Theofanis P. Raptis, Chiara Boldrini, Marco Conti
et al.
The Metaverse is redefining digital interactions by merging physical, virtual, and social dimensions, yet its effects on social networking remain largely unexplored. This work examines the role of independent avatars (autonomous digital entities capable of managing social interactions on behalf of users), to optimize social time allocation and reshape Metaverse-based Online Social Networks. We propose a novel computational model that integrates a quantitative and realistic representation of user social life, grounded in evolutionary anthropology, with a framework for avatar-mediated interactions. Our model quantifies the effectiveness of a partial replacement of in-person interactions with independent avatar interactions. Additionally, it accounts for social conflicts and specific socialization constraints. We leverage our model to explore the benefits and trade-offs of an avatar-augmented social life in the Metaverse. Since the exact problem formulation leads to an NP-hard optimization problem when incorporating avatars into the social network, we tackle this challenge by introducing a heuristic solution. Through simulations, we compare avatar-mediated and non-avatar-mediated social networking, demonstrating the potential of independent avatars to enhance social connectivity and efficiency. Our findings provide a foundation for optimizing Metaverse-based social interactions, as well as useful insights for future digital social network design.
Emily Corvi, Hannah Washington, Stefanie Reed
et al.
Representational harms are widely recognized among fairness-related harms caused by generative language systems. However, their definitions are commonly under-specified. We make a theoretical contribution to the specification of representational harms by introducing a framework, grounded in speech act theory (Austin, 1962), that conceptualizes representational harms caused by generative language systems as the perlocutionary effects (i.e., real-world impacts) of particular types of illocutionary acts (i.e., system behaviors). Building on this argument and drawing on relevant literature from linguistic anthropology and sociolinguistics, we provide new definitions of stereotyping, demeaning, and erasure. We then use our framework to develop a granular taxonomy of illocutionary acts that cause representational harms, going beyond the high-level taxonomies presented in previous work. We also discuss the ways that our framework and taxonomy can support the development of valid measurement instruments. Finally, we demonstrate the utility of our framework and taxonomy via a case study that engages with recent conceptual debates about what constitutes a representational harm and how such harms should be measured.
Vision systems in nature show remarkable diversity, from simple light-sensitive patches to complex camera eyes with lenses. While natural selection has produced these eyes through countless mutations over millions of years, they represent just one set of realized evolutionary paths. Testing hypotheses about how environmental pressures shaped eye evolution remains challenging since we cannot experimentally isolate individual factors. Computational evolution offers a way to systematically explore alternative trajectories. Here we show how environmental demands drive three fundamental aspects of visual evolution through an artificial evolution framework that co-evolves both physical eye structure and neural processing in embodied agents. First, we demonstrate computational evidence that task specific selection drives bifurcation in eye evolution - orientation tasks like navigation in a maze leads to distributed compound-type eyes while an object discrimination task leads to the emergence of high-acuity camera-type eyes. Second, we reveal how optical innovations like lenses naturally emerge to resolve fundamental tradeoffs between light collection and spatial precision. Third, we uncover systematic scaling laws between visual acuity and neural processing, showing how task complexity drives coordinated evolution of sensory and computational capabilities. Our work introduces a novel paradigm that illuminates evolutionary principles shaping vision by creating targeted single-player games where embodied agents must simultaneously evolve visual systems and learn complex behaviors. Through our unified genetic encoding framework, these embodied agents serve as next-generation hypothesis testing machines while providing a foundation for designing manufacturable bio-inspired vision systems. Website: http://eyes.mit.edu/
Urban-rural integration is a necessary way to realize the strategy of rural revitalization in the new era, and exploring the characteristics of the spatial correlation network of China's urban-rural integration and its formation mechanism is important for developing a comprehensive understanding of the spatial transmission mechanism of interregional urban-rural integration and provides a new policy perspective for the synergistic enhancement of the urban-rural integration level in each province. Based on China's interprovincial panel data from 2001 to 2021, the entropy method was applied to measure China's interprovincial urban-rural integration level, and the modified gravity model and social network analysis were used to explore the structural characteristics of China's spatial correlation network of urban-rural integration and its influencing factors. The results revealed the following: 1) During the study period, the level of China's interprovincial urban-rural integration showed an increasing trend, but the process of improvement was slow. Spatially, it showed a decreasing gradient from east to west, but the gap between the interprovincial urban-rural integration level gradually narrowed, with obvious spatial non-equilibrium. 2) China's urban-rural integration spatial association network became increasingly dense, complex, and close, and the main linkage flows of urban-rural integration occurred between geographically neighboring provinces and cities, such as Shanghai-Jiangsu, Shanghai-Zhejiang, and Beijing-Tianjin. The network connection was heterogeneous, and the network showed the characteristic of growth. However, the spatial connection of urban-rural integration did not reach the best level, and there is still much room for improvement. 3) Geospatial proximity, differences in the level of economic development, and urbanization had a significant positive effect on the optimization and evolution of the spatial linkage network of urban-rural integration, while differences in agricultural modernization and differences in advanced industrial structure showed a stage-by-stage effect over time. Differences in the scale of financial services did not have a significant effect. Accordingly, this study proposes countermeasures to optimize the spatial correlation network of urban-rural integration in China. Theoretically, it helps to deepen knowledge of the spatial effect and regional transmission of urban-rural integration in the geographical perspective. In practice, optimizing interprovincial urban-rural interaction and promoting cross-regional urban-rural integration development in a scientific and rational way are highly significant.
