Intelligent systems in the context of surrounding environment

We investigate the behavioral patterns of a population of agents, each controlled by a simple biologically motivated neural network model, when they are set in competition against each other in the Minority Model of Challet and Zhang. We explore the effects of changing agent characteristics, demonstrating that crowding behavior takes place among agents of similar memory, and show how this allows unique `rogue' agents with higher memory values to take advantage of a majority population. We also show that agents' analytic capability is largely determined by the size of the intermediary layer of neurons. In the context of these results, we discuss the general nature of natural and artificial intelligence systems, and suggest intelligence only exists in the context of the surrounding environment (embodiment). Source code for the programs used can be found at http://neuro.webdrake.net/

Transitioning from a Conventional to a ‘Mega’ Journal: A Bibliometric Case Study of the Journal Medicine

Open-Access Mega-Journals (OAMJs) are a relatively new and increasingly important publishing phenomenon. The journal Medicine is in the unique position of having transitioned in 2014 from being a ‘traditional’ highly-selective journal to the OAMJ model. This study compares the bibliometric profile of the journal Medicine before and after its transition to the OAMJ model. Three standard modes of bibliometric analysis are employed, based on data from Web of Science: journal output volume, author characteristics, and citation analysis. The journal’s article output is seen to have grown hugely since its conversion to an OAMJ, a rise driven in large part by authors from China. Articles published since 2015 have fewer citations, and are cited by lower impact journals than articles published before the OAMJ transition. The adoption of the OAMJ model has completely changed the bibliometric profile of the journal, raising questions about the impact of OAMJ peer-review practices. In many respects, the post-2014 version of Medicine is best viewed as a new journal rather than a continuation of the original title

Open-access mega-journals

Purpose: Open-access mega-journals (OAMJs) represent an increasingly important part of the scholarly communication landscape. OAMJs, such as PLOS ONE, are large scale, broad scope journals that operate an open access business model (normally based on article-processing charges), and which employ a novel form of peer review, focusing on scientific ‘soundness’ and eschewing judgment of novelty or importance. This paper examines the discourses relating to OAMJs, and their place within scholarly publishing, and considers attitudes towards mega-journals within the academic community. Design/methodology/approach: This paper presents a review of the literature of OAMJs structured around four defining characteristics: scale, disciplinary scope, peer review policy and economic model. The existing scholarly literature was augmented by searches of more informal outputs, such as blogs and email discussion lists, to capture the debate in its entirety. Findings: While the academic literature relating specifically to OAMJs is relatively sparse, discussion in other fora is detailed and animated, with debates ranging from the sustainability and ethics of the mega-journal model, to the impact of soundness-only peer review on article quality and discoverability, and the potential for OAMJs to represent a paradigm-shifting development in scholarly publishing. Originality/value: This article represents the first comprehensive review of the mega-journal phenomenon, drawing not only on the published academic literature, but also grey, professional and informal sources. The paper advances a number of ways in which the role of OAMJs in the scholarly communication environment can be conceptualised

Open access megajournals: The publisher perspective (Part 1: Motivations)

This paper is the first of two Learned Publishing articles in which we report the results of a series of interviews with senior publishers and editors exploring open access megajournals (OAMJs). Megajournals (of which PLoS One is the best known example) represent a relatively new approach to scholarly communication and can be characterized as large, broad-scope, open access journals that take an innovative approach to peer review, basing acceptance decisions solely on the technical or scientific soundness of the article. This model is often said to support the broader goals of the open science movement. Based on in-depth interviews with 31 publishers and editors representing 16 different organizations (10 of which publish a megajournal), this paper reports how the term ‘megajournal’ is understood and publishers’ rationale and motivations for launching (or not launching) an OAMJ. We find that while there is general agreement on the common characteristics of megajournals, there is not yet a consensus on their relative importance. We also find seven motivating factors that were said to drive the launch of an OAMJ and link each of these factors to potential societal and business benefits. These results suggest that the often polarized debate surrounding OAMJs is a consequence of the extent to which observers perceive publishers to be motivated by these societal or business benefits

The effect of discrete vs. continuous-valued ratings on reputation and ranking systems

When users rate objects, a sophisticated algorithm that takes into account ability or reputation may produce a fairer or more accurate aggregation of ratings than the straightforward arithmetic average. Recently a number of authors have proposed different co-determination algorithms where estimates of user and object reputation are refined iteratively together, permitting accurate measures of both to be derived directly from the rating data. However, simulations demonstrating these methods' efficacy assumed a continuum of rating values, consistent with typical physical modelling practice, whereas in most actual rating systems only a limited range of discrete values (such as a 5-star system) is employed. We perform a comparative test of several co-determination algorithms with different scales of discrete ratings and show that this seemingly minor modification in fact has a significant impact on algorithms' performance. Paradoxically, where rating resolution is low, increased noise in users' ratings may even improve the overall performance of the system.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figure

