An AGI with Time-Inconsistent Preferences

This paper reveals a trap for artificial general intelligence (AGI) theorists who use economists’ standard method of discounting. This trap is implicitly and falsely assuming that a rational AGI would have time consistent preferences. An agent with time-inconsistent preferences knows that its future self will disagree with its current self concerning intertemporal decision making. Such an agent cannot automatically trust its future self to carry out plans that its current self considers optimal

A Body Undressed for Text: Trilby in Parts

George Du Maurier’s best-selling novel, Trilby (1894), is as important because of its defiance of social and cultural norms as it is for its apparent compliance with them. Trilby is a fiction that, like its eponymous heroine, attempts to negotiate the perilously fine line between the highbrow and the lowbrow, or to put it another way, between fine art and political commentary on one side, and pornography and sensationalism on the other. This article examines the way that Du Maurier engages his readership in this textual tease – his seduction of the reader – by suggesting the possibility of a peep show where everything that Victorian respectability abhors may be on display, and then his narratological dressing of the text, to ensure that where there is sexual non-conformity there is also moralism, and where there is social confrontation there is also historical distance. Understanding the textual appeal of Trilby as a character, the artist’s model who enchanted the fin-de-siècle reading public, is essential to appreciating how the discourses of pornography and fine art interact and have consequently evolved. This article therefore examines why Trilby succeeded with the Victorians where other, similarly sexually active heroines – such as Thomas Hardy’s Sue Bridehead – failed. Trilby the novel and Trilby the woman are both broken down by their author into manageable parts, a pornographic fetishistic technique that simultaneously eroticises, and makes more palatable, the textual and the physical bodies

Response of Vegetation Important to Northern Bobwhites Following Chemical and Mechanical Treatments (Oral Abstract)

Populations of northern bobwhite (Colinus virginianus) have declined since the early 1900s due to large-scale land use changes and habitat destruction. In southern pine stands land managers have used a variety of treatments to control hardwood encroachment, a major contributing factor to the loss of optimal quail habitat. We compared the use of the herbicide Arsenal (imazapyr) and traditional mechanical treatments with and without fire to control hardwood stem encroachment on 2 study areas. On Tall Timbers Research Station, hardwood stem density decreased on herbicide and herbicide + burn plots, but increased on all mechanically treated plots between years. Herbicide and herbicide + burn plots resulted in a 3-fold increase in forb coverage between years, whereas mechanically treated plots did not increase forb coverage. On Foshalee Plantation, hardwood stem density decreased and forb coverage increased between years on chemically treated plots. A one-time application of Arsenal can control hardwood encroachment in pine forests and stimulate herbaceous species growth. Following treatment, vegetative communities likely can be maintained for prolonged periods by using traditional, less expensive, methods of management such as prescribed fire

A TRADE LIBERALIZATION IN INTERNATIONAL DAIRY MARKETS

International dairy industries remain among the most distorted agricultural sectors. Dairy average bound tariffs remain among the highest of all agricultural commodities, and dairy trade is characterized by a large number of megatariffs and tariff-rate quotas (TRQs). The objective of our study is to examine how the international dairy markets might respond to policy changes under various assumptions, using a partial equilibrium, multiple-commodity, multiple-region model of agricultural policy and trade. Our results indicate that liberalization will reduce supplies, increase dairy trade, and raise world prices.Dairy Markets, Trade Liberalization, Model, Policy, International Relations/Trade,

Cruise Report for cruise Kilo Moana KM1811 in the U.S. Gulf of Alaska continental margin