Hadi Khalilia, Jahna Otterbacher, Gabor Bella
et al.
Lexical-semantic resources (LSRs), such as online lexicons and wordnets, are fundamental to natural language processing applications as well as to fields such as linguistic anthropology and language preservation. In many languages, however, such resources suffer from quality issues: incorrect entries, incompleteness, but also the rarely addressed issue of bias towards the English language and Anglo-Saxon culture. Such bias manifests itself in the absence of concepts specific to the language or culture at hand, the presence of foreign (Anglo-Saxon) concepts, as well as in the lack of an explicit indication of untranslatability, also known as cross-lingual lexical gaps, when a term has no equivalent in another language. This paper proposes a novel crowdsourcing methodology for reducing bias in LSRs. Crowd workers compare lexemes from two languages, focusing on domains rich in lexical diversity, such as kinship or food. Our LingoGap crowdsourcing platform facilitates comparisons through microtasks identifying equivalent terms, language-specific terms, and lexical gaps across languages. We validated our method by applying it to two case studies focused on food-related terminology: (1) English and Arabic, and (2) Standard Indonesian and Banjarese. These experiments identified 2,140 lexical gaps in the first case study and 951 in the second. The success of these experiments confirmed the usability of our method and tool for future large-scale lexicon enrichment tasks.
Hasanuddin Chaer, Zulkarnaen Zulkarnaen, Mari'i Mari'i
et al.
This article aims to interpret two aspects of the Kitab Sawi: its grammatical structure and psychological meaning, uncovering both linguistic and psychological dimensions within this Sufi literary text. The subject of this study is the Sufi manuscript Kitab Sawi. To achieve this goal, the article adopts Schleiermacher's hermeneutic theory with a descriptive-analytical approach. The research follows four stages: data collection, data processing, interpretation, and drawing conclusions. The study reveals that the Kitab Sawi manuscript focuses on two main aspects: grammatical structure and psychological meaning. Key insights from the Kitab Sawi, which serves as the primary source for this article, include the following: a) Source of Ethical-Religious Literary Knowledge: The Kitab Sawi manuscript contains strong elements of Sufi literature, aimed at conveying moral and ethical values rooted in religious teachings. b) The Importance of Cultural Heritage: Kitab Sawi is not only valuable as a literary work but also as a representation of past intellectual and spiritual wealth. This manuscript plays a vital role in preserving and communicating cultural and spiritual teachings across generations. c) Psychological and Structural Significance: The analysis demonstrates that Kitab Sawi features a profound and intricate grammatical structure, characteristic of Sufi thought, which frequently employs symbolic and metaphorical language. This structure adds a psychological depth, allowing readers to undergo spiritual transformation through contemplation and engagement with the text. In conclusion, this article offers valuable contributions to the understanding of Sufi literature and Sasak cultural heritage.
Johnathan D. Holman, Dorivar A. Ruiz Diaz, Augustine K. Obour
et al.
