Contrastive Learning and the Emergence of Attributes Associations

In response to an object presentation, supervised learning schemes generally respond with a parsimonious label. Upon a similar presentation we humans respond again with a label, but are flooded, in addition, by a myriad of associations. A significant portion of these consist of the presented object attributes. Contrastive learning is a semi-supervised learning scheme based on the application of identity preserving transformations on the object input representations. It is conjectured in this work that these same applied transformations preserve, in addition to the identity of the presented object, also the identity of its semantically meaningful attributes. The corollary of this is that the output representations of such a contrastive learning scheme contain valuable information not only for the classification of the presented object, but also for the presence or absence decision of any attribute of interest. Simulation results which demonstrate this idea and the feasibility of this conjecture are presented.Comment: 10 page

Stability of Gravitational and Electromagnetic Geons

Recent work on gravitational geons is extended to examine the stability properties of gravitational and electromagnetic geon constructs. All types of geons must possess the property of regularity, self-consistency and quasi-stability on a time-scale much longer than the period of the comprising waves. Standard perturbation theory, modified to accommodate time-averaged fields, is used to test the requirement of quasi-stability. It is found that the modified perturbation theory results in an internal inconsistency. The time-scale of evolution is found to be of the same order in magnitude as the period of the comprising waves. This contradicts the requirement of slow evolution. Thus not all of the requirements for the existence of electromagnetic or gravitational geons are met though perturbation theory. From this result it cannot be concluded that an electromagnetic or a gravitational geon is a viable entity. The broader implications of the result are discussed with particular reference to the problem of gravitational energy.Comment: 40 pages, 5 EPS figures, uses overcite.st

Theorising the practice of language mixing in music: an interdisciplinary (linguistic and musicological) investigation of Sri Lanka’s leading genre of contemporary popular song and its community.

This thesis represents the first ever study of Sri Lanka’s leading genre of contemporary popular song covering a period of over twelve years, and how its artists and principal audience interpolate ‘global’ and ‘local’ (linguistic and musical) elements in their invention and negotiation of the genre. The central objective is to articulate the collective linguistic identity of the genre’s artists and principal audience. They are shown to constitute a community of over 5.5 million youth and young adults of Sinhala ethnicity, more than a quarter of the country’s population. Notably, this is also the first ever study of macrosocietal linguistic identity in a musical context involving an interdisciplinary linguistic and musical-structure based approach. Underlying the central objective the thesis addresses broader questions about whether our perception of and response to language/language-mixing in music differs from our perception of and response to language mixing (language) in non-musical (i.e. conversational) contexts and if so, how such differences might be explained in terms of linguistic and/or musico-linguistic structure. The genre explored is termed ‘Post 1998 Leading Sri Lankan Popular Song’ (98+LSLPS): 1998 marks the symbolic year in which the first songs of the genre emerged and became hugely popular in Sri Lanka. At present, it includes around 300 songs. A community of practice model (Wenger 1998) is used to describe the three-way relationship between the artists, audience and songs. The song data analysed are in audio format. Musically, the songs are heterogeneous involving blends of styles, ranging from indigenous Sri Lankan folk tunes to hip hop rhythms to western classical melodies. These are delivered through four presentational techniques among which rap and singing are dominant. It is English and Sinhala mixed language lyrics which distinguish the songs as a genre. Not surprisingly, there is evidence that the community regard the songs as ‘mixed’: however, they are also found to regard the songs as simultaneously ‘not-mixed’. The portrait corresponds to the community’s identification of the songs as simultaneously homogeneous Sinhala and Sinhala-Sri Lankan systems on the one hand and heterogeneous multicultural systems on the other. Exploring the salience of this portrait at the level of the songs’ lyric organisation constitutes the major part of the thesis and is a crucial forerunner to articulating the collective linguistic identity of the community, which is based on interpreting the findings. Accordingly, I advance a novel musico-linguistic analytical framework based on the notion of the musical rhythm derived ‘line’ for analysing the songs. The framework is also a response to the fact that the song lyrics are in audio format rather than being assigned a predetermined structure by transcription. The analyses demonstrate that the songs’ lyric structure is entirely congruent with the portrait assigned to the songs by their community. Interpreted in relation to the community’s collective linguistic identity, it is described as representing a form of overarching monolingualism, deriving from active multilingualism in music. Drawing on the relationship between Sinhala ethnicity and the Sinhala language and the fact that the community members are of Sinhala ethnicity, the study concludes by suggesting that this linguistic profile may be indicative of the community’s definition of the ‘Sinhala’ language in this musical domain. Overall, the study establishes that musical structure governs the organisation of language/language mixing in music and that this is reflected in how communities perceive language/language mixing in music

