On Testing the Simulation Theory

Can the theory that reality is a simulation be tested? We investigate this question based on the assumption that if the system performing the simulation is nite (i.e. has limited resources), then to achieve low computational complexity, such a system would, as in a video game, render content (reality) only at the moment that information becomes available for observation by a player and not at the moment of detection by a machine (that would be part of the simulation and whose detection would also be part of the internal computation performed by the Virtual Reality server before rendering content to the player). Guided by this principle we describe conceptual wave/particle duality experiments aimed at testing the simulation theory

Purdue E-Pubs: Free Online Access to Transportation Research

Purdue e-Pubs is a free service provided by the Purdue Libraries offering access to some of the best transportation research. This session reviews the partnership with JTRP/INDOT to archive and disseminate technical reports, Purdue Road School presentations, and affiliated reports

Matching display relative humidity to corrosion rate: Quantitative evidence for marine cast iron cannon balls

Cast iron cannon balls excavated from the wreck of King Henry VIII flagship, the Mary Rose, have been actively corroding on mixed material display at 55% relative humidity (RH). A Cardiff University study has examined corrosion rates of cannon balls treated by hydrogen reduction, alkaline sulfite and Hostacor IT. Oxygen consumption of six cannon balls has been measured at five relative humidities between 20% and 60% RH as proxy corrosion rate. Results show a noticeable increase in corrosion rate at 50% to 60% RH and also returned differences in corrosion rates of cannon balls based on previous treatment. Display RH of 55% for showcases containing organic materials and cast iron is found to be unsuitable for the cannon balls and their display in these conditions is not recommended. This has implications for contextual display at the Mary Rose Trust and elsewhere. Further study with greater sample numbers is providing statistical evidence of the effect of treatment regime on corrosion rate to inform decision making for future treatment, display and storage

Measuring effectiveness of washing methods for corrosion control of archaeological iron: problems and challenges

The individual chloride content of 116 archaeological iron nails from Romano British and Medieval sites in Wales is reported. The meaning and value of chloride concentration recorded as weight of chloride in object/object weight is discussed in relation to reporting the effectiveness of washing methods designed to remove chloride from archaeological iron. This is theoretically compared to the concentration value weight of chloride in object/metal surface area of object and the difficulty of quantitatively determining the success of washing methods as stability enhancers is discussed. It is concluded that assessing the impact of residual chloride on post-treatment corrosion of archaeological objects has the potential to offer the most significant guide to treatment success. Keywords: Iron, Archaeology, Corrosion, Chloride, Treatment, Washing, Assessmen

On testing the simulation theory

Can the theory that reality is a simulation be tested? We investigate this question based on the assumption that if the system performing the simulation is finite (i.e. has limited resources), then to achieve low computational complexity, such a system would, as in a video game, render content (reality) only at the moment that information becomes available for observation by a player and not at the moment of detection by a machine (that would be part of the simulation and whose detection would also be part of the internal computation performed by the Virtual Reality server before rendering content to the player). Guided by this principle we describe conceptual wave/particle duality experiments aimed at testing the simulation theory

Moving Technical Reports Forward

Technical reports have always posed problems for libraries and librarians. They are often bibliographically inconsistent, difficult to source, and published to varying standards of quality. In some science and technical fields, these reports are also large in number and central in importance. Additionally, established workflows for acquiring and preserving technical reports in distributed repositories have been undermined by the transition from print to digital. Overall, the grey literature challenges librarians face have increased. This paper presents three case studies of how academic libraries have found innovative ways to face the problems of technical reports and improve their production, dissemination, and preservation; thus reducing the duplication of research efforts and saving public funds. Transportation is one example of the disciplines where these described changes are taking place, and the opportunities for libraries to improve the technical report workflow in this field will be a particular focus of the session. Readers can expect to learn about the challenges of handling technical reports in the digital age and the opportunities that exist for improving discoverability and dissemination in the networked environment. A particular focus will be on new roles for libraries and librarians, and how library publishing and data management services can offer new opportunities for partnerships with researchers