Abstract Identifying the limiting nutrient, fertilizer source, rate, placement, additives, and timing of application are critical components of fertilizer management. The objective of this study was to quantify the impact of nitrogen (N) fertilizer source, rate, placement method, additives, application timing, and environment on yields of grain sorghum, forage sorghum [Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench], and corn (for grain, Zea mays L.). Independent field experiments were conducted at 13 different environments in Kansas from 2008 through 2013 on grain sorghum, forage sorghum, and corn. Treatments were an incomplete factorial combination of four fertilizer placement methods, three fertilizer types, five fertilizer additives, three fertilizer application times, and six fertilizer rates that varied by location and across years. Results showed grain and forage sorghum yields responded to N fertilizer in environments that were not extremely dry (<136 mm) or wet (>651 mm). Corn responded to N fertilizer application only in high‐precipitation environments. For grain sorghum, where rate × placement × source × additive interaction was significant, broadcast application of urea (source) at high rates (67–134 kg N ha−1), with summer application timing, or with additive in winter (with environmentally smart nitrogen [ESN]) resulted in up to 43% greater yield compared with application of urea‐ammonium nitrate (UAN; source) and surface band (placement) at 67 kg ha−1 without additives. In the one site‐year where forage sorghum responded to fertilizer application, forage yields with preplant application of UAN at 56–140 kg ha−1 were 164% greater than the control. For corn, application of either urea or UAN fertilizer, UAN in coulter or surface band, with ESN blend, applied at planting, and at highest rates (160 kg ha−1) resulted in best yields compared with the alternatives and 110% greater yield compared with the unfertilized control. We concluded that fertilizer rate is an important management component as it consistently affected yield regardless of crop considered. Fertilizer placement and timing have crop‐specific importance as they were significant for only corn, but the main effect of additives (N stabilizers) was not significant for any of the crops. Environment and crop type influenced crop response to N fertilizer rate, timing, placement, and additives.
A. V. Shevchenko, A. A. Seleznev, G. P. Malinovsky
et al.
The aim of this study is to provide a tool to assess sediment production in an urban area. The urban environment is affected by a variety of anthropogenic and natural factors that, in particular, lead to the sediment production. The storage of sediments in the urban landscape negatively affects the quality of the urban environment. The model was developed on the basis of landscape studies conducted in residential areas of six Russian cities. The model takes into account (1) the influence of precipitation, spring snowmelt, and vehicles, (2) the influence of erosion factors for two seasons: warm (t>5°C) and cold (t<5°C), and (3) the presence of disturbed surfaces. The application of the developed model to Ekaterinburg city conditions returned sediment production equal to 1.2 kg/m2/y. A comparison of seasonal values shows that sediment production in cold season is 2.5 times higher than in the warm season. In the absence of the disturbed surfaces, sediment production decreases to 0.44 kg/m2/y. Modeling showed a correlation between sediment production in Russian cities and duration of the cold season. The efficiency of various urban area maintenance practices and cleaning measures were evaluated in terms of sediment production and storage. The developed model presented in this paper is based on research in Russian cities, but can be applied to assess the formation of sediment and measures to reduce the value of its accumulation in the urban environment in different regions of the world.
Mirella Kanerva, Nguyen Minh Tue, Tatsuya Kunisue
et al.
The Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) population in the Baltic Sea consists of wild and hatchery-reared fish that have been released into the sea to support salmon stocks. During feeding migration, salmon migrate to different parts of the Baltic Sea and are exposed to various biotic and abiotic stressors, such as organohalogen compounds (OHCs). The effects of salmon origin (wild or hatchery-reared), feeding area (Baltic Main Basin, Bothnian Sea, and Gulf of Finland), and OHC concentration on the differences in hepatic proteome of salmon were investigated. Multi-level analysis of the OHC concentration, transcriptome, proteome, and oxidative stress biomarkers measured from the same salmon individuals were performed to find the key variables (origin, feeding area, OHC concentrations, and oxidative stress) that best account for the differences in the transcriptome and proteome between the salmon groups. When comparing wild and hatchery-reared salmon, differences were found in xenobiotic and amino acid metabolism-related pathways. When comparing salmon from different feeding areas, the amino acid and carbohydrate metabolic pathways were notably different. Several proteins found in these pathways are correlated with the concentrations of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). The multi-level analysis also revealed amino acid metabolic pathways in connection with PCBs and oxidative stress variables related to glutathione metabolism. Other pathways found in the multi-level analysis included genetic information processes related to ribosomes, signaling and cellular processes related to the cytoskeleton, and the immune system, which were connected mainly to the concentrations of Polychlorinated biphenyls and Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane and their metabolites. These results suggest that the hepatic proteome of salmon in the Baltic Sea, together with the transcriptome, is more affected by the OHC concentrations and oxidative stress of the feeding area than the origin of the salmon.
