Mastodawn

Simon Garnier Apr 1, 2024

Serious paper about a silly day:

Dearden E, Baron A. Fool’s Errand: Looking at April Fools Hoaxes as Disinformation Through the Lens of Deception and Humour. Computational Linguistics and Intelligent Text Processing. doi:10.1007/978-3-031-24337-0_32

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-24337-0_32

Fool’s Errand: Looking at April Fools Hoaxes as Disinformation Through the Lens of Deception and Humour

Every year on April 1st, people play practical jokes on one another and news websites fabricate false stories with the goal of making fools of their audience. In an age of disinformation, with Facebook under fire for allowing “Fake News” to spread on...

SpringerLink

Simon Garnier Jan 31, 2024

Rvision 0.8.0 is here! Its toolbox now includes camera calibration tools, ORB keypoint detection and matching, pyramid resampling, and much more. It can also work in combination with GStreamer pipelines to read feeds from a wide range of cameras. More info at https://swarm-lab.github.io/Rvision/index.html

#ComputerVision #Rstats

Computer Vision Library for R

An OpenCV-based computer vision library providing methods to read and manipulate video and image files, as well as camera streams.

Show thread

Simon Garnier Jan 31, 2024

5. Bailey, J. D., Wallis, J., & Codling, E. A. (2018). Navigational efficiency in a biased and correlated random walk model of individual animal movement. Ecology, 99(1), 217–223. https://doi.org/10.1002/ecy.2076

6/6

Show thread

Simon Garnier Jan 31, 2024

4. Burford, B. P., & Robison, B. H. (2020). Bioluminescent backlighting illuminates the complex visual signals of a social squid in the deep sea. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 117(15), 8524–8531. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1920875117

5/6

Show thread

Simon Garnier Jan 31, 2024

3. Van der Weel, F. R. (ruud), & Van der Meer, A. L. H. (2024). Handwriting but not typewriting leads to widespread brain connectivity: a high-density EEG study with implications for the classroom. Frontiers in Psychology, 14. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1219945

4/6

Handwriting but not typewriting leads to widespread brain connectivity: a high-density EEG study with implications for the classroom

As traditional handwriting is progressively being replaced by digital devices, it is essential to investigate the implications for the human brain. Brain electrical activity was recorded in 36 university students as they were handwriting visually presented words using a digital pen and typewriting the words on a keyboard. Connectivity analyses were performed on EEG data recorded with a 256-channel sensor array. When writing by hand, brain connectivity patterns were far more elaborate than when typewriting on a keyboard, as shown by widespread theta/alpha connectivity coherence patterns between network hubs and nodes in parietal and central brain regions. Existing literature indicates that connectivity patterns in these brain areas and at such frequencