XAI & I: Self-explanatory AI facilitating mutual understanding between AI and human experts

Traditionally, explainable artificial intelligence seeks to provide explanation and interpretability of high-performing black-box models such as deep neural networks. Interpretation of such models remains difficult, because of their high complexity. An alternative method is to instead force a deep-neural network to use human-intelligible features as the basis for its decisions. We tested this approach using the natural category domain of rock types. We compared the performance of a black-box implementation of transfer-learning using Resnet50 to that of a network first trained to predict expert-identified features and then forced to use these features to categorise rock images. The performance of this feature-constrained network was virtually identical to that of the unconstrained network. Further, a partially constrained network forced to condense down to a small number of features that was not trained with expert features did not result in these abstracted features being intelligible; nevertheless, an affine transformation of these features could be found that aligned well with expert-intelligible features. These findings show that making an AI intrinsically intelligible need not be at the cost of performance

Cockroaches Probably Cleaned Up after Dinosaurs

Dinosaurs undoubtedly produced huge quantities of excrements. But who cleaned up after them? Dung beetles and flies with rapid development were rare during most of the Mesozoic. Candidates for these duties are extinct cockroaches (Blattulidae), whose temporal range is associated with herbivorous dinosaurs. An opportunity to test this hypothesis arises from coprolites to some extent extruded from an immature cockroach preserved in the amber of Lebanon, studied using synchrotron X-ray microtomography. 1.06% of their volume is filled by particles of wood with smooth edges, in which size distribution directly supports their external pre-digestion. Because fungal pre-processing can be excluded based on the presence of large particles (combined with small total amount of wood) and absence of damages on wood, the likely source of wood are herbivore feces. Smaller particles were broken down biochemically in the cockroach hind gut, which indicates that the recent lignin-decomposing termite and cockroach endosymbionts might have been transferred to the cockroach gut upon feeding on dinosaur feces

Zwei neue Blattarien von den Kapverdischen Inseln

Vor kurzem erhielt ich von Herrn E. Morales Agacino (Instituto Español de Entomología, Madrid) einige Blattarien zwecks Bestimmung. Diese Blattarien, die von Herrn J. Mateu auf den Inseln Santiago und San Vicente gesammelt worden sind, gehören zu drei verschiedenen Arten, zwei von welchen sich als neu für die Wissenschaft erwiesen'. Ich danke verbindlichst Herrn E. Morales Agacino für das interessante Material. Hier folgen die Beschreibungen.Peer reviewe

Zur Systematik der Blattarien

Wie manches beginnt auch die Systematik der Blattarien mit Linné (1758). Er errichtete nämlich die Gattung Blatta mit 9 Arten, die heutzutage zu ebenso vielen verschiedenen Gattungen gerechnet werden. Es sind : Blaberus giganteus (L.), Polyphaga aegyptiaca (L.), Pycnoscelus surinamensis (L.), Periplaneta americana (L.), Panchlora nivea (L.), Arenivaga (Psammoblatta) africana (L.), Blatta orientalis L., Ectobius lapponicus (L.) und Pseudomops oblongata (L.). Die zehnte Art, nämlich Therea petiveriana (L.), wurde von ihm daselbst als ein Käfer beschrieben.Peer reviewe

Zur Kenntnis der Blattarien des italienisch. Somalilandes

Volume: 99Start Page: 187End Page: 19