The material relics of socialism continue to affect present-day rural Romania. This article explores the nexus of socialist/post-socialist agricultural infrastructure, groundwater, soil transformations, the privatization process and the constitution of power relations along the Lower Danube rural areas. Positioning ourselves in the anthropology of infrastructure, we document both ethnographically and with Geographic Information Systems tools the social and political consequences of broken agricultural infrastructure in a village located on the banks of the Lower Danube, Romania. We show how the local political elite is able to exploit the surfacing of groundwater in their favour, resulting in economic loss only for small landholders and villagers without power. The interface of the multiple temporalities inherent in infrastructure with the various materialities of groundwater – its propensity to leak, infiltrate and surface – precipitated the emergence of a new ecological order. The new hybrid ecology is made up of pre-socialist feral groundwater, the socialist ‘hydraulic society’ that reclaimed agricultural land, and the post-socialist political economy. We engage a more-than-human perspective in order to offer a more sophisticated – and realistic – picture of post-socialist rural power relations.
This paper is part of ongoing research conducted by the authors which aims to map the turbotronic scene and provide an answer to the question of what music can reveal about the broader dynamic of sociocultural life in contemporary Serbia. The paper follows the paths of the anthropology of music, already well established in Serbian anthropology. It focuses on the seemingly banal, everyday discursive practices of ordinary people, situates them in a wider framework of symbolic geographies, and suggests that turbotronic narratives belong to the discourse of the Balkan "barbarogenius". The paper shows, to use Hertzfeld's terminology, "how and under what pressure people resort to stereotypes, and even represent them directly – act them out, as it were". It answers the question of where the creators of turbotronic find binary oppositions consisting of essentialist constructs, how they instrumentalize them strategically, and how they use them in negotiating power. Our analysis shows that the following value signs assigned to the key pairs of oppositions in the discourse of the "Second Serbia" – (+) Western/European : (–) Balkan, (+) civilized : (–) primitive – have switched places within turbotronic discourse, and that the following pairs of oppositions have been added – (+) emotions : (–) reason, and (+) authentic : (–) fake. We propose that the change be interpreted as a potential reflection in the literature of the wider changes in the reception of the Ottoman heritage in Serbian culture but also in the wider region of the Balkans. An analysis of ethnographic material will show why the authors of turbotronic take the side of "the people" and "ordinary folk", why they insist on the "banished Balkan heritage", and will shed light on the function and symbolic significance that the kafana (a type of Balkan pub) assumes in their narratives. Finally, we suggest directions for future research of this analytically fruitful phenomenon.
Tourism is one of the world's fastest expanding businesses, as well as a significant source of foreign exchange profits and jobs. The research is based on secondary sources. The facts and information were primarily gathered and analyzed from various published papers and articles. The study goals are to illustrate the current scenario of tourism industry in south Asia, classifies the restraints and recommends helpful key developments to achieve sustainable tourism consequently. The study revealed that major challenges of sustainable tourism in south Asian region are lack of infrastructure facilities, modern and sufficient recreation facilities, security and safety, proper training and HR, proper planning from government, marketing and information, product development, tourism awareness, security and safety, and political instability etc. The study also provides some suggestive measures that for the long-term growth of regional tourism, the government should establish and implement policies involving public and private investment and collaboration.
On-road bicycle lanes improve safety for cyclists, and encourage participation in cycling for active transport and recreation. With many local authorities responsible for portions of the infrastructure, official maps and datasets of bicycle lanes may be out-of-date and incomplete. Even "crowdsourced" databases may have significant gaps, especially outside popular metropolitan areas. This thesis presents a method to create a map of bicycle lanes in a survey area by taking sample street scene images from each road, and then applying a deep learning model that has been trained to recognise bicycle lane symbols. The list of coordinates where bicycle lane markings are detected is then correlated to geospatial data about the road network to record bicycle lane routes. The method was applied to successfully build a map for a survey area in the outer suburbs of Melbourne. It was able to identify bicycle lanes not previously recorded in the official state government dataset, OpenStreetMap, or the "biking" layer of Google Maps.
Oleksii M. Shushura, Liudmyla A. Asieieva, Oleksiy L. Nedashkivskiy
et al.