Open access megajournals: The publisher perspective (Part 2: Operational realities)

This paper is the second of two Learned Publishing articles in which we report the results of a series of interviews, with senior publishers and editors exploring open access megajournals (OAMJs). Megajournals (of which PLoS One is the best known example) represent a relatively new approach to scholarly communication and can be characterized as large, broad-scope, open access journals, which take an innovative approach to peer review, basing acceptance decisions solely on the technical or scientific soundness of the article. Based on interviews with 31 publishers and editors, this paper reports the perceived cultural, operational, and technical challenges associated with launching, growing, and maintaining a megajournal. We find that overcoming these challenges while delivering the societal benefits associated with OAMJs is seen to require significant investment in people and systems, as well as an ongoing commitment to the model

Life in a warm deep sea: routine activity and burst swimming performance of the shrimp Acanthephyra eximia in the abyssal Mediterranean

Measurements of routine swimming speed, "tail-flip'' escape responses, and oxygen consumptions were made of the deep-sea shrimp Acanthephyra eximia using autonomous landers in the Rhodos Basin at depths of up to 4,400 m and temperatures of 13 - 14.5 degrees C. Routine swimming speeds at 4,200 m averaged 0.18 m s(-1) or 3.09 body lengths s(-1), approximately double those of functionally similar oceanic scavengers. During escape responses peak accelerations of 23 m s(-2) or 630.6 body lengths s(-2) were recorded, with animals reaching speeds of 1.61 m s(-1) or 34.8 body lengths s(-2). When compared to shallow-water decapods at similar temperatures these values are low for a lightly calcified shrimp such as A. eximia despite a maximum muscle mass specific power output of 90.0 W kg(-1). A preliminary oxygen consumption measurement indicated similar rates to those of oceanic crustacean scavengers and shallower-living Mediterranean crustaceans once size and temperature had been taken into account. These animals appear to have high routine swimming speeds but low burst muscle performances. This suite of traits can be accounted for by high competition for limited resources in the eastern Mediterranean, but low selective pressure for burst swimming due to reductions in predator pressure

Climate Change and invasibility of the Antarctic benthos

Benthic communities living in shallow-shelf habitats in Antarctica (<100-m depth) are archaic in their structure and function. Modern predators, including fast-moving, durophagous (skeleton-crushing) bony fish, sharks, and crabs, are rare or absent; slow-moving invertebrates are the top predators; and epifaunal suspension feeders dominate many soft substratum communities. Cooling temperatures beginning in the late Eocene excluded durophagous predators, ultimately resulting in the endemic living fauna and its unique food-web structure. Although the Southern Ocean is oceanographically isolated, the barriers to biological invasion are primarily physiological rather than geographic. Cold temperatures impose limits to performance that exclude modern predators. Global warming is now removing those physiological barriers, and crabs are reinvading Antarctica. As sea temperatures continue to rise, the invasion of durophagous predators will modernize the shelf benthos and erode the indigenous character of marine life in Antarctica

Negotiating queer and religious identities in higher education: queering ‘progression’ in the ‘university experience’

This article addresses the negotiation of ‘queer religious’ student identities in UK higher education. The ‘university experience’ has generally been characterised as a period of intense transformation and self-exploration, with complex and overlapping personal and social influences significantly shaping educational spaces, subjects and subjectivities. Engaging with ideas about progressive tolerance and becoming, often contrasted against ‘backwards’ religious homophobia as a sentiment/space/subject ‘outside’ education, this article follows the experiences and expectations of queer Christian students. In asking whether notions of ‘queering higher education’ (Rumens 2014 Rumens, N. 2014. “Queer Business: Towards Queering the Purpose of the Business School.” In The Entrepreneurial University: Public Engagements, Intersecting Impacts, edited by Y. Taylor, 82–104. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.) ‘fit’ with queer-identifying religious youth, the article explores how educational experiences are narrated and made sense of as ‘progressive’. Educational transitions allow (some) sexual-religious subjects to negotiate identities more freely, albeit with ongoing constraints. Yet perceptions of what, where and who is deemed ‘progressive’ and ‘backwards’ with regard to sexuality and religion need to be met with caution, where the ‘university experience’ can shape and shake sexual-religious identity