Humans may not have a uniquely enhanced sequence memory: sequence discrimination is facilitated by causal-logical framing in humans and chimpanzees

Humans have been suggested to possess uniquely enhanced memory for sequences, based on sequence discrimination learning (SDL) tasks involving arbitrarily ordered sequences with no functional connection to outcomes. Such tasks underestimate animals’ SDL as they lack affordances of real-world situations. We tested whether stimuli causally connected to outcomes facilitate SDL. A total of 13 chimpanzees, 24 capuchin monkeys, 23 squirrel monkeys, 77 adult and 239 juvenile humans completed an AB versus BA, BB and AA task. Humans discriminated causal sequences better than arbitrary ones and one chimpanzee succeeded in the causal frame condition after 324 trials, suggesting that performance gaps in previous studies are partly due to the arbitrariness of sequences (monkeys mostly failed the training). Without causal framing, children found the task difficult until 10–11 years of age. The sequence memory hypothesis needs to be evaluated with a broader set of tasks and account for cultural scaffolding of participants’ understanding of task requirements

Is 'Victim-Survivor' Our Imperfect Alternative to Describing People with Lived Experience of Sexual Violence? A Feminist Symbolic Interactionist Analysis, Considering How Ethnicity, Gender, and Disability Interact with Language Choice.

Feminist violence and abuse literature is caught in the grips of a debate surrounding the most appropriate language to describe people with lived experiences of sexual violence. This article offers a theoretical tracing of the history of the normative framings of "victim" and "survivor," and the emerging alternative "victim-survivor," through a symbolic interactionist lens. Given that both "victim" and "survivor" labels hold distinct disadvantages in isolation, particularly among the survivor discourse for ethnic minority and disabled and male victim/survivors, "victim-survivor" offers an alternative, in a similar fashion to LGBTQ+, affording flexibility for victim/survivors to occupy a multi-dimensional form of identity

Inference-Time Decomposition of Activations (ITDA): A Scalable Approach to Interpreting Large Language Models

Sparse Autoencoders (SAEs) are a popular method for decomposing Large Language Model (LLM) activations into interpretable latents, however they have a substantial training cost and SAEs learned on different models are not directly comparable. Motivated by relative representation similarity measures, we introduce Inference-Time Decomposition of Activation models (ITDAs). ITDAs are constructed by greedily sampling activations into a dictionary based on an error threshold on their matching pursuit reconstruction. ITDAs can be trained in 1% of the time of SAEs, allowing us to cheaply train them on Llama-3.1 70B and 405B. ITDA dictionaries also enable cross-model comparisons, and outperform existing methods like CKA, SVCCA, and a relative representation method on a benchmark of representation similarity. Code available at https://github.com/pleask/itd

Acyclic, star and injective colouring: A complexity picture for H-free graphs

A (proper) colouring is acyclic, star, or injective if any two colour classes induce a forest, star forest or disjoint union of vertices and edges, respectively. The corresponding decision problems are Acyclic Colouring, Star Colouring and Injective Colouring. We give almost complete complexity classifications for Acyclic Colouring, Star Colouring and Injective Colouring on H-free graphs (for each of the problems, we have one open case). Moreover, we give full complexity classifications if the number of colours k is fixed, that is, not part of the input. From our study it follows that for fixed k, the three problems behave in the same way, but this is no longer true if k is part of the input. To obtain several of our results we prove stronger complexity results that in particular involve the girth of a graph and the class of line graphs of multigraphs

The Influence of Water Molecules on the π* Shape Resonances of the Thymine Anion.

Low-energy electrons have been shown to resonantly attach to DNA, inducing strand breakages and other damaging lesions. While computational studies have suggested that the nucleobase moieties can serve as the initial attachment site, there remains ambiguity over the exact character of the temporary anion resonances that form due to the unestablished role of the surrounding environment. Here, we investigate the influence of an aqueous environment on the low-lying anion shape resonances of the π* character of the thymine anion by applying frequency-resolved photoelectron spectroscopy to thymine-water cluster anions, T (H O) , with an increasing degree of hydration, . Our results indicate that spontaneous solvent rearrangement will stabilize the π * and π * states into bound electronic states, and we observe evidence for internal conversion to the anion ground state, further aiding long-term electron capture via these resonances

A Pride of Satellites in the Constellation Leo? Discovery of the Leo VI Milky Way Satellite Ultra-faint Dwarf Galaxy with DELVE Early Data Release 3

