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The first cut is the deepest:Exploring the importance of early musical experiences in the development of musical identities
No full textThis article investigates the role of early experiences in shaping the musical identities of 15 individuals with a diverse range of self-reported musical skills, ranging from none to professional level. Participant interviews were recorded, transcribed, and analysed for emerging and superordinate themes. Topics covered in the interviews included participants’ relationship with music, significant early musical memories, and experiences with music-making (particularly early experiences). Twelve of the 15 participants also attended a series of music workshops in either Italy (Calabria) or Scotland (Glasgow). The workshops were focused on integrating both musically experienced and inexperienced participants in collaborative musical activities. Analysis revealed 13 emergent themes that were grouped into three superordinate themes: early exposure and family influence; experiences with music education; participation and playfulness. These themes highlight how participants’ early experiences of music are remembered in detail and represent important moments in the participants’ lives. Early listening experiences were reported as positive and linked with family memories. Early musical education experiences were often reported as negative leading to lifelong self-beliefs of being ‘unmusical’. Results suggest that positive experience with musical engagement can overcome the debilitating effects of early negative experience of music, highlighting musical identities as dynamic (amenable to change) and situated (context-dependent).</p
Many-Server Queueing Systems with Heterogeneous Strategic Servers in Heavy Traffic
No full textIn most service systems, the servers are humans who desire to experience a certain level of idleness. In call centers, this manifests itself as the call avoidance behavior, where servers strategically adjust their service rate to strike a balance between the idleness they receive and effort to work harder. Moreover, being humans, each server values this trade-off differently and has different capabilities. Drawing ideas on mean-field games we develop a novel framework relying on measure-valued processes to simultaneously address strategic server behavior and inherent server heterogeneity in service systems. This framework enables us to extend the recent literature on strategic servers in four new directions by: (i) incorporating individual choices of servers, (ii) incorporating individual abilities of servers, (iii) modeling the discomfort experienced by servers due to low levels of idleness, and (iv) considering more general routing policies. Using our framework, we are able to asymptotically characterize asymmetric Nash equilibria for many-server systems with strategic servers.In simpler cases, it has been shown that the purely quality-driven regime is asymptotically optimal. However, we show that if the discomfort increases fast enough as the idleness approaches zero, the quality-and-efficiency-driven regime and other quality driven regimes can be optimal. This is the first time this conclusion appears in the literature
Chatbot-fictionalism and empathetic AI:Should we worry about AI when AI worries about us?
No full textWe focus on recent proposals to interpret interactions with empathetic AI systems as games of make-believe, analogous to our engagement with fictions. Chatbots are increasingly designed to detect and emulate emotional nuance, resembling real human interactions. These applications have raised ethical concerns. Critics focus on the potentially harmful effects of people’s tendency to anthropomorphize the chatbots – to respond to them as if they were real persons – potentially leaving users vulnerable to emotional dependency, exploitation, loss of autonomy and delusion. How worried should we be about these developments? According to some philosophers, not very. Chatbot-fictionalist maintain that one interacts with these chatbots analogous to our engagement with interactive fictions. We argue that although chatbot-fictionalism offers insights into human-AI interaction, it does not resolve the ethical concerns
Geographic isolation, rurality, and outcomes after critical illness: a retrospective cohort study of emergency admissions to critical care units in Scotland 2010-2021
No full textBackgroundThe association between rurality, geographic isolation and outcomes in critical care is complex, and important to the design and implementation of robust healthcare systems. MethodsA cohort study of adult (≥16 years) emergency admissions to critical care units in Scotland 2010-2021. Data were linked across national inpatient records, the critical care database, and mortality records. Geographic isolation was determined by modelled travel time to intensive care unit and emergency department, and rurality by the national 8-fold Urban Rural Classification. Standardised admission rates were calculated, alongside survival analysis for all-cause mortality by isolation and rurality with intensive care unit and hospital length of stay, and emergency hospital readmissions in the year following critical care admission.Results 50,914 first emergency admissions to critical care over the study period were included in the analyses. Age-sex standardised admissions were 24.2% (95%CI 19.4-28.2) lower for the most isolated areas ≥180 minutes from intensive care unit, compared to those at <30 minutes. No significant associations were demonstrated between mortality and any category of isolation, and at only one category of rurality, with greater mortality in other urban areas (settlements of 10,000 to 124,999 people) compared to large urban areas (settlements of ≥125,000 people) with adjusted Hazard Ratio 1.05 (95%CI 1.01-1.08).ConclusionsAdmission rates to critical care were lower in more isolated, and more rural areas. Further research should explore the mechanisms for these findings and consider if strengthened access to critical care transfer and resource in remote areas may improve health outcomes.<br/
