Technology adoption in a community of heterogeneous education level: Who are your good neighbors?

This paper examines the role of education in technology adoption in a multi-agent finite-time dynamic game setting. It is assumed that education decreases prior variance on the best action in using a new technology in the target-input Bayesian model, experience accumulates in a community (social learning information spillover), and the experience, however, is not transferrable from one technology to another. The paper shows that, depending on the schooling distribution, the equilibrium s different dynamic patterns of technology adoption.choice of technology

Relative NN-Descent: A Fast Index Construction for Graph-Based Approximate Nearest Neighbor Search

Approximate Nearest Neighbor Search (ANNS) is the task of finding the database vector that is closest to a given query vector. Graph-based ANNS is the family of methods with the best balance of accuracy and speed for million-scale datasets. However, graph-based methods have the disadvantage of long index construction time. Recently, many researchers have improved the tradeoff between accuracy and speed during a search. However, there is little research on accelerating index construction. We propose a fast graph construction algorithm, Relative NN-Descent (RNN-Descent). RNN-Descent combines NN-Descent, an algorithm for constructing approximate K-nearest neighbor graphs (K-NN graphs), and RNG Strategy, an algorithm for selecting edges effective for search. This algorithm allows the direct construction of graph-based indexes without ANNS. Experimental results demonstrated that the proposed method had the fastest index construction speed, while its search performance is comparable to existing state-of-the-art methods such as NSG. For example, in experiments on the GIST1M dataset, the construction of the proposed method is 2x faster than NSG. Additionally, it was even faster than the construction speed of NN-Descent.Comment: Accepted by ACMMM 202

Mesh-free Particle Method for Simulation of Earthquake-induced Slope Failure

The Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) method for simulation of earthquake induced slope failure is presented. The SPH method was first invented for simulating dynamic behavior of compressive viscous fluid in the late 1970s and has been applied to other various problems in engineering field. So far the SPH method has been extended to handle not only fluid dynamics but also solid dynamics. The most advantage of the SPH method compared to other well established numerical method, such as the Finite Element Method, the Finite Discrete Method et al., is feasibility of analyzing discontinuity problem. This feature of the SPH method is desirable to earthquake induced slope failure simulation because slope failure phenomena posses discontinuity inherently. In this paper, the SPH method is adapted to simulate the earthquake induced slope failure. The SPH method can describe full dynamic behavior of a slope excited by earthquake and possible to predict the final configuration of slope after failure

Restriction of Germline Proliferation by Soft X-ray Irradiation of Chicken Embryos and its Application to Chimera Production

Primordial germ cells (PGCs) are the progenitor cells of gametes. Avian PGCs are located in the central region of the area pellucida at the blastoderm stage. PGCs enter the circulation soon after the formation of blood vessels in incubating eggs and eventually settle in the gonadal primordium. We have now examined exposure of chicken embryos to soft (low-energy) x-rays as a means of depleting endogenous PGCs and thereby improving the efficiency of chimera production. The blastoderm of White Leghorn eggs was exposed to soft x-rays for 0, 20, 40 or 60s before incubation. The irradiated embryos manifested delayed development at 60 h of incubation. They also showed reduced numbers of circulating PGCs at stages 14 and 15 and of gonadal PGCs at stage 30. The hatchability of irradiated embryos was lower than that of nonirradiated controls. Irradiation for 20 s was found to provide the best outcome taking into consideration both the restriction of PGC proliferation and hatchability. Dispersed blastoderm cells of quail (black plumage) embryos were introduced into the blastoderm of chicken embryos irradiated for 20 s or of nonirradiated embryos. The number of donor-derived PGCs was higher in the irradiated embryos than in the nonirradiated controls at stage 30. These results suggest that soft x-irradiation of chicken embryos is a feasible approach to depletion of endogenous germ cells and consequent improvement in the efficiency of incorporation of donor PGCs.ArticleJOURNAL OF POULTRY SCIENCE. 45(4): 292-297(2008)journal articl