We report the discovery and spectroscopic confirmation of an ultra-faint Milky Way satellite in the constellation of Leo. This system was discovered as a spatial overdensity of resolved stars observed with Dark Energy Camera (DECam) data from an early version of the third data release of the DECam Local Volume Exploration (or DELVE) survey. The low luminosity ( M V = − 3.5 6 − 0.37 + 0.47 ; L V = 230 0 − 700 + 1200 L ⊙ ), large size ( R 1 / 2 = 9 0 − 30 + 30 pc), and large heliocentric distance ( D = 11 1 − 6 + 9 kpc) are all consistent with the population of ultra-faint dwarf galaxies (UFDs). Using Keck/DEIMOS observations of the system, we were able to spectroscopically confirm nine member stars, while measuring a tentative mass-to-light ratio of 70 0 − 500 + 1400 M ⊙ / L ⊙ and a nonzero metallicity dispersion of σ [ Fe / H ] = 0.1 9 − 0.11 + 0.14 , further confirming Leo VI’s identity as a UFD. While the system has a highly elliptical shape, ϵ = 0.5 4 − 0.29 + 0.19 , we do not find any conclusive evidence that it is tidally disrupting. Moreover, despite the apparent on-sky proximity of Leo VI to members of the proposed Crater-Leo infall group, its smaller heliocentric distance and inconsistent position in energy-angular momentum space make it unlikely that Leo VI is part of the proposed infall group

Multi‐Species Impacts of Invasive Opuntia Cacti on Mammal Habitat Use

Biological invasions impact ecosystems worldwide, including through changing the behaviour of native species. Here, we used camera traps to investigate the effects of invasive Opuntia spp. on the habitat use of 12 mammal species in Laikipia County, Kenya, an internationally important region of mammalian biodiversity. We found that Opuntia impacted mammal occupancy and activity. These effects were evident when Opuntia was considered at both site level and landscape scales; however, some mammal species showed different responses to increasing Opuntia at these two scales. The effects of Opuntia were generally context dependent, with their strength and direction varying among mammal species and between seasons. As well as having important implications for mammal conservation, ecosystem functioning and the future spread of Opuntia, our findings highlight behavioural changes in large mammals as a potentially important pathway through which invasive species impact ecosystems

Crip guts, stomas, and the violence of ‘returning to normal’: a feminist queer crip approach to the gut

What is a feminist queer crip approach to the gut? How might we use feminist queer crip theory to make sense of non-normative guts? And how might crip guts help us make sense of the world? This paper is an autoethnographic reflection on my crip guts, specifically being diagnosed with ulcerative colitis (UC), a form of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), and having a colectomy (surgery to remove my colon) to create an ileostomy (a type of stoma). I consider the epistemic complexities of being both patient and researcher and the importance of acknowledging multiple forms of expertise, putting my autoethnographic reflections into conversation with a variety of texts. I argue that my crip guts provide an embodied, if stigmatised, form of knowledge that complicates academic/lived experience and body/mind divisions, alongside necessitating more holistic responses to crip guts beyond individualising biomedical models. I examine the violence of discourses of normality around bodily difference and the complex temporalities of the gut through a focus three key moments in my crip gut experience – late diagnosis and (not) being believed; stoma representation and stigmatised imagined futures; and, the gut remembering colonial pasts – before arguing for queer stoma pride as a destigmatised collective refusal of normative gut discourse and valuation of crip gut knowing

Perceptions of help-seeking for sexual violence and harassment by minoritised United Kingdom Higher Education students: A qualitative study using vignettes

Sexual violence affecting university students is a significant problem worldwide. Though recent legislation introduced into UK universities aims to tackle the problem, it remains to be seen how effective this will be. Furthermore, within much existing research and legislation, the voices of minoritised students in relation to the issue are absent. This research utilised qualitative focus groups and interviews with 38 minoritised students from two universities in England. Most are female (n=23) and ages range from 18 years – 44 years. Using vignettes, interviews explored help-seeking behaviours in relation to sexual violence and considered intersections with minoritised identities. Thematic analysis suggests that sexual violence is normalised within universities and underpinned by ‘community knowledges’. Structural vulnerabilities and minoritisation impact perceptions of ‘who’ and ‘what’ counts in relation to sexual violence. Students also display a lack of knowledge about support provision at their universities, a finding which highlights universities’ difficulties with informing students about what support is available. Furthermore, we found that students rely heavily on their informal networks in relation to decision-making about help-seeking. Overall, structural vulnerabilities experienced by minoritised students hindered their willingness to report. Intersectional recommendations for university action and policy are offered