Group items tagged

I got a fever. And the only prescription is more cat faces! ...../\_/\ ...(=^_^) ..\\(___) The article sounds quite interesting, though. I think the idea of a "fake" agent that tries to trick the classifier while both co-evolve is nice as it allows the classifier to first cope with the lower order complexity of the problem. As the fake agent mimics the real agent better and better the classifier has time to add complexity to itself instead of trying to do it all at once. It would be interesting if this is later reflected in the neural nets structure, i.e. having core regions that deal with lower order approximation / classification and peripheral regions (added at a later stage) that deal with nuances as they become apparent. Also this approach will develop not just a classifier for agent behavior but at the same time a model of the same. The later may be useful in itself and might in same cases be the actual goal of the "researcher". I suspect, however, that the problem of producing / evolving the "fake agent" model might in most case be at least as hard as producing a working classifier...

This paper from 2014 seems discribe something pretty similar (except for not using physical robots, etc...): https://papers.nips.cc/paper/5423-generative-adversarial-nets.pdf

Yes, this IS basically adversarial learning. Except the generator part instead of being a neural net is some kind of swarm parametrization. I just love how they rebranded it, though. :))

Hydrothermal deposits on Mars may provide the best opportunity to find Martian biosignatures. Ruff and Farmer report that silica structures created by biotic and abiotic process in hot springs at El Tatio, Chile resemble those found in Gusev crater, thus making it an ideal location for future missions.

"You won't believe this one weird quantum mechanical trick Begonia uses!"

If I remember correctly there was a presentation at the ACT in 2014(?) about the quantum-mechanical effects essential to photosynthesis by an external speaker.

Metamaterials that absorb seismic waves rather than steer them, might be a better way to protect some buildings, say engineers

what are seismic metamaterials?

must look funny ... They calculate the properties of such a metatmaterial and how it might be constructed with a basic repeating unit in the form of a concrete cylinder some 18 metres in diameter, with four perpendicular holes in its sides (see picture). These cylinders, perhaps varying in size to absorb a range of seismic wavelengths, would need to surround the foundations of a building in cylindrical shells some 60 metres across. That needn't be prohibitively expensive but it would be a big structure that could only be constructed around isolated buildings (thereby somewhat negating the supposed benefit that other buildings in the earthquake 'shadow' might also be protected).

"... they are looking to use the nanotree structure to mimic photosynthesis in a device that not only harnesses the power of the sun to produce hydrogen fuel, but also captures CO2 from the atmosphere to reduce carbon emissions at the same time."

Just over six years ago, we reported that Nissan had developed a "Scratch Guard Coat" paint designed to repair scratches on not only cars, but on painted surfaces in general. ... The Scratch Shield paint is made from polyrotaxane, which has a chemical structure that is able to react and change back to its original shape and fill the gap that results from a fine scratch.

from the abstract: "Using a novel imaging and analysis technique on experimental data we estimated pheromone concentrations at all spatial positions in the experimental arena and at different times. Then we derived the response function of individual ants to pheromone concentrations by looking at correlations between concentrations and changes in speed or direction of the ants." [...] "agent based simulations based on the Weber's Law response function determined experimentally produced results compatible with those reported in the literature and reproduced the formation of trails."

Nice article!

A "four-wheel drive car" less than one billionth the length of an average SUV has been built and operated by researchers in the Netherlands and Switzerland.

"Molecular machines are common in nature. Motor proteins, for example, can move along a surface to transport molecular-sized cargo and are often used to build structures within living cells. " reminds me of the fantastic movie on what happens inside a cell ...

Might be a useful reference for PyGMO-related works.

paywall skipping: http://www.isir.upmc.fr/files/2011ACLI2061.pdf The most complete study I've seen so far on a new approach (Novelty Search) that has been gaining a lot of attention lately. And they even use parallel coordinates to visualize the results!! ;)

An out-of-this-world gallery... Can my camera do bessel beam super-resolution structured illumination microscopy too??

The strange formation resembles a tiny spire surrounded by a webby picket fence and is about 2 centimeters wide. Apparently nobody knows what it is, but Tom said that it may actually come from a spider (according to the way the web was spun)!

nice story ...

Sounds relevant. Does ESA need to have a position on this question?

This was on Slashdot now, with a link to the paper. It quite an iteresting study actually. "The scenarios most closely reflecting the reality of our world today are found in the third group of experiments (see section 5.3), where we introduced economic stratification. Under such conditions, we find that collapse is difficult to avoid."

Interesting, but is it new? In general, I would say that history has shown us that it is inevitable that civilisations get replaced by new concepts (much is published about this, read eg Fog of War by Jona Lendering on the struggles between civilisations in ancient history, which have remarkably similar issues as today, yet on a different scale of course). "While some members of society might raise the alarm that the system is moving towards an impending collapse and therefore advocate structural changes to society in order to avoid it, Elites and their supporters, who opposed making these changes, could point to the long sustainable trajectory 'so far' in support of doing nothing." I guess this bang on it, the ones that can change the system, are not benefitted by doing so, hence enrichment, depletion, short term gain remain and might even accelerate to compensate for the loss in the rest of the system.

Quote: "This is exactly what we are pursuing - self-assembling materials that organize at smaller sizes, say, less than 20 or even 10 nanometers"

Direct Self-Assembly (DSA) is one of the competitors for the next-generation 'lithography' together with direct-write via electron beam and the more traditional extreme UV (EUV) lithography. Although there are huge benefits to use DSA, the technology does have some drawbacks when it comes to line edge roughness. It seems however particularly good for repetitive structures that are used in memory chips. As long as EUV is struggling to get it working, DSA definitely has a fighting chance to enter the market one day.

A 7x7x3m large unfolding structure from the car trunk. "Before the design is ready to roll, the team still needs to tune up the solar components, a challenge made more difficult by the pavilion's inherent mobility, making it impossible to gauge how sunlight will fall on it."

Very interesting advances in materials

Bitcoin utilizes a peer-to-peer network to issue anonymous payment transactions between different users. Dynamical effects have been found, of which some increase anonymity while others decrease it. Most importantly, several parameters of the Bitcoin transaction graph seem to have become stationary over the last 12-18 months. The implications are discussed.

nice indeed! " Triggered by commonly available ambient mechanical energy such as human footfalls, a NG with size smaller than a human palm can generate maximum short-circuit current of 2 mA, delivering instantaneous power output of 1.2 W to external load. The power output corresponds to an area power density of 313 W/m2 and a volume power density of 54 268 W/m3 at an open-circuit voltage of 1200 V. An energy conversion efficiency of 14.9% has been achieved. The power was capable of instantaneously lighting up as many as 600 multicolor commercial LED bulbs. The record high power output for the NG is attributed to optimized structure, proper materials selection and nanoscale surface modification. This work demonstrated the practicability of using NG to harvest large-scale mechanical energy, such as footsteps, rolling wheels, wind power, and ocean waves."

You should be able to put it also in your shoes such that you may be able to power some gadgets. Thinking about it, I have seen many kids already running around with brightly lit sneakers!

The catalog, a master list organized into 15 categories, is intended for industry, academia, other government agencies, and general public. The catalog covers technology topics ranging from project management systems, design tools, data handling, image processing, solutions for life support functions, aeronautics, structural analysis, and robotic and autonomous systems. NASA said the codes represent NASA's best solutions to an array of complex mission requirements. McMillan reported that "Within a few weeks of publishing the list, NASA says, it will also offer a searchable database of projects, and then, by next year, it will host the actual software code in its own online repository, a kind of GitHub for astronauts."