The widespread use of computer technology, its rapid development and use in almost all areas of human activity requires constant updating of information security issues. The activities of many enterprises in the field of IT, construction, and other areas are of a project nature and therefore further research on information security management of projects is relevant. Appearance of changes and the current state of the project results at certain points of time describe the documents that accompany it. In this paper, the information structure of the project is considered as a set of specific documents. During the life cycle of each project document, which includes the creation, transfer, preservation and transformation, there are generally threats to its confidentiality, integrity, accessibility and authenticity. This paper develops a method for assessing the risks of violation of the availability of project documents in solving information security problems. A formal description of many project documents in the form of a generalized hierarchical structure is presented, the connection of documents with the operations performed on them and information systems used during these operations is formalized. Given the incompleteness and dimension of the data, the based on fuzzy logic model was developed to assess the risk of document accessibility. Approaches to the assessment of the damage from the violation of the availability of the project document and the method of calculating the overall assessment of the risk of violation of the documents availability are proposed. The results presented in this paper can be used in decision-making processes regarding information security of projects in organizations that have project activities. The approaches proposed in this paper can serve as a basis for the creation of specialized information technologies to automate the calculation of project risk assessments.
OBJECTIVE The Southeast and South Coast of Brazil was inhabited during most of the Holocene by shellmound builders. Although there are cultural differences in the archaeological record between regions, it is still debatable how these differences may relate to different population histories. Here, we contribute to this discussion by exploring dental morphological affinities between several regional series. MATERIALS AND METHODS Dental morphology of 385 individuals from 14 archaeological sites was analyzed using the Arizona State University Dental Anthropology System. Fifteen traits were used to explore morphological affinities among series through Euclidean distance, Mean Measure of Divergence, and Principal Component Analysis. Mantel matrix correlation and partial correlation tests were used to examine the association between biological, geographic, and chronological distances. RESULTS Morphological affinities show that ceramic and nonceramic South Coast groups cluster and differ from most Southeast series. In contrast, Southeast coastal and riverine groups display high morphological variance, showing less biological coherence among them. These biological distances between regions are partially explained by geography, but not by chronology. CONCLUSIONS The results support that these coastal populations were low-mobility groups. Although interactions between individuals of different regions likely existed, gene flow occurred mostly among individuals from local or adjacent areas. The introduction of ceramic in the South Coast is not associated with changes in dental morphology patterns, suggesting its adoption is not exclusively associated with the arrival of different biological groups. Southeast coastal and riverine groups show high phenotypic diversity, suggesting a different history of human occupation and cultural development than observed in the South Coast.
Stable isotope analysis of postmortem hair is performed in order to make inferences about an individual’s diet and geographic travel history prior to death. During analysis and interpretation, investigators assume that the hair collected from a postmortem environment has not been altered by exposure conditions and that the isotopic “signatures” of hair prior to exposure are preserved in postmortem samples. In order to confidently make inferences from postmortem hair samples, it is necessary to know whether their isotope ratios undergo postmortem changes. To address this question, post-exposure hair samples (n = 44) were collected from known body donors at the Anthropology Research Facility in Knoxville, Tennessee, USA, at various time points ranging from 22 to 1,140 days of exposure. These samples were analyzed for carbon (δ13C), nitrogen (δ15N), hydrogen (δ2H), and oxygen (δ18O) isotope ratios, and the results were compared with pre-exposure hair samples collected from the same donors. This study highlights considerations for the interpretation of isotope ratios obtained from postmortem hair samples in forensic contexts. The results indicate that δ13C, δ15N, and δ18O values from human hair remain relatively consistent over periods up to three years of outdoor exposure, while δ2H values changed significantly between pre-and post-exposure hair samples.
This paper proposes a spatial model with a realistic geography where a continuous distribution of agents (e.g., farmers) engages in economic interactions with one location from a finite set (e.g., cities). The spatial structure of the equilibrium consists of a tessellation, i.e., a partition of space into a collection of mutually exclusive market areas. After proving the existence of a unique equilibrium, we characterize how the location of borders and, in the case with mobile labor, the set of inhabited cities change in response to economic shocks. To deal with a two-dimensional space, we draw on tools from computational geometry and from the theory of shape optimization. Finally, we provide an empirical application to illustrate the usefulness of the framework for applied work.
The vast amount of research produced at institutions world-wide is extremely diverse, and coarse-grained quantitative measures of impact often obscure the individual contributions of these institutions to specific research fields and topics. We show that by applying an information retrieval model to index research articles which are faceted by institution and time, we can develop tools to rank institutions given a keyword query. We present an interactive atlas, Quoka, designed to enable a user to explore these rankings contextually by geography and over time. Through a set of use cases we demonstrate that the atlas can be used to perform sensemaking tasks to learn and collect information about the relationships between institutions and scholarly knowledge production.