Evidence of means–end behavior in Asian elephants (Elephas maximus)

The present study explores to what extent Asian elephants show “means–end” behavior. We used captive Asian elephants (N = 2) to conduct four variations of the Piagetian “support” problem, which involves a goal object that is out of reach, but rests on a support within reach. In the first condition, elephants were simultaneously presented with two identical trays serving as the “support”, with the bait on one tray and the other tray left empty. In the next two conditions, the bait was placed on one tray, while additional bait was placed beside the other tray. In the last condition, both trays contained bait, but one of the trays had a small gap which prevented the elephants from reaching the reward. Subjects were required to choose and pull either tray with their trunk and to obtain the bait (i.e. goal). Results showed that one elephant performed all of the support problems significantly above chance after several sessions, suggesting that the elephant was capable of understanding that pulling the tray was the “means” for achieving the “end” of obtaining the bait. This study showed that elephants show means–end behavior when subjected to a Piagetian “support” task, and indicates that such goal-directed behavior occurs in species other than primates

Car Use: Intentional, Habitual, or Both? Insights from Anscombe and the Mobility Biography Literature

Policy-makers have recognized that changing travel behavior is important. People, however, do not change their behavior so readily, particularly the use of the car. A central concept that has been invoked to account for this has been the concept of habit. However, various studies also present people as having concrete reasons for driving: Their choices are intentional. This interdisciplinary study attempts to reconcile these two understandings of travel behavior by drawing on insights from the philosopher Anscombe and a growing body of travel research termed the mobility biography literature. It applies some of Anscombe’s insights from Intention to the act of driving. With regard to the mobility biography literature, it draws out conceptual implications both from theoretical and empirical aspects: In particular, the characterization of travel decisions as nested in a hierarchy of life decisions and the association of life events with changes in travel decisions. It concludes that a broader conceptualization of human behavior leads to a broader view as to what policy-makers can do. It reminds us that transport is ‘special’, that transport and policy are inextricable, and that the importance of infrastructure provision should not be ignored

Exploring the (missed) connections between digital scholarship and faculty development: a conceptual analysis

Abstract The aim of this paper is to explore the relationship between two research topics: digital scholarship and faculty development. The former topic drives attention on academics' new practices in digital, open and networked contexts; the second is focused on the requirements and strategies to promote academics' professional learning and career advancement. The research question addressing this study is: are faculty development strategies hindered by the lack of a cohesive view in the research on digital scholarship? The main assumption guiding this research question is that clear conceptual frameworks and models of professional practice lead to effective faculty development strategies. Through a wide overview of the evolution of both digital scholarship and faculty development, followed by a conceptual analysis of the intersections between fields, the paper attempts to show the extent on which the situation in one area (digital scholarship) might encompass criticalities for the other (faculty development) in terms of research and practices. Furthermore, three scenarios based on the several perspectives of digital scholarship are built in order to explore the research question in depth. We conclude that at the current state of art the relationship between these two topics is weak. Moreover, the dialogue between digital scholarship and faculty development could put the basis to forge effective professional learning contexts and instruments, with the ultimate goal of supporting academics to become digital scholars towards a more open and democratic vision of scholarship

Insightful Problem Solving in an Asian Elephant

The “aha” moment or the sudden arrival of the solution to a problem is a common human experience. Spontaneous problem solving without evident trial and error behavior in humans and other animals has been referred to as insight. Surprisingly, elephants, thought to be highly intelligent, have failed to exhibit insightful problem solving in previous cognitive studies. We tested whether three Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) would use sticks or other objects to obtain food items placed out-of-reach and overhead. Without prior trial and error behavior, a 7-year-old male Asian elephant showed spontaneous problem solving by moving a large plastic cube, on which he then stood, to acquire the food. In further testing he showed behavioral flexibility, using this technique to reach other items and retrieving the cube from various locations to use as a tool to acquire food. In the cube's absence, he generalized this tool utilization technique to other objects and, when given smaller objects, stacked them in an attempt to reach the food. The elephant's overall behavior was consistent with the definition of insightful problem solving. Previous failures to demonstrate this ability in elephants may have resulted not from a lack of cognitive ability but from the presentation of tasks requiring trunk-held sticks as potential tools, thereby interfering with the trunk's use as a sensory organ to locate the targeted food