A Storm in an IoT Cup: The Emergence of Cyber-Physical Social Machines

The concept of social machines is increasingly being used to characterise various socio-cognitive spaces on the Web. Social machines are human collectives using networked digital technology which initiate real-world processes and activities including human communication, interactions and knowledge creation. As such, they continuously emerge and fade on the Web. The relationship between humans and machines is made more complex by the adoption of Internet of Things (IoT) sensors and devices. The scale, automation, continuous sensing, and actuation capabilities of these devices add an extra dimension to the relationship between humans and machines making it difficult to understand their evolution at either the systemic or the conceptual level. This article describes these new socio-technical systems, which we term Cyber-Physical Social Machines, through different exemplars, and considers the associated challenges of security and privacy.Comment: 14 pages, 4 figure

Biological characteristics and mortality of western butterfish (Pentapodus vitta), an abundant bycatch species of prawn trawling and recreational fishing in a large subtropical embayment

The western butterfish (Pentapodus vitta) is numerous in the bycatch of prawn trawling and recreational fishing in Shark Bay, Western Australia. We have thus determined crucial aspects of its biological characteristics and the potential impact of fishing on its abundance within this large subtropical marine embayment. Although both sexes attained a maximum age of 8 years, males grow more rapidly and to a larger size. Maturity is attained at the end of the first year of life and spawning occurs between October and January. The use of a Bayesian approach to combine independent estimates for total mortality, Z, and natural mortality, M, yielded slightly higher point estimates for Z than M. This result indicates that P. vitta is lightly impacted by fishing. It is relevant that, potentially, the individuals can spawn twice before recruitment into the fishery and that 73% of recreationally caught individuals are returned live to the water

Medial knee joint loading during stair ambulation and walking while carrying loads

Carrying loads while walking or using stairs is a common activity of daily living. Knee osteoarthritis is associated with increased external knee adduction moment (KAM) during walking, so understanding how the additional challenges of stairs and carrying loads impact these moments is of value. Sixteen healthy individuals performed three types of MOTION (walking, stair ascent, stair descent) under three LOAD conditions (no load, carrying a 13.6 kg front load, carrying 13.6 kg load in a backpack). Three-dimensional gait analysis was used to measure KAM. Results of ANOVA showed a significant main effect of both MOTION and LOAD on peak KAM (p \u3c 0.001), but no significant MOTION × LOAD interaction (p = 0.250). Peak KAM during stair ascent was about two-times those seen in stair descent (p \u3c 0.001) and was significantly higher than those seen in walking (p \u3c 0.001). Conditions with LOAD generated significantly greater KAM as compared to the no-LOAD conditions (p \u3c 0.001). These findings suggest that carrying a load of moderate magnitude while climbing stairs significantly increases the peak KAM – a risk factor associated with knee osteoarthritis

A segmented and clawed male foreleg in a newly described genus and species of eumaeine butterfly (Lepidoptera: Lycaenidae)

