6,766 research outputs found
MorphIC: A 65-nm 738k-Synapse/mm Quad-Core Binary-Weight Digital Neuromorphic Processor with Stochastic Spike-Driven Online Learning
Recent trends in the field of neural network accelerators investigate weight
quantization as a means to increase the resource- and power-efficiency of
hardware devices. As full on-chip weight storage is necessary to avoid the high
energy cost of off-chip memory accesses, memory reduction requirements for
weight storage pushed toward the use of binary weights, which were demonstrated
to have a limited accuracy reduction on many applications when
quantization-aware training techniques are used. In parallel, spiking neural
network (SNN) architectures are explored to further reduce power when
processing sparse event-based data streams, while on-chip spike-based online
learning appears as a key feature for applications constrained in power and
resources during the training phase. However, designing power- and
area-efficient spiking neural networks still requires the development of
specific techniques in order to leverage on-chip online learning on binary
weights without compromising the synapse density. In this work, we demonstrate
MorphIC, a quad-core binary-weight digital neuromorphic processor embedding a
stochastic version of the spike-driven synaptic plasticity (S-SDSP) learning
rule and a hierarchical routing fabric for large-scale chip interconnection.
The MorphIC SNN processor embeds a total of 2k leaky integrate-and-fire (LIF)
neurons and more than two million plastic synapses for an active silicon area
of 2.86mm in 65nm CMOS, achieving a high density of 738k synapses/mm.
MorphIC demonstrates an order-of-magnitude improvement in the area-accuracy
tradeoff on the MNIST classification task compared to previously-proposed SNNs,
while having no penalty in the energy-accuracy tradeoff.Comment: This document is the paper as accepted for publication in the IEEE
Transactions on Biomedical Circuits and Systems journal (2019), the
fully-edited paper is available at
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/876400
Evolution of networks
We review the recent fast progress in statistical physics of evolving
networks. Interest has focused mainly on the structural properties of random
complex networks in communications, biology, social sciences and economics. A
number of giant artificial networks of such a kind came into existence
recently. This opens a wide field for the study of their topology, evolution,
and complex processes occurring in them. Such networks possess a rich set of
scaling properties. A number of them are scale-free and show striking
resilience against random breakdowns. In spite of large sizes of these
networks, the distances between most their vertices are short -- a feature
known as the ``small-world'' effect. We discuss how growing networks
self-organize into scale-free structures and the role of the mechanism of
preferential linking. We consider the topological and structural properties of
evolving networks, and percolation in these networks. We present a number of
models demonstrating the main features of evolving networks and discuss current
approaches for their simulation and analytical study. Applications of the
general results to particular networks in Nature are discussed. We demonstrate
the generic connections of the network growth processes with the general
problems of non-equilibrium physics, econophysics, evolutionary biology, etc.Comment: 67 pages, updated, revised, and extended version of review, submitted
to Adv. Phy
Mytilus galloprovincialis-type foot-protein-1 alleles occur at low frequency among mussels in the Dutch Wadden Sea
The presence of M. galloprovincialis-type genes among the population of mussels in the Dutch Wadden Sea, historically described as M. edulis, was assessed. We applied the molecular technique in which a fragment of the gene coding for an adhesive protein of the byssus of mussels is amplified by PCR and assayed for length using electrophoresis. Among 321 individual mussels collected in August–October 2001 at 14 sites (5 intertidal, 9 subtidal) widely dispersed over the Dutch Wadden Sea, 6 specimens (collected at 5 sites) were found that showed a heterozygote genotype with both the M. edulis- and the M. galloprovincialis-type alleles being amplified; all others were identified as homozygotes for the M. edulis-type allele. Differentiation in frequencies of heterozygotes among sites was not detected. The ofact that the M. galloprovincialis-type allele was present at low frequency (0.0093) may be attributed to one of three possible, and not mutually exclusive, causes: incomplete diagnosticity of this marker, an historically stable introgression zone in the Wadden Sea, or a recent invasion.
Reforming European elections: could a pan-European ballot paper engage EU voters?
European Parliament elections are frequently criticised from the perspective that they suffer low turnout levels and tend to be dominated by national rather than European political issues. Damien Bol presents findings from a study on whether the creation of a Europe-wide electoral district, elected via a pan-European list of candidates, could help engage EU citizens. He notes that while there is great potential in this system as a mechanism for addressing the EU’s democratic deficit, it would need to be carefully calibrated to prevent the European Parliament from becoming dominated by representatives of larger member states
Failed attempts at experimental transplantation and transmission of nocturnally-periodic simian Loa from monkey to man
This paper describes unsuccessful attempts to induce a nocturnally-periodic infection with simian Loa in a human volunteer (the author of this paper) by means of 1. Transplanting adult simian Loa worms from a wild drill (Mandrillus leucophaeus) to man; and 2. Infecting the same volunteer by sub-cutaneous inoculation with infective larvae of simian Loa from a laboratory-bred, experimentally infected Chrysops silacea
Using International Law to Fight Child Labor: A Case Study of Guatemala and the Inter-American System
Gender inequality in cum laude distinctions for PhD students
Resource allocation in academia is highly skewed, and peer evaluation is the main method used to distribute scarce resources. A large literature documents gender inequality in evaluation, and the explanation for this inequality is homophily: male evaluators give more favorable ratings to male candidates. We investigate this by focusing on cum laude distinctions for PhD students in the Netherlands, a distinction that is only awarded to 5 percent of all dissertations and has as its sole goal to distinguish the top from the rest. Using data from over 5000 PhD recipients of a large Dutch university for the period 2011–2021, we find that female PhD students were almost two times less likely to get a cum laude distinction than their male counterparts, even when they had the same doctoral advisor. This gender gap is largest when dissertations are evaluated by all-male committees and decreases as evaluation committees include more female members
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