A Game of Spot the Difference: Librarians, Repository Managers, and Publishers

Many library publishing programs emerged from institutional repositories. This close relationship has led to the emergence of content platforms that are designed to operate under either use case, however, the missions and requirements of the two types of program differ. A repository for example, may be primarily concerned with the curation, preservation, and accessibility of their institution’s academic output whilst publishers must also concern themselves with external discoverability, search engine optimization, getting indexed in abstract databases and marketing their journals. In this session, you will hear from three successful library publishers who have embraced this external facing aspect of publishing. The overlaps and differences between repositories and publishers will be explored and the speakers will share their thoughts on how library publishers can best serve their patrons be disseminating work and helping researchers to meet funder mandates for open access and data management

Student-Teacher Curriculum Learning via Reinforcement Learning: Predicting Hospital Inpatient Admission Location

Accurate and reliable prediction of hospital admission location is important due to resource-constraints and space availability in a clinical setting, particularly when dealing with patients who come from the emergency department. In this work we propose a student-teacher network via reinforcement learning to deal with this specific problem. A representation of the weights of the student network is treated as the state and is fed as an input to the teacher network. The teacher network's action is to select the most appropriate batch of data to train the student network on from a training set sorted according to entropy. By validating on three datasets, not only do we show that our approach outperforms state-of-the-art methods on tabular data and performs competitively on image recognition, but also that novel curricula are learned by the teacher network. We demonstrate experimentally that the teacher network can actively learn about the student network and guide it to achieve better performance than if trained alone.Comment: 16 pages, 31 figures, In Proceedings of the 37th International Conference on Machine Learnin

Corrosion phenomena and patina on archaeological low-tin wrought bronzes: New data

The study reports a systematic examination and analysis of low-tin wrought bronzes from archaeological burial environments in the Mediterranean. The corrosion profiles occurring on samples taken from thirty-six predominantly Corinthian and Illyrian helmets from excavations in Greece, were analysed using polarised metallography, SEM-imaging, SEM-EDX and X-Ray Diffraction methods. Analysis confirms and expands understanding of existing corrosion models for copper dissolution producing smooth tin enriched patinas that preserve the original surface as a marker layer. SEM-EDX compositional analysis of corrosion profiles with complementary imaging is used to discuss the conditions in which certain corrosion profiles are formed. The study reveals how analysis of samples from many objects of a similar manufacture, buried for similar time periods, can be used to develop detailed understanding of corrosion processes and provide better understanding of the likely appearance of the objects in antiquity

Residues of alkaline sulphite treatment and their effects on the corrosion of archaeological iron objects

The formation of chemical residues on archaeological iron following its treatment in aqueous alkaline sulphite (NaOH/ Na2SO3) is simulated by evaporating selected ion mixtures to dryness. The residues are identified by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and their influence on iron corrosion is investigated by mixing them with iron powder and dynamically recording the weight change of these powder mixtures at fixed temperature and relative humidity (RH) in a climatic chamber.Ferrous chloride was dissolved in Na2SO4 to simulate Fe2+/Cl⁻ contaminated Na2SO4 solution. This formed FeSO4·4H2O/FeSO4·7H2O/NaCl upon evaporation. Evaporating a FeCl2/NaOH/Na2SO3 solution produced either Na2SO4/NaCl/γ- FeOOH or Na6(CO3)(SO4)2/Na2SO4/NaCl/γFeOOH mixtures according to ion concentration in the initial solution. Iron powder and various residues were mixed and exposed at 75% RH and 20oC; Na2SO4/Fe did not corrode iron; FeSO4·7H2O/Fe produced minimal corrosion of iron; during the hydration phase of FeSO4·4H2O to FeSO4·7H2O iron corroded; a NaCl/FeSO4·7H2O/FeSO4·4H2O mixture corroded iron rapidly. Overall, at 75% RH, soluble chloride residues offer a more immediate and significant corrosion risk to iron than Na2SO4 ,FeSO4·7H2O and FeSO4·4H2O