Cruise report of RV Kilo Moana cruise 1811 on the U.S. margin in the Gulf of Alaska, north Pacific Ocean. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), on behalf of the United States Government, has a requirement to carry out mapping surveys of specific regions on the margins in the Gulf of Alaska, north Pacific Ocean in order to determine the detailed bathymetry of the margins. The data are required to support any potential claim for extended jurisdiction by the United States under United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) Article 76. The requirement is for the collection and processing of full-coverage multibeam sonar data in water depths of approximately 1000 to 5500 m in order to precisely define the location of potential natural prolongations to the continent as defined under UNCLOS Article 76. As part of the NOAA-funded research program, University of Hawaii researchers oversaw data acquisition, and University of New Hampshire (UNH) researchers performed the cruise planning and oversaw processing and archiving of the data collected during the cruise. A full patch test was conducted in deep water in the immediate area prior to commencement of mapping. New sound-speed profiles were collected by 139 XBT casts whenever the sound speed at the transducer differed by more than 0.5 m/s. All soundings are within 0.5% (2 sigma) of water depth, based on cross-line checks. Positions were determined by corrected differential GPS-aided inertial navigation. Sound-speed profiles were calculated from an XBT cast calibrated to an XSV cast during a patch test performed on the cruise prior to data collection. Horizontal_Positional_Accuracy_Report: Horizontal positioning of the vessel was determined using Applanix POS/MV inertial motion unit (IMU) version 5 which was provided with wide-area satellite-based differential positioning using the built-in Fugro Marinestar service as well as GNSS G2 service. Positioning is accurate to better than 0.5 meters (at 95% confidence) during all surveying. All positioning is referenced to the WGS84 Datum. Vertical_Positional_Accuracy_Report: Depth errors are within +/-0.5% of water depth. Process_Description: Raw data are as recorded by Kongsberg Maritime SIS data acquisition system. Depth units: meters Reference ellipsoid: WGS-84 Projection: unprojected geographic longitude, latitude Vertical reference: instantaneous sea level

Long-range forces between two excited mercury atoms and associative ionization

The long-range quadrupole-quadrupole ($\sim R^{-5}$) and leading dispersion ($\sim R^{-6}$) interactions between all pairs of excited Hg($6s6p$) $^3P_0$, $^3P_1$, $^3P_2$, and $^1P_1$ atoms are determined. The quadrupole moments are calculated using the {\it ab initio} relativistic configuration-interaction method coupled with many-body perturbation theory. The van der Waals coefficients are approximated using previously calculated static polarizabilities and expressions for the dispersion energy that are validated with similar systems. The long-range interactions are critical for associative ionization in thermal and cold collisions, and are found to be quite different for different pairs of interacting states. Based on this knowledge and the short-range parts of previously calculated potential curves, improved estimates of the chemi-ionization cross sections are obtained.Comment: accepted in Phys Rev

Operational Field Trial of a Retrofitted Fence to Mitigate Deer-Vehicle Collisions

Deer-vehicle collisions (DVCs) are a safety hazard and a significant financial burden for motorists. Ungulate-proof fencing used in combination with safe crossing structures have proven to be effective at mitigating DVCs. Although a 2.4-m fence has been the standard for ungulate-proof fencing, a 1.2-m fence with a 0.6-m outrigger angled at 45o away from the road and strung with high tensile wire may be a more cost-effective barrier. This design has the additional benefit of working as a one-way barrier, allowing deer to escape the highway if they should become trapped within the fenced right-of-way (ROW). The objective of this study is to retrofit a 1.2-m highway ROW fence with the aforementioned outrigger design to determine cost effectiveness and fence efficacy. Using a before-and-after design this study will compare spatial movements of GPS-collared deer, animal use of safe crossing structures, and breeding season DVCs. Detailed records of fence construction and maintenance costs will also be recorded to determine financial feasibility of retrofitting other existing 1.2-m ROW fences with the outrigger design

MUSE: robust surface fitting using unbiased scale estimates

Despite many successful applications of robust statistics, they have yet to be completely adapted to many computer vision problems. Range reconstruction, particularly in unstructured environments, requires a robust estimator that not only tolerates a large outlier percentage but also tolerates several discontinuities, extracting multiple surfaces in an image region. Observing that random outliers and/or points from across discontinuities increase a hypothesized fit's scale estimate (standard deviation of the noise), our new operator, called MUSE (Minimum Unbiased Scale Estimator), evaluates a hypothesized fit over potential inlier sets via an objective function of unbiased scale estimates. MUSE extracts the single best fit from the data by minimizing its objective function over a set of hypothesized fits and can sequentially extract multiple surfaces from an image region. We show MUSE to be effective on synthetic data modelling small scale discontinuities and in preliminary experiments..