Confronting primordial black holes with LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA and the Einstein Telescope
No full textThe detection of gravitational waves from binary black hole coalescences by the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA Collaboration has raised fundamental questions about the genesis of these events. In this chapter, we explore the possibility that primordial black holes, proposed candidates for dark matter, may serve as the progenitors of the binary black holes observed by LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA. Employing a Bayesian analysis, we constrain the primordial black hole model using the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA third gravitational wave transient catalog, revealing that stellar-mass primordial black holes cannot dominate cold dark matter. Considering a mixed population of astrophysical black holes and primordial black holes, we determine that approximately 1/4 of the detectable events in the third gravitational wave transient catalog can be attributed to primordial black hole binaries. We also forecast detectable event rate distributions for primordial black hole and astrophysical black hole binaries by the third-generation ground-based gravitational wave detectors, such as the Einstein Telescope, offering a potential avenue to distinguish primordial black holes from astrophysical black holes based on their distinct redshift evolutions
Quantum logics in cognition:A proposal
Get PDFQuantum logics are non-classical logics defined from the mathematical formalism of quantum mechanics. While they are conventionally used to model inferential processes in physics, their scope of application is potentially much broader. We argue that quantum logics can serve as a framework to model human cognition, as their semantics seem able to capture not only how people make inferences about quantum mechanics, but also how they reason in general. We begin by defining quantum logics from an algebraic perspective in a classical first-order setting. Next, we present findings from cognitive science that suggest these logics are apt to characterize human reasoning. We then consider how such a connection between quantum logics and cognition contributes to longstanding philosophical debates about the epistemological status of logic and the problem of adoption. Finally, we discuss how cognitive applications of quantum logics could advance our understanding of human psychology and even quantum foundations
Interpreting Collapse in Norse Greenland: Why Similar Data Produces Different Conclusions
Get PDFThis paper examines interpretations of depopulation in Norse Greenland between the 14th and 15th centuries CE. Using in-depth interviews with 13 experts working on the environmental, social and economic dimensions of settlement and depopulation in Norse Greenland, we examine the different interpretations of decline by experts using the same data. Our analysis reveals a geographical and disciplinary pattern of interpretation that reflects the institutional and disciplinary cultures, successive paradigms, and placed ideas about human–environment interaction. We examine the interplay between data and interpretation to uncover key developments in knowledge of the past and ideas about both the role of climate, ecology and social, economic and political processes in the end of the Norse settlement in Greenland, as well as their wider persistence in the North Atlantic region. In particular, we emphasise the importance of active reflection on disciplinary training, schools of thought, and national narratives in both the interpretation and perceived relevance of the past
Rising to the challenge:lessons learnt from the Global Women’s Research Society (GLOW) conference for women’s and newborn health in the context of global crises
Get PDFA Positive Affirmation Marker to Improve Response Rate and Reduce Non-target Behaviours During Reinforcement Thinning in Dogs
Get PDFMost dog training protocols use food as an unconditioned reinforcer. To maintain a learned behaviour with reduced reinforcement it is necessary to transition from continuous reinforcement to a leaner schedule during which it is desirable to minimise problematic behaviour by the dog who is receiving fewer rewards. Experimental evidence for the most ethical and effective way to manage this transition is lacking. This paper describes a proof-of-concept study of using a conditioned verbal positive affirmation marker (PAM) to support the transition from a continuous to variable ratio schedule of reinforcement. Four dogs were trained to perform a new task before introducing PAM by higher order conditioning. The reward schedule was then thinned using PAM and behaviours were compared on the variable ratio schedule of reinforcement under two conditions; with PAM or without, in a within-subject study design. We observed an increased response rate and a reduction of non-target behaviours, particularly those indicative of frustration, in the PAM condition compared to without PAM for three of the dogs but not the fourth. The reasons behind the variability observed, as well as limitations and possible implications and uses of this conditioned reinforcer, are discussed. We propose PAM as a useful addition to the dog training toolkit
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