Administrative Arrangements and Future Location for IBPGR

Report by the Board of Trustees of IBPGR on developments relating to IBPGR's headquarters location, administrative arrangements, and collaboration with FAO. The Board recommended an administratively autonomous center with headquarters in Copenhagen or Rome.The report was presented by IBPGR Board Chair W. E. Tossell at the CGIAR meeting, May-June 1989

An Empirical Analysis of Internet Use on Smartphones: Characterizing Visit Patterns and User Differences

The original vision of ubiquitous computing was for computers to assist humans by providing subtle and fitting technologies in every environment. The iPhone and similar smartphones have provided continuous access to the internet to this end. In the current thesis, my goal was to characterize how the internet is used on smartphones to better understand what users do with technology away from the desktop. Naturalistic and longitudinal data were collected from iPhone users in the wild and analyzed to develop this understanding. Since there are two general ways to access the internet on smartphones—via native applications and a web browser—I describe usage patterns through each along with the influence of experience, the nature of the task and physical locations where smartphones were used on these patterns. The results reveal differences between technologies (the PC and the smartphone), platforms (native applications and the mobile browser), and users in how the internet was accessed. Findings indicate that longitudinal use of web browsers decreased sharply with time in favor of native application use, web page revisitation through browsers occurred very infrequently (approximately 25% of URLs are revisited by each user), bookmarks were used sparingly to access web content, physical location visitation followed patterns similar to virtual visitation on the internet, and Zipf distributions characterize mobile internet use. The web browser was not as central to smartphone use compared to the PC, but afforded certain types of activities such as searching and ad hoc browsing. In addition, users systematically differed from each other in how they accessed the internet suggesting different ways to support a wider spectrum of smartphone users

Computational modelling of interactions between gold complexes and silicates

The interactions of gold complexes including gold chloro-hydroxy species, gold thiosulphate and gold thiourea, with protonated and deprotonated silicate monomers, are studied using density functional theory (DFT) methods. The previously published optimal geometry of gold complexes is used here, together with the geometry of silica monomers that is optimised and compared with experimental and available theoretical data. COSMO (COnductor like Screening Model) solvation simulation of different systems (for different pH and gold complexes) is also used to represent the surrounding aqueous environments. The interaction energy of gold complexes with silica species based on theoretical studies has been shown to correlate well with the extent of silica preg-robbing (sorption) per surface area of quartz determined experimentally. The ability of DFT to compute the interactions of different gold complexes involving significant relativistic effects, with other species, has been demonstrated in this study. This work allows us to explain and control the chemical processes which result in loss of gold from solution in hydrometallurgical extraction

Getting Real: A Naturalistic Methodology for Using Smartphones to Collect Mediated Communications

This paper contributes an intentionally naturalistic methodology using smartphone logging technology to study communications in the wild. Smartphone logging can provide tremendous access to communications data from real environments. However, researchers must consider how it is employed to preserve naturalistic behaviors. Nine considerations are presented to this end. We also provide a description of a naturalistic logging approach that has been applied successfully to collecting mediated communications from iPhones. The methodology was designed to intentionally decrease reactivity and resulted in data that were more accurate than self-reports. Example analyses are also provided to show how data collected can be analyzed to establish empirical patterns and identify user differences. Smartphone logging technologies offer flexible capabilities to enhance access to real communications data, but methodologies employing these techniques must be designed appropriately to avoid provoking naturally occurring behaviors. Functionally, this methodology can be applied to establish empirical patterns and test specific hypotheses within the field of HCI research. Topically, this methodology can be applied to domains interested in understanding mediated communications such as mobile content and systems design, teamwork, and social networks

Calculation of the visible-UV absorption spectra of hydrogen sulfide, bisulfide, polysulfides, and As and Sb sulfides, in aqueous solution

Recently we showed that visible-UV spectra in aqueous solution can be accurately calculated for arsenic (III) bisulfides, such as As(SH)(3), As(SH)(2)S(- )and their oligomers. The calculated lowest energy transitions for these species were diagnostic of their protonation and oligomerization state. We here extend these studies to As and Sb oxidation state III and v sulfides and to polysulfides S(n)(2-), n = 2–6, the bisulfide anion, SH(-), hydrogen sulfide, H(2)S and the sulfanes, S(n)H(2), n = 2–5. Many of these calculations are more difficult than those performed for the As(iii) bisulfides, since the As and Sb(v) species are more acidic and therefore exist as highly charged anions in neutral and basic solutions. In general, small and/or highly charged anions are more difficult to describe computationally than larger, monovalent anions or neutral molecules. We have used both Hartree-Fock based (CI Singles and Time-Dependent HF) and density functional based (TD B3LYP) techniques for the calculations of absorption energy and intensity and have used both explicit water molecules and a polarizable continuum to describe the effects of hydration. We correctly reproduce the general trends observed experimentally, with absorption energies increasing from polysulfides to As, Sb sulfides to SH(- )to H(2)S. As and Sb(v) species, both monomers and dimers, also absorb at characteristically higher energies than do the analogous As and Sb(III)species. There is also a small reduction in absorption energy from monomeric to dimeric species, for both As and Sb III and v. The polysufides, on the other hand, show no simple systematic changes in UV spectra with chain length, n, or with protonation state. Our results indicate that for the As and Sb sulfides, the oxidation state, degree of protonation and degree of oligomerization can all be determined from the visible-UV absorption spectrum. We have also calculated the aqueous phase energetics for the reaction of S(8 )with SH(- )to produce the polysulfides, S(n)H(-), n = 2–6. Our results are in excellent agreement with available experimental data, and support the existence of a S(6 )species

Trusting the Moral Judgments of a Robot: Perceived Moral Competence and Humanlikeness of a GPT-3 Enabled AI

Advancements in computing power and foundational modeling have enabled artificial intelligence (AI) to respond to moral queries with surprising accuracy. This raises the question of whether we trust AI to influence human moral decision-making, so far, a uniquely human activity. We explored how a machine agent trained to respond to moral queries (Delphi, Jiang et al., 2021) is perceived by human questioners. Participants were tasked with querying the agent with the goal of figuring out whether the agent, presented as a humanlike robot or a web client, was morally competent and could be trusted. Participants rated the moral competence and perceived morality of both agents as high yet found it lacking because it could not provide justifications for its moral judgments. While both agents were also rated highly on trustworthiness, participants had little intention to rely on such an agent in the future. This work presents an important first evaluation of a morally competent algorithm integrated with a human-like platform that could advance the development of moral robot advisors

Enhanced orbital electron-capture nuclear decay rate in compact medium

The eigenstate energies of an atom increase under spatial confinement and this effect should also increase the electron density of the orbital electrons at the nucleus thus increasing the decay rate of an electron-capturing radioactive nucleus. We have observed that the orbital electron capture rates of 109In and 110Sn increased by (1.00+-0.17)% and (0.48+-0.25)% respectively when implanted in the small Au lattice versus large Pb lattice. These results have been understood because of the higher compression experienced by the large radioactive atoms due to the spatial confinement in the smaller Au lattice.Comment: 30 pages, 3 Figures, 2 Table