Grishinata Robbins and Busby, new genus (Lepidoptera: Lycaenidae: Eumaeini), possesses a five-segmented foretarsus with a clawed pretarsus, a trait that differentiates it from all eumaeine genera except Theclopsis Godman and Salvin. Grishinata penny Busby, Hall, and Robbins, new species, differs from all species of Theclopsis (and most Eumaeini) in lacking male secondary sexual organs on the wings or in the abdomen. It is recorded from the eastern slope of the Andes in Ecuador and Peru. We cannot place Grishinata penny in an existing Eumaeini genus based upon its wing pattern, male foreleg structure, lack of male second­ary sexual organs, and male genitalic morphology. We propose names for the genus and species to document its leg morphology and to provide a name for a genome sequencing project, which will allow us to place the genus in the eumaeine Linnaean hierarchy. There are two morphological types of male forelegs in the lepidopteran butterfly family Lycaenidae, each of which is functionally and structurally different from male forelegs in other diurnal butterfly families. The first male foreleg type is superficially similar to that of Nymphalidae and Riodinidae in that the tarsus is unsegmented, lacks a pretarsus, and is not used to groom the antennae (Robbins 1988, 1990). It differs functionally from these families in that it is used for walking. It differs morphologically in that it possesses tarsal alpha and beta trichoid sensilla (terminology from Chun and Schoonhoven 1973), which are lacking in Nymphalidae and Riodinidae with few exceptions (Robbins 1988). This male foreleg type occurs in more than 98% of lycaenid species (Mattoni and Fiedler 1991). The second lycaenid male foreleg type is superficially similar to that of Hesperiidae, Papilionidae, and Pieridae in that the foretarsus is segmented with a clawed pretarsus. It differs functionally from these families in that it is not used to groom the antennae (Jander 1966; Robbins 1990). It differs morphologically in that it lacks the tibial epiphysis of Hesperiidae and Papilionidae or the vestigial remnant of an epiphysis that occurs in some Pieridae (Robbins 1990). Within Eumaeini, this male foreleg type is restricted to some species of Theclopsis Godman and Salvin, 1887 (Godman and Salvin 1887; Robbins 2004). We discovered a species (Fig. 1) belonging to the Eumaeini with a male foreleg that has a clawed pretarsus and a five-segmented tarsus (Fig. 2), but the male genitalia, secondary sexual characters, and wing pattern (Fig. 1, 3) are dissimilar from those of Theclopsis. The males lack secondary sexual organs on the wings or in the abdomen (Fig. 1, 3), which is highly unusual in Eumaeini (Valencia-Montoya et al. 2021). The male genitalia (Fig. 3) lack structures that would be useful in determining its closest phylogenetic relatives. More generally, we find no clear-cut morphological evidence to place this species in an available eumaeine genus. The purpose of this paper is to propose new generic and specific names for this newly discovered taxon. One reason is that we need a name to document its unusual leg morphology. Another is that we are currently sequencing its genome for a phylogenetic project. Phylogenetic analysis of the sequence data will allow us to place the genus in the eumaeine Linnaean hierarchy. We predict that it will show, in accord with the findings of Mattoni and Fiedler (1991), that its male foreleg with a clawed pretarsus and five-segmented tarsus evolved from a tarsus that was fused without a pretarsus

Volume Fractions of the Kinematic "Near-Critical" Sets of the Quantum Ensemble Control Landscape

An estimate is derived for the volume fraction of a subset $C_{\epsilon}^{P} = \{U : ||grad J(U)|\leq {\epsilon}\}\subset\mathrm{U}(N)$ in the neighborhood of the critical set $C^{P}\simeq\mathrm{U}(\mathbf{n})P\mathrm{U}(\mathbf{m})$ of the kinematic quantum ensemble control landscape J(U) = Tr(U\rho U' O), where $U$ represents the unitary time evolution operator, {\rho} is the initial density matrix of the ensemble, and O is an observable operator. This estimate is based on the Hilbert-Schmidt geometry for the unitary group and a first-order approximation of $||grad J(U)||^2$. An upper bound on these near-critical volumes is conjectured and supported by numerical simulation, leading to an asymptotic analysis as the dimension $N$ of the quantum system rises in which the volume fractions of these "near-critical" sets decrease to zero as $N$ increases. This result helps explain the apparent lack of influence exerted by the many saddles of $J$ over the gradient flow.Comment: 27 pages, 1 figur

“MULTIRACIAL AND MULTIETHNIC IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT: SHOULD THE QUESTION REALLY BE ‘IS THE GLASS HALF FULL OR HALF EMPTY?’”

The purpose of this symposium is to challenge and expand the work in identity development beyond simplistic, single identity developmental frameworks by examining the inherent complexities of multiple identity development and group affiliations

Classification of time series by shapelet transformation

Time-series classification (TSC) problems present a specific challenge for classification algorithms: how to measure similarity between series. A \emph{shapelet} is a time-series subsequence that allows for TSC based on local, phase-independent similarity in shape. Shapelet-based classification uses the similarity between a shapelet and a series as a discriminatory feature. One benefit of the shapelet approach is that shapelets are comprehensible, and can offer insight into the problem domain. The original shapelet-based classifier embeds the shapelet-discovery algorithm in a decision tree, and uses information gain to assess the quality of candidates, finding a new shapelet at each node of the tree through an enumerative search. Subsequent research has focused mainly on techniques to speed up the search. We examine how best to use the shapelet primitive to construct classifiers. We propose a single-scan shapelet algorithm that finds the best $k$ shapelets, which are used to produce a transformed dataset, where each of the $k$ features represent the distance between a time series and a shapelet. The primary advantages over the embedded approach are that the transformed data can be used in conjunction with any classifier, and that there is no recursive search for shapelets. We demonstrate that the transformed data, in conjunction with more complex classifiers, gives greater accuracy than the embedded shapelet tree. We also evaluate three similarity measures that produce equivalent results to information gain in less time. Finally, we show that by conducting post-transform clustering of shapelets, we can enhance the interpretability of the transformed data. We conduct our experiments on 29 datasets: 17 from the UCR repository, and 12 we provide ourselve

