Learning Dynamic Boltzmann Distributions as Reduced Models of Spatial Chemical Kinetics

Finding reduced models of spatially-distributed chemical reaction networks requires an estimation of which effective dynamics are relevant. We propose a machine learning approach to this coarse graining problem, where a maximum entropy approximation is constructed that evolves slowly in time. The dynamical model governing the approximation is expressed as a functional, allowing a general treatment of spatial interactions. In contrast to typical machine learning approaches which estimate the interaction parameters of a graphical model, we derive Boltzmann-machine like learning algorithms to estimate directly the functionals dictating the time evolution of these parameters. By incorporating analytic solutions from simple reaction motifs, an efficient simulation method is demonstrated for systems ranging from toy problems to basic biologically relevant networks. The broadly applicable nature of our approach to learning spatial dynamics suggests promising applications to multiscale methods for spatial networks, as well as to further problems in machine learning

Tracking and Tracing in Food Networks: The Case of the Feed Industry

This paper discusses an organisational framework for Tracking & Tracing and quality management in the agriculture and food network and thus providing increased transparency therein. The legal and market environments that especially European companies of the compound feeds sector face today is being analyzed with respect to resulting recent and present requirements. A technological solution for companies and supply chains that helps dealing with these requirements is presented with an organisational glance inside the QM-G system.Tracking & Tracing, Feed Industry, Inter-Organizational Information System QM-G, Agribusiness, Industrial Organization,

Thinking territory historically.

BACKGROUND: While the randomised controlled trial (RCT) is generally regarded as the design of choice for assessing the effects of health care, within the social sciences there is considerable debate about the relative suitability of RCTs and non-randomised studies (NRSs) for evaluating public policy interventions. // OBJECTIVES: To determine whether RCTs lead to the same effect size and variance as NRSs of similar policy interventions; and whether these findings can be explained by other factors associated with the interventions or their evaluation. // METHODS: Analyses of methodological studies, empirical reviews, and individual health and social services studies investigated the relationship between randomisation and effect size of policy interventions by: 1) Comparing controlled trials that are identical in all respects other than the use of randomisation by 'breaking' the randomisation in a trial to create non-randomised trials (re-sampling studies). 2) Comparing randomised and non-randomised arms of controlled trials mounted simultaneously in the field (replication studies). 3) Comparing similar controlled trials drawn from systematic reviews that include both randomised and non-randomised studies (structured narrative reviews and sensitivity analyses within meta-analyses). 4) Investigating associations between randomisation and effect size using a pool of more diverse RCTs and NRSs within broadly similar areas (meta-epidemiology). // RESULTS: Prior methodological reviews and meta-analyses of existing reviews comparing effects from RCTs and nRCTs suggested that effect sizes from RCTs and nRCTs may indeed differ in some circumstances and that these differences may well be associated with factors confounded with design. Re-sampling studies offer no evidence that the absence of randomisation directly influences the effect size of policy interventions in a systematic way. No consistent explanations were found for randomisation being associated with changes in effect sizes of policy interventions in field trials

Pericenter passage of the gas cloud G2 in the Galactic Center

We have further followed the evolution of the orbital and physical properties of G2, the object currently falling toward the massive black hole in the Galactic Center on a near-radial orbit. New, very sensitive data were taken in April 2013 with NACO and SINFONI at the ESO VLT . The 'head' of G2 continues to be stretched ever further along the orbit in position-velocity space. A fraction of its emission appears to be already emerging on the blue-shifted side of the orbit, past pericenter approach. Ionized gas in the head is now stretched over more than 15,000 Schwarzschild radii RS around the pericenter of the orbit, at ~ 2000 RS ~ 20 light hours from the black hole. The pericenter passage of G2 will be a process stretching over a period of at least one year. The Brackett-{\gamma} luminosity of the head has been constant over the past 9 years, to within +- 25%, as have the line ratios Brackett-{\gamma} / Paschen-{\alpha} and Brackett-{\gamma} / Helium-I. We do not see any significant evidence for deviations of G2's dynamical evolution, due to hydrodynamical interactions with the hot gas around the black hole, from a ballistic orbit of an initially compact cloud with moderate velocity dispersion. The constant luminosity and the increasingly stretched appearance of the head of G2 in the position-velocity plane, without a central peak, is not consistent with several proposed models with continuous gas release from an initially bound zone around a faint star on the same orbit as G2.Comment: 10 figures, submitted to Ap

'It's a Form of Freedom': The experiences of people with disabilities within equestrian sport

This paper explores the embodied, gendered experiences of disabled horse‐riders. Drawing on data from five in‐depth interviews with paradressage riders, the ways in which their involvement in elite disability sport impacts upon their sense of identity and confidence are explored, as well as the considerable health and social benefits that this involvement brings. Social models of disability are employed and the shortcomings of such models, when applied to disability sport, are highlighted. The data presented here demonstrates the necessity of seeing disability sport as an embodied experience and acknowledging the importance of impairment to the experiences of disabled athletes. Living within an impaired body is also a gendered experience and the implications of this when applied to elite disability sport are considered

Ecological traps for large-scale invasive species control: predicting settling rules by recolonising American mink post-culling

1. Management programs worldwide seeking to reduce the density of invasive species must overcome compensatory processes, such as recolonisation by dispersers from non- or partially-controlled areas. However, the scale and drivers of dispersal in such context are poorly known. 2. We investigated the dispersal patterns of American mink reinvading 20,000 km2 of their non-native range following a culling programme led by citizen conservationists. Using multinomial models, we estimated the contributions of density dependence, proxies for patch quality and distance from the natal patch on mink settlement. 3. Seventy seven percent of mink dispersed and settled in non-natal patches. Dispersal distances were large with settlement probabilities only reduced by half at ~60 km, and 20% of mink dispersing > 80 km. 4. Females were more attracted to patches of high quality mostly found at low altitudes. Males favoured patches with intermediate current densities and consistently high quality. Synthesis and applications. Predicting post-culling recolonisation by a non-native mobile carnivore over large spatial scale could was using information on relative densities obtained during management interventions largely implemented by citizen conservationists. This was made possible by a monitoring component designed to feed into the adaptive management process implemented in this project. High mink mobility dictates management should take place on very large spatial scales to minimise reinvasion from un-controlled areas. Both males and females were attracted to patches that were previously consistently occupied, providing a degree of predictability to patterns of recolonisation. Targeting control to patches attractive to immigrant mink requires knowledge of current mink density. Creating so-called ecological traps in the face of ongoing immigration from peripheral areas provides a promising tool to effectively control mobile invasive species