Inhibitory control, but not prolonged object-related experience appears to affect physical problem-solving performance of pet dogs

Human infants develop an understanding of their physical environment through playful interactions with objects. Similar processes may influence also the performance of non-human animals in physical problem-solving tasks, but to date there is little empirical data to evaluate this hypothesis. In addition or alternatively to prior experiences, inhibitory control has been suggested as a factor underlying the considerable individual differences in performance reported for many species. Here we report a study in which we manipulated the extent of object-related experience for a cohort of dogs (Canis familiaris) of the breed Border Collie over a period of 18 months, and assessed their level of inhibitory control, prior to testing them in a series of four physical problem-solving tasks. We found no evidence that differences in object-related experience explain variability in performance in these tasks. It thus appears that dogs do not transfer knowledge about physical rules from one physical problem-solving task to another, but rather approach each task as a novel problem. Our results, however, suggest that individual performance in these tasks is influenced in a complex way by the subject’s level of inhibitory control. Depending on the task, inhibitory control had a positive or a negative effect on performance and different aspects of inhibitory control turned out to be the best predictors of individual performance in the different tasks. Therefore, studying the interplay between inhibitory control and problem-solving performance will make an important contribution to our understanding of individual and species differences in physical problem-solving performance

Time-series and Phase-curve Photometry of the Episodically Active Asteroid (6478) Gault in a Quiescent State Using APO, GROWTH, P200, and ZTF

We observed the episodically active asteroid (6478) Gault in 2020 with multiple telescopes in Asia and North America and found that it is no longer active after its recent outbursts at the end of 2018 and the start of 2019. The inactivity during this apparition allowed us to measure the absolute magnitude of Gault of Hr = 14.63 ± 0.02, Gr = 0.21 ± 0.02 from our secular phase-curve observations. In addition, we were able to constrain Gault's rotation period using time-series photometric lightcurves taken over 17 hr on multiple days in 2020 August, September, and October. The photometric lightcurves have a repeating ≲0.05 mag feature suggesting that (6478) Gault has a rotation period of ∼2.5 hr and may have a semispherical or top-like shape, much like the near-Earth asteroids Ryugu and Bennu. The rotation period of ∼2.5 hr is near the expected critical rotation period for an asteroid with the physical properties of (6478) Gault, suggesting that its activity observed over multiple epochs is due to surface mass shedding from its fast rotation spin-up by the Yarkovsky–O'Keefe–Radzievskii–Paddack effect

A New Functional-Logic Compiler for Curry: SPRITE

We introduce a new native code compiler for Curry codenamed Sprite. Sprite is based on the Fair Scheme, a compilation strategy that provides instructions for transforming declarative, non-deterministic programs of a certain class into imperative, deterministic code. We outline salient features of Sprite, discuss its implementation of Curry programs, and present benchmarking results. Sprite is the first-to-date operationally complete implementation of Curry. Preliminary results show that ensuring this property does not incur a significant penalty

Static recrystallization of cold rolled intermetallic Fe17Al4Cr0.3Zr alloy

The final microstructure of cold rolled intermetallic disordered alloy Fe17Al4Cr0.3Zr was rebuilt during the annealing at moderate temperatures in the range of 800 to 900 °C. The time necessary to obtain recrystallized structure was determined at several annealing temperatures to optimize the processing technology of the plates. The phases present in the material during this process were identified. The grain growth (grain boundary movement) during static recrystallization (SRX) is connected with the interaction with an array of the Laves phase λ1(Fe,Al)2Zr and ZrC particles. The Avrami-based phenomenological model describing kinetics of SRX was developed. The activation energy for recrystallization was estimated.Web of Science2191936193