Validation of a Climate-Data Record of the "Clear-Sky" Surface Temperature of the Greenland Ice Sheet

Surface temperatures on the Greenland Ice Sheet have been studied on the ground, using automatic weather station (AWS) data from the Greenland-Climate Network (GC-Net), and from analysis of satellite sensor data. Using Advanced Very High Frequency Radiometer (AVHRR) weekly surface temperature maps, warming of the surface of the Greenland Ice Sheet has been documented since 1981. We extended and refined this record using higher-resolution Moderate-Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data from March 2000 to the present. We developed a daily and monthly climate-data record (CDR) of the "clear-sky" surface temperature of the Greenland Ice Sheet using an ice-surface temperature (1ST) algorithm developed for use with MODIS data. Validation of this CDR is ongoing. MODIS Terra swath data are projected onto a polar stereographic grid at 6.25-km resolution to develop binary, gridded daily and mean-monthly 1ST maps. Each monthly map also has a color-coded image map that is available to download. Also included with the monthly maps is an accompanying map showing number of days in the month that were used to calculate the mean-monthly 1ST. This is important because no 1ST decision is made by the algorithm for cells that are considered cloudy by the internal cloud mask, so a sufficient number of days must be available to produce a mean 1ST for each grid cell. Validation of the CDR consists of several facets: 1) comparisons between ISTs and in-situ measurements; 2) comparisons between ISTs and AWS data; and 3) comparisons of ISTs with surface temperatures derived from other satellite instruments such as the Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) and Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+). Previous work shows that Terra MODIS ISTs are about 3 C lower than in-situ temperatures measured at Summit Camp, during the winter of 2008-09 under clear skies. In this work we begin to compare surface temperatures derived from AWS data with ISTs from the MODIS CDR

Signing While Driving: An Investigation of Divided Attention Resources Among Deaf Drivers

Safely operating vehicles require significant visual attention. While attention can be divided, cognitive resources are not limitless. Deaf and hearing participants engaged in a simulated driving task while simultaneously engaging in a conversation in their preferred language. Results indicated that hearing drivers may have a performance advantage over deaf drivers, though it is so minor that it will not likely be seen outside of the laboratory setting. The results also indicated differing cognitive processing among hearing and deaf drivers. The results may inform policy, reduce stigma, and serve as the base for future research on deaf-specific cognitive factors of driving

Why do models overestimate surface ozone in the Southeast United States

Ozone pollution in the Southeast US involves complex chemistry driven by emissions of anthropogenic nitrogen oxide radicals (NOx  ≡  NO + NO2) and biogenic isoprene. Model estimates of surface ozone concentrations tend to be biased high in the region and this is of concern for designing effective emission control strategies to meet air quality standards. We use detailed chemical observations from the SEAC4RS aircraft campaign in August and September 2013, interpreted with the GEOS-Chem chemical transport model at 0.25°  ×  0.3125° horizontal resolution, to better understand the factors controlling surface ozone in the Southeast US. We find that the National Emission Inventory (NEI) for NOx from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is too high. This finding is based on SEAC4RS observations of NOx and its oxidation products, surface network observations of nitrate wet deposition fluxes, and OMI satellite observations of tropospheric NO2 columns. Our results indicate that NEI NOx emissions from mobile and industrial sources must be reduced by 30–60 %, dependent on the assumption of the contribution by soil NOx emissions. Upper-tropospheric NO2 from lightning makes a large contribution to satellite observations of tropospheric NO2 that must be accounted for when using these data to estimate surface NOx emissions. We find that only half of isoprene oxidation proceeds by the high-NOx pathway to produce ozone; this fraction is only moderately sensitive to changes in NOx emissions because isoprene and NOx emissions are spatially segregated. GEOS-Chem with reduced NOx emissions provides an unbiased simulation of ozone observations from the aircraft and reproduces the observed ozone production efficiency in the boundary layer as derived from a regression of ozone and NOx oxidation products. However, the model is still biased high by 6 ± 14 ppb relative to observed surface ozone in the Southeast US. Ozonesondes launched during midday hours show a 7 ppb ozone decrease from 1.5 km to the surface that GEOS-Chem does not capture. This bias may reflect a combination of excessive vertical mixing and net ozone production in the model boundary layer