is realised on a cluster of 48 FPGAs providing 50K concurrent hardware threads, and we report performance speedups of over two orders of magnitude better than a single thread baseline comparator and scaling behaviour that is almost constant. The results are validated against a “conventional” implementation.
Neural Architecture Search for GNN-Based Graph Classification

Graph classification is an important problem with applications across many domains, for which graph neural networks (GNNs) have been state-of-the-art (SOTA) methods. In the literature, to adopt GNNs for the graph classification task, there are two groups of methods: global pooling and hierarchical pooling. The global pooling methods obtain the graph representation vectors by globally pooling all of the node embeddings together at the end of several GNN layers, whereas the hierarchical pooling methods provide one extra pooling operation between the GNN layers to extract hierarchical information and improve the graph representations. Both global and hierarchical pooling methods are effective in different scenarios. Due to highly diverse applications, it is challenging to design data-specific pooling methods with human expertise. To address this problem, we propose PAS (Pooling Architecture Search) to design adaptive pooling architectures by using the neural architecture search (NAS). To enable the search space design, we propose a unified pooling framework consisting of four modules: Aggregation, Pooling, Readout, and Merge. Two variants, PAS-G and PAS-NE, are provided to design the pooling operations in different scales. A set of candidate operations is designed in the search space using this framework. Then, existing human-designed pooling methods, including global and hierarchical ones, can be incorporated. To enable efficient search, a coarsening strategy is developed to continuously relax the search space, and then a differentiable search method can be adopted. We conduct extensive experiments on six real-world datasets, including the large-scale datasets MR and ogbg-molhiv. Experimental results in this article demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed PAS in designing the pooling architectures for graph classification. The Top-1 performance on two Open Graph Benchmark (OGB) datasets1 further indicates the utility of PAS when facing diverse realistic data. The implementation of PAS is available at: https://github.com/AutoML-Research/PAS.
Hong Kong poison information centre: Annual report 2020

Background: The Hong Kong Poison Information Centre has provided consultation service to healthcare professionals and collected epidemiological data on poisoning in Hong Kong since 2005. Objective: To analyse and report the poisoning data of Hong Kong Poison Information Centre in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: A retrospective review of all poisoning cases recorded in the Poison Information and Clinical Management System of Hong Kong Poison Information Centre in 2020. Results: A total of 3633 poisoning cases were analysed. Compared to 2019 (pre-COVID era), there was a reduction of ~10% of total poisoning cases recorded (383 cases), with a majority (> 90%) of reduction from poisoning cases with no clinical effect (353 cases). A greater proportion of reduction was observed among the children (0–12 years), patients with general unintentional poisoning, poisoning due to therapeutic error and food poisoning. An increased number of cases was noted from abusive use, adverse herb/proprietary Chinese medicine reaction and poisoning related to household bleaches. Teenage (13–19 years) poisoning seemed to be unaffected by the COVID-19 pandemic and the previously observed increasing trend continued (up to 11.8% of total poisoning cases this year). Despite a total reduction in poisoning cases recorded, the number of deaths increased by 37% from 35 in 2019 to 48 in 2020 (mortality rate 1.5%). A total of seven interesting cases were discussed. Conclusion: This 15th annual report provides updated epidemiological information on poisoning patterns in Hong Kong during the COVID-19 pandemic. It also highlighted important changes and possible effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on poisoning in Hong Kong in comparison with our previous reports.
Simple Model for Directional Distortional Hardening in Metal Plasticity within Thermodynamics

Directional distortion, observed in many experiments on various types of metals, refers to the formation of a region of high curvature (sharpening) on the yield surface approximately in the direction of loading, and a region of low curvature (flattening) approximately in the opposite direction. Constitutive modeling of directional distortion was recently presented by the writers where an evolving fourth-order tensor-valued internal variable was introduced. In the current paper a much simpler mathematical formulation describing directional distortional hardening is presented without the use of a fourth-order tensor, in conjunction with kinematic and isotropic hardening. Two versions of the model in ascending level of complexity follow similar lines of development, which include derivation of all hardening rules on the basis of conditions sufficient to satisfy the thermodynamic dissipation inequality. As a tradeoff for its simplicity the present model does not fit experimental data as well as the model with the evolving fourth-order tensor, but it still captures the salient features of directional distortion in a rather satisfactory way.
A New Method for Tracking Meddies by Satellite Altimetry

AbstractSubsurface coherent vortices in the North Atlantic, whose saline water originates from the Mediterranean Sea and which are known as Mediterranean eddies (meddies), have been of particular interest to physical oceanographers since their discovery, especially for their salt and heat transport properties into the North Atlantic Ocean. Many studies in the past have been successful in observing and studying the typical properties of meddies by probing them with in situ techniques. The use of remote sensing techniques would offer a much cheaper and easier alternative for studying these phenomena, but only a few past studies have been able to study meddies by remote sensing, and a reliable method for observing them remotely remains elusive. This research presents a new way of locating and tracking meddies in the North Atlantic Ocean using satellite altimeter data. The method presented in this research makes use of ensemble empirical mode decomposition (EEMD) as a means to isolate the surface expressions .
An Idealized Cloud-Resolving Framework for the Study of Midlatitude Diurnal Convection over Land

AbstractThis paper introduces an idealized cloud-resolving modeling (CRM) framework for the study of midlatitude diurnal convection over land. The framework is used to study the feedbacks among soil, boundary layer, and diurnal convection. It includes a setup with explicit convection and a full set of parameterizations. Predicted variables are constantly relaxed toward prescribed atmospheric profiles and soil conditions. The relaxation is weak in the lower troposphere and upper soil to allow the development of a realistic diurnal planetary boundary layer. The model is run to its own equilibrium (30 days). The framework is able to produce a realistic timing of the diurnal cycle of convection. It also confirms the development of deeper convection in a more unstably stratified atmosphere.With this relaxation method, the simulated “diurnal equilibrium convection” determines the humidity profile of the lower atmosphere, and the simulation becomes insensitive to the reference humidity profile. However, if a fast.
Remote Sensing of Wetlands

This paper demonstrates three examples of applying remote-sensing technology to the delineation of wetlands in the United States. First, the results of a technique to identify roseau cane (Phragmites communis) using LANDSAT and aircraft MSS data are presented. Approximately 9700 ha. of Phragmites communis were identified in the Mississippi River delta using LANDSAT data. Second, the results of a technique to identify wetland communities, principally mangroves, in Florida using LANDSAT and aircraft MSS are presented. A cost analysis of the remote versus conventional ground-survey technique is provided. The LANDSAT MSS average classification accuracy for mangroves only versus all classes were 87 percent and 74 percent, respectively. The third example presents the results of a technique to delineate surface cover types in the southeast tidal/riverine system of the Savannah River. Both forested and nonforested wetlands were delineated using multi-temporal LANDSAT MSS data. The average classification accuracy for wetland classes only was about 82 percent and for all cover types was about 78 percent.
Extended Cauchy equations for the refractive indices of liquid crystals

The extended Cauchy equations are derived based on the Vuks equation for describing the wavelength- and temperature-dependent refractive indices of liquid crystal compounds and mixtures. This model fits experimental data well in the off-resonance spectral region. Correlations between the Cauchy coefficients for the nematic and isotropic phases are derived and validated by experiments.
The Development of a Conceptual Framework for Providing Tailored Diabetes Care for Individuals Experiencing Homelessness: A Qualitative Study

Abstract:Homelessness results in barriers to effective diabetes self-management. Programs targeting individuals facing homelessness have refined strategies to address these barriers. We sought to develop a framework to characterize these strategies that could help multidisciplinary providers to better support these individuals. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with a purposive sample of health and social care providers working in diabetes or homelessness in five Canadian cities (n=96). Interview transcripts were analyzed through qualitative thematic analysis. Providers described three groups of approaches that enabled care for this population. Person-centered provider behaviours: This included tailoring care plans to accommodate individuals' situational constraints. Lower-barrier organizational structure: Providers developed specialized organizational processes to increase accessibility. Bridging to larger care systems: Strategies included providing access to support workers. Across diverse program structures, similar approaches are used to enhance diabetes care for individuals who are experiencing homelessness, highlighting tangible opportunities for mainstream services to better engage with this population.
Compensator based output feedback sliding mode controller design

Recent work has shown that the problem of hyperplane design for output feedback sliding mode controllers is equivalent to a static output feedback pole placement problem for a certain subsystem. It is well known that the dimensionality requirements for this type of problem can be obviated by using a dynamic compensator. In this paper, a new parameterization of both the hyperplane and the compensator is proposed. The advantages of this approach are twofold: firstly it becomes straightforward to construct numerical algorithms for dynamic output feedback sliding mode hyperplane design, and secondly it enables an intuitive procedure to be employed for the design of the controller. The resulting control strategy uses only the plant outputs and the compensator states, yet is shown to guarantee the existence of a sliding motion.
Efficient implementation of adaptive feedforward runout cancellation in a disk drive

This paper presents an improved adaptive feedforward compensation (AFC) technique for periodic disturbance cancellation. It has a better rate of convergence than AFC. It can also compensate for a particular harmonic without amplifying the adjacent uncompensated harmonics. A frequency domain design strategy is proposed. The results are verified both through simulations and by an experiment on a disk drive with a dedicated servo channel.
Role of Interactions between Aerosol Radiative Effect, Dynamics, and Cloud Microphysics on Transitions of Monsoon Intraseasonal Oscillations

AbstractExtended-range prediction of monsoon intraseasonal oscillations (MISOs), crucial for agriculture and water management, is limited by their event-to-event variability. Here, the authors propose a hypothesis supported by a number of model simulations involving detailed cloud microphysical processes indicating that aerosols contribute significantly to the transitions from “break” to “active” phases of MISO. The role of aerosol indirect effect in the process of invigoration of precipitation is demonstrated with a high-resolution regional model for Indian summer monsoon breaks that are followed by an active condition (BFA) and contrasted with breaks that are not followed by an active condition (BNFA). The BFA are characterized by higher concentrations of absorbing aerosols that lead to a stronger north–south low-level temperature gradient and strong moisture convergence. Forced uplift beyond the freezing level initiates the cold-rain process involving mixed-phase microphysics and latent heat release at.
The core dominance parameter of extragalactic radio sources

In this paper, based on a paper by Liu and Zhang (2002), we have chosen a sample of 542 extragalactic sources (27 BL Lac objects, 300 galaxies (radio galaxies and Seyfert galaxies), and 215 quasars), for which we have calculated the core-dominance parameters and investigated the relation between core-dominance parameter and the core and extended lu- minosities. The core-dominance parameter of galaxies is smaller than that in quasars, which is smaller than that in BL Lac objects. log R= 1:40 0:74 for galaxies, log R= 0:53 0:92 for quasars, and log R= 0:01 0:65 for BL Lac objects on average respectively. For quasars, there is clear correlation between the core-luminosity and core-dominance parameter and an anti-correlation between the extended luminosity and the core-dominance parameter, which is explained by the beaming eect.
Magnetic reconnection, buoyancy, and flapping motions in magnetotail explosions

A key process in the interaction of magnetospheres with the solar wind is the explosive release of energy stored in the magnetotail. Based on observational evidence, magnetic reconnection is widely believed to be responsible. However, the very possibility of spontaneous reconnection in collisionless magnetotail plasmas has been questioned in kinetic theory for more than three decades. In addition, in situ observations by multispacecraft missions (e.g., THEMIS) reveal the development of buoyancy and flapping motions coexisting with reconnection. Never before have kinetic simulations reproduced all three primary modes in realistic 2‐D configurations with a finite normal magnetic field. Moreover, 3‐D simulations with closed boundaries suggest that the tail activity is dominated by buoyancy‐driven instabilities, whereas reconnection is a secondary effect strongly localized in the dawn‐dusk direction. In this paper, we use massively parallel 3‐D fully kinetic simulations with open boundaries to show that sufficiently far from the planet explosive processes in the tail are dominated by reconnection motions. These motions occur in the form of spontaneously generated dipolarization fronts accompanied by changes in magnetic topology which extend in the dawn‐dusk direction over the size of the simulation box, suggesting that reconnection onset causes a macroscale reconfiguration of the real magnetotail. In our simulations, buoyancy and flapping motions significantly disturb the primary dipolarization front but neither destroy it nor change the near 2‐D picture of the front evolution critically. Consistent with recent multiprobe observations, dipolarization fronts are also found to be the main regions of energy conversion in the magnetotail.
Low-cost monopulse radial line slot antenna

The authors propose the design of one radial line slot antenna with two simultaneous beams, one broadside beam and one conical beam. The antenna is a radial line slot antenna (RLSA), with the slots placed on the upper plate in concentric rings. The radiating element is a slot pair, designed for getting left hand circular polarization. The antenna has been designed to work in the range of 13.4 GHz and 14 GHz. Both beams are obtained independently through very simple excitation circuits, realized with microstrip technology. These feeding networks include a Butler Matrix Network. Comparing both radiation patterns, amplitude and phase, theta and phi angles of arrival direction can be obtained. This monopulse performance can be used to orientate the pencil beam for satellite communication antennas. Measurements for a first prototype are presented to validate the design.
A Class of Nondifferentiable Fractional Programming Problems

Recently Chandra and Gulati established duality theorems for the nondifferentiable fractional programming problem maximize< [cTx – (xTBx)1/2 – α]/[eTx + (xTDx)1/2 + β] subject to Ax ≦ b, x≧. Here we treat the more general nonlinear fractional programming problem maximize [f(x) – (xT Bx)1/2]/[g(x) + (xT Dx)1/2] subject to h(x) ≦0, where f, g and h are differentiable, possibly nonlinear, functions. Necessary and sufficient conditions for optimality as well as appropriate duality theorems are established. Unlangst stellten Chandra und Gulati Dualitatssatze fur das nicht-differenzierbare Quotientenoptimierungsproblem max {[cTx – (xTBx)1/2 – α]/[eTx + (xTDx)1/2 + β] | Ax ≦ b, x ≧ 0} auf. In dieser Arbeit untersuchen wir das allgemeinere nichtlineare Quotientenoptimierungsproblem max {[f(x) – (xTBx)1/2]/[g(x) + (xTDx)1/2] | h(x) ≦ 0}, wobei f, g und h differenzierbare, moglicherweise nichtlineare Funktionen sind. Es werden notwendige und hinreichende Optimalitatsbedingungen und geeignete Dualitatssatze aufgestellt.
Reynolds-number-independent instability of the boundary layer over a flat surface: optimal perturbations

The dependence on initial conditions of the three-dimensional algebraic spatial instability of the Blasius boundary layer is examined by a recently developed method of receptivity analysis based on the upstream integration of adjoint equations. This method allows us to determine optimal perturbations, i.e. initial perturbations that maximize the energy growth, even in the wavenumber range where the problem is not amenable to a mode analysis, and thus to complement a previous paper in which the small-wavenumber regime was described.