The 1996 architecture biennale: the unfulfilled promise of Hans Hollein's exhibition concept

Despite its faint historical afterimage and its mystifying rhetoric about the individual architect as seismograph, the Venice architecture biennale of 1996 is worth reconsidering. This article argues that the exhibition's premise that architecture culture is marked by a growing individualisation remains relevant. It evaluates the no less problematic translation of this sharp observation into concrete decisions concerning the selection and presentation of 'individual positions' in this biennale

Neural Discrete Representation Learning

Learning useful representations without supervision remains a key challenge in machine learning. In this paper, we propose a simple yet powerful generative model that learns such discrete representations. Our model, the Vector Quantised-Variational AutoEncoder (VQ-VAE), differs from VAEs in two key ways: the encoder network outputs discrete, rather than continuous, codes; and the prior is learnt rather than static. In order to learn a discrete latent representation, we incorporate ideas from vector quantisation (VQ). Using the VQ method allows the model to circumvent issues of "posterior collapse" -- where the latents are ignored when they are paired with a powerful autoregressive decoder -- typically observed in the VAE framework. Pairing these representations with an autoregressive prior, the model can generate high quality images, videos, and speech as well as doing high quality speaker conversion and unsupervised learning of phonemes, providing further evidence of the utility of the learnt representations

Weighted Khovanov-Lauda-Rouquier algebras

In this paper, we define a generalization of Khovanov-Lauda-Rouquier algebras which we call weighted Khovanov-Lauda-Rouquier algebras. We show that these algebras carry many of the same structures as the original Khovanov-Lauda-Rouquier algebras, including induction and restriction functors which induce a twisted biaglebra structure on their Grothendieck groups. We also define natural quotients of these algebras, which in an important special case carry a categorical action of an associated Lie algebra. Special cases of these include the algebras categorifying tensor products and Fock spaces defined by the author and Stroppel in past work. For symmetric Cartan matrices, weighted KLR algebras also have a natural gometric interpretation as convolution algebras, generalizing that for the original KLR algebras by Varagnolo and Vasserot; this result has positivity consequences important in the theory of crystal bases. In this case, we can also relate the Grothendieck group and its bialgebra structure to the Hall algebra of the associated quiver.Comment: 37 pages; v4: edits in response to referee report. Biggest change is characteristic 0 assumption in Section

Monoaromatic compounds in ambient air of various cities: A focus on correlations between the xylenes and ethylbenzene

Speciation of o-xylene, m-xylene, p-xylene and ethylbenzene was performed by gas chromatography from ambient air and liquid fuel samples collected at various locations in 19 cities in Europe, Asia and South America. The xylene's mixing ratios were compared to each other from the various locations, which included urban air, traffic air and liquid fuel. For all samples, the xylenes exhibited robust correlations, and the slopes remained constant. The m-xylene/p-xylene ratio was found to be 2.33±0.30, and the m-xylene/o-xylene ratio was found to be 1.84±0.25. These ratios remain persistent even in biomass combustion experiments (in South America and South Africa). Comparing the xylenes to toluene and benzene indicate that combustion, but not fuel evaporation, is the major common source of the xylenes in areas dominated by automotive emissions. Although a wide range of combustion types and combustion efficiencies were encountered throughout all the locations investigated, xylenes and ethylbenzene ratios remained persistent. We discuss the implications of the constancies in the xylenes and ethylbenzene ratios on atmospheric chemistry

KASPAR in the wild - Initial findings from a pilot study

This extended abstract describes the initial pilot work when evaluating the use of the UH Humanoid Robot KASPAR in a specialist nursery for children with social and communication disorders. Staff and volunteers at the nursery were trained in the use of KASPAR and are currently using KASPAR in their day to day activities in the nursery. This paper focuses on the design and results from the initial interviews with the participants. Results high-light the challenges of transferring experimental technologies like KASPAR from a research setting into everyday practice