Energy cost and machine learning accuracy impact of k-anonymisation and synthetic data techniques

To address increasing societal concerns regarding privacy and climate, the EU adopted the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and committed to the Green Deal. Considerable research studied the energy efficiency of software and the accuracy of machine learning models trained on anonymised data sets. Recent work began exploring the impact of privacy-enhancing techniques (PET) on both the energy consumption and accuracy of the machine learning models, focusing on k-anonymity. As synthetic data is becoming an increasingly popular PET, this paper analyses the energy consumption and accuracy of two phases: a) applying privacy-enhancing techniques to the concerned data set, b) training the models on the concerned privacy-enhanced data set. We use two privacy-enhancing techniques: k-anonymisation (using generalisation and suppression) and synthetic data, and three machine-learning models. Each model is trained on each privacy-enhanced data set. Our results show that models trained on k-anonymised data consume less energy than models trained on the original data, with a similar performance regarding accuracy. Models trained on synthetic data have a similar energy consumption and a similar to lower accuracy compared to models trained on the original data.Comment: Published in the proceedings (Pages: 57-65) of The International Conference on Information and Communications Technology for Sustainability (ICT4S) 2023 in Rennes, France. 9 pages, 4 figures, 5 table

Tunable buckling of metabeams

We probe the buckling of elastic metabeams by means of experiments and simulations. We show that sufficiently wide elastic plain beams exhibit snap through buckling, an unstable form of buckling where the stiffness is negative. We demonstrate that wider beams experience stronger nonlinear deformations and geometric stiffening. Therefore, the distribution of stresses across the beam is distorted and the postbuckling behavior altered. In a second part, we tailor a strain-softening nonlinearity in the material by designing an ordered microstructure close to a pattern transformation, in such a way that we can rationally design the postbuckling behavior of arbitrarily thin beams

Combinatorial design of textured mechanical metamaterials

Biological and Soft Matter Physic

Audio of Phoca vitulina

Audio files of harbour seals (Phoca vitulina) taken during the summer of 202

Relationships between vocal ontogeny and vocal tract anatomy in harbour seals (Phoca vitulina)

Understanding the origins and evolution of human speech benefits from a multidisciplinary and comparative approach. Research on animal models has already provided some valuable insight into the biological underpinnings of vocal communication. One important focus in the field of animal communication is sound production. The current literature on this topic hosts a great number of studies on avian species and our closer relatives, non-human primates. However, many pinniped species have been reported to have wide vocal repertoires, often producing call types in specific behavioral contexts (Ralls et al., 1985; Mathevon et al., 2017; Charrier et al., 2009). In fact, the vocal abilities of pinnipeds are better than was historically believed (Ravignani et al., 2016). Moreover, pinnipeds are phylogenetically closer to humans than the well-studied birds (O’Leary et al, 2013) and share some anatomical similarities to the human vocal apparatus (Fitch, 2000). Here, we: (i) report on longitudinal data on vocal ontogeny in harbor seal pups, (ii) complement the bioacoustic findings with results from a large anatomical data set of larynges, and (iii) critically compare our findings with available literature on harbor seal sound production. Taken together, they suggest that phocids are good candidates for animal models in future research on the evolution of human speech

An ecological approach to measuring synchronization abilities across the animal kingdom

In this perspective paper, we focus on the study of synchronization abilities across the animal kingdom. We propose an ecological approach to studying nonhuman animal synchronization that begins from observations about when, how and why an animal might synchronize spontaneously with natural environmental rhythms. We discuss what we consider to be the most important, but thus far largely understudied, temporal, physical, perceptual and motivational constraints that must be taken into account when designing experiments to test synchronization in nonhuman animals. First and foremost, different species are likely to be sensitive to and therefore capable of synchronizing at different timescales. We also argue that it is fruitful to consider the latent flexibility of animal synchronization. Finally, we discuss the importance of an animal's motivational state for showcasing synchronization abilities. We demonstrate that the likelihood that an animal can successfully synchronize with an environmental rhythm is context-dependent and suggest that the list of species capable of synchronization is likely to grow when tested with ecologically honest, species-tuned experiments. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Synchrony and rhythm interaction: from the brain to behavioural ecology’

An ecological approach to measuring synchronization abilities across the animal kingdom

In this perspective paper, we focus on the study of synchronization abilities across the animal kingdom. We propose an ecological approach to studying nonhuman animal synchronization that begins from observations about when, how and why an animal might synchronize spontaneously with natural environmental rhythms. We discuss what we consider to be the most important, but thus far largely understudied, temporal, physical, perceptual and motivational constraints that must be taken into account when designing experiments to test synchronization in nonhuman animals. First and foremost, different species are likely to be sensitive to and therefore capable of synchronizing at different timescales. We also argue that it is fruitful to consider the latent flexibility of animal synchronization. Finally, we discuss the importance of an animal's motivational state for showcasing synchronization abilities. We demonstrate that the likelihood that an animal can successfully synchronize with an environmental rhythm is context-dependent and suggest that the list of species capable of synchronization is likely to grow when tested with ecologically honest, species-tuned experiments. This article is part of the theme issue 'Synchrony and rhythm interaction: from the brain to behavioural ecology'

Rhythm in dyadic interactions

This review paper discusses rhythmic interactions and distinguishes them from non-rhythmic interactions. We report on communicative behaviours in social and sexual contexts, as found in dyads of humans, non-human primates, non-primate mammals, birds, anurans and insects. We discuss observed instances of rhythm in dyadic interactions, identify knowledge gaps and propose suggestions for future research. We find that most studies on rhythmicity in interactive signals mainly focus on one modality (acoustic or visual) and suggest more work should be performed on multimodal signals. Although the social functions of interactive rhythms have been fairly well described, developmental research on rhythms used to regulate social interactions is still lacking. Future work should also focus on identifying the exact timing mechanisms involved. Rhythmic signalling behaviours are widespread and critical in regulating social interactions across taxa, but many questions remain unexplored. A multidisciplinary, comparative cross-species approach may help provide answers

Rhythmic perception, production and interactivity in harbour and grey seals

Comparative studies on rhythmic animal behaviour can help understand the evolutionary origins of rhythm cognition underlying many human behaviours, including speech (Kotz, Ravignani & Fitch, 2018) and conversational interaction (Pika, Wilkinson, Kendrick & Vernes, 2018). Pinnipeds are a particularly promising clade for comparative investigations in the vocal domain (Ravignani et al., 2016), showing remarkable vocal flexibility (Ralls et al., 1985; Reichmuth & Casey, 2014) as well as rhythmic capacities (Cook et al., 2013; Mathevon et al., 2017). The variability in these traits across species guides hypotheses from evolutionary neuroscience, that postulate mechanistic connections between vocal learning and rhythm (Kuypers, 1958a, 1958b; Jürgens, Kirzinger, & von Cramon, 1982; Patel & Iversen, 2014). In seal pups, who are born and weaned in large breeding colonies on land, vocal rhythmicity can be functionally explained by their socio-ecology: a pup calling for its mother's attention may avoid acoustic masking by vocalizing in turns with nearby conspecifics (Ravignani, 2018). Here we disentangle different aspects of seal pup rhythm cognition to better describe individual timing patterns in turn-taking choruses. We present data from four studies on harbour seals (Phoca vitulina) and grey seals (Halichoerus grypus), testing rhythm perception, production, and interactivity