Humble Machines: Attending to the Underappreciated Costs of Misplaced Distrust

It is curious that AI increasingly outperforms human decision makers, yet much of the public distrusts AI to make decisions affecting their lives. In this paper we explore a novel theory that may explain one reason for this. We propose that public distrust of AI is a moral consequence of designing systems that prioritize reduction of costs of false positives over less tangible costs of false negatives. We show that such systems, which we characterize as 'distrustful', are more likely to miscategorize trustworthy individuals, with cascading consequences to both those individuals and the overall human-AI trust relationship. Ultimately, we argue that public distrust of AI stems from well-founded concern about the potential of being miscategorized. We propose that restoring public trust in AI will require that systems are designed to embody a stance of 'humble trust', whereby the moral costs of the misplaced distrust associated with false negatives is weighted appropriately during development and use

Neurovestibular Effects of Long-Duration Spaceflight: A Summary of Mir-Phase 1 Experiences

Space motion sickness and associated neurovestibular dysfunction though not completely understood - have been relatively well clinically and operationally characterized on short-duration (1-2 week) Space Shuttle missions (Oman, et al, 1984, 1986; Thornton, et al, 1987; Reschke, et al, 1994). Between March 1995 and June 1998, seven NASA astronauts flew on the Russian Mir space station, as "Phase 1" of the joint effort to build the International Space Station, and provided NASA with invaluable experience on the operational and biomedical problems associated with flights of up to six months in duration. The goal of this paper is to provide a summary of the available information on neurovestibular dysfunction, space motion sickness, and readaptation to Earth's gravity on the NASA Mir flights, based on a set of medical questionnaire data, transcripts, and interviews which are available from the NASA-Mir Phase I program. Records were incomplete and anecdotal. All references to specific crewmembers have been removed, to respect their individual privacy. Material was excerpted from multiple sources of information relating to neurologic function, sensory illusions and motion sickness of NASA-Mir Phase I Program crewmembers. Data were compiled by epoch (in-flight vs landing/postflight) and grouped by neurovestibular topic. The information was recorded either contemporaneously during or within days after landing, or retrospectively weeks to months later. Space motion sickness symptoms are more intense and longer in duration. Sense of spatial orientation takes at least a month to become "natural and instinctive" in space station structures, but mental survey knowledge is apparently not completely developed even after 3 months in some cases. Visual reorientation illusions (VRI) are more easily induced after long exposure to weightlessness. Head movements can cause illusory spinning sensations for up to 7 days postflight. Postural and balance control does not fully recover for at least a month postflight

High-Redshift SDSS Quasars with Weak Emission Lines

We identify a sample of 74 high-redshift quasars (z>3) with weak emission lines from the Fifth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and present infrared, optical, and radio observations of a subsample of four objects at z>4. These weak emission-line quasars (WLQs) constitute a prominent tail of the Lya+NV equivalent width distribution, and we compare them to quasars with more typical emission-line properties and to low-redshift active galactic nuclei with weak/absent emission lines, namely BL Lac objects. We find that WLQs exhibit hot (T~1000 K) thermal dust emission and have rest-frame 0.1-5 micron spectral energy distributions that are quite similar to those of normal quasars. The variability, polarization, and radio properties of WLQs are also different from those of BL Lacs, making continuum boosting by a relativistic jet an unlikely physical interpretation. The most probable scenario for WLQs involves broad-line region properties that are physically distinct from those of normal quasars.Comment: Updated to match version published in ApJ. 20 pages, 12 figure

A gene signature for post-infectious chronic fatigue syndrome

Background: At present, there are no clinically reliable disease markers for chronic fatigue syndrome. DNA chip microarray technology provides a method for examining the differential expression of mRNA from a large number of genes. Our hypothesis was that a gene expression signature, generated by microarray assays, could help identify genes which are dysregulated in patients with post-infectious CFS and so help identify biomarkers for the condition. Methods: Human genome-wide Affymetrix GeneChip arrays (39,000 transcripts derived from 33,000 gene sequences) were used to compare the levels of gene expression in the peripheral blood mononuclear cells of male patients with post-infectious chronic fatigue (n = 8) and male healthy control subjects (n = 7). Results: Patients and healthy subjects differed significantly in the level of expression of 366 genes. Analysis of the differentially expressed genes indicated functional implications in immune modulation, oxidative stress and apoptosis. Prototype biomarkers were identified on the basis of differential levels of gene expression and possible biological significance Conclusion: Differential expression of key genes identified in this study offer an insight into the possible mechanism of chronic fatigue following infection. The representative biomarkers identified in this research appear promising as potential biomarkers for diagnosis and treatment

Outer membrane protein a conservation among Orientia tsutsugamushi isolates suggests its potential as a protective antigen and diagnostic target

Scrub typhus threatens one billion people in the Asia-Pacific area and cases have emerged outside this region. It is caused by infection with any of the multitude of strains of the bacterium; Orientia tsutsugamushi; . A vaccine that affords heterologous protection and a commercially-available molecular diagnostic assay are lacking. Herein, we determined that the nucleotide and translated amino acid sequences of outer membrane protein A (OmpA) are highly conserved among 51; O. tsutsugamushi; isolates. Molecular modeling revealed the predicted tertiary structure of; O. tsutsugamushi; OmpA to be very similar to that of the phylogenetically-related pathogen,; Anaplasma phagocytophilum; , including the location of a helix that contains residues functionally essential for; A. phagocytophilum; infection. PCR primers were developed that amplified; ompA; DNA from all; O. tsutsugamushi; strains, but not from negative control bacteria. Using these primers in quantitative PCR enabled sensitive detection and quantitation of; O. tsutsugamushi ompA; DNA from organs and blood of mice that had been experimentally infected with the Karp or Gilliam strains. The high degree of OmpA conservation among; O. tsutsugamushi; strains evidences its potential to serve as a molecular diagnostic target and justifies its consideration as a candidate for developing a broadly-protective scrub typhus vaccine

The Rossiter-McLaughlin effect in Exoplanet Research

The Rossiter-McLaughlin effect occurs during a planet's transit. It provides the main means of measuring the sky-projected spin-orbit angle between a planet's orbital plane, and its host star's equatorial plane. Observing the Rossiter-McLaughlin effect is now a near routine procedure. It is an important element in the orbital characterisation of transiting exoplanets. Measurements of the spin-orbit angle have revealed a surprising diversity, far from the placid, Kantian and Laplacian ideals, whereby planets form, and remain, on orbital planes coincident with their star's equator. This chapter will review a short history of the Rossiter-McLaughlin effect, how it is modelled, and will summarise the current state of the field before describing other uses for a spectroscopic transit, and alternative methods of measuring the spin-orbit angle.Comment: Review to appear as a chapter in the "Handbook of Exoplanets", ed. H. Deeg & J.A. Belmont

Population pharmacokinetics of vancomycin in critically ill patients receiving prolonged intermittent renal replacement therapy

The aim of this study was to describe the population pharmacokinetics of vancomycin during prolonged intermittent renal replacement therapy (PIRRT) in critically ill patients with acute kidney injury.Critically ill patients prescribed vancomycin across two sites had blood samples collected during 1-3 dosing intervals during which PIRRT was performed. Plasma samples were assayed with a validated immunoassay method. Population pharmacokinetic analysis and Monte Carlo simulations were performed using Pmetrics. The target vancomycin exposures were an AUC/MIC ratio of 400 for efficacy and AUC 700 for toxicity.Eleven critically ill patients (7 male) were enrolled and contributed 192 plasma samples. The patient's mean ± SD age, weight and BMI were 57 ± 13 years, 98 ± 43 kg and 31 ± 9 kg/m, respectively. A two-compartment linear model adequately described the data. The mean ± SD population pharmacokinetic parameter estimates were PIRRT clearance (CL) 3.47 ± 1.99 L/h, non-PIRRT CL 2.15 ± 2.07 L/h, volume of distribution of the central compartment (Vc) 41.85 ± 24.33 L, distribution rate constant from central to peripheral compartment 5.97 ± 7.93 h and from peripheral to central compartment 5.29 ± 6.65 h. Assuming a MIC of 1 mg/L, vancomycin doses of 25 mg/kg/day are suggested to achieve efficacious, whilst minimising toxic, exposures.This is the first population pharmacokinetic study of vancomycin in patients receiving PIRRT and we observed large pharmacokinetic variability. Empirically, weight-based doses that are appropriate for the duration of PIRRT should be selected and supplemented with therapeutic drug monitoring

LSST Science Book, Version 2.0

A survey that can cover the sky in optical bands over wide fields to faint magnitudes with a fast cadence will enable many of the exciting science opportunities of the next decade. The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) will have an effective aperture of 6.7 meters and an imaging camera with field of view of 9.6 deg^2, and will be devoted to a ten-year imaging survey over 20,000 deg^2 south of +15 deg. Each pointing will be imaged 2000 times with fifteen second exposures in six broad bands from 0.35 to 1.1 microns, to a total point-source depth of r~27.5. The LSST Science Book describes the basic parameters of the LSST hardware, software, and observing plans. The book discusses educational and outreach opportunities, then goes on to describe a broad range of science that LSST will revolutionize: mapping the inner and outer Solar System, stellar populations in the Milky Way and nearby galaxies, the structure of the Milky Way disk and halo and other objects in the Local Volume, transient and variable objects both at low and high redshift, and the properties of normal and active galaxies at low and high redshift. It then turns to far-field cosmological topics, exploring properties of supernovae to z~1, strong and weak lensing, the large-scale distribution of galaxies and baryon oscillations, and how these different probes may be combined to constrain cosmological models and the physics of dark energy.Comment: 596 pages. Also available at full resolution at http://www.lsst.org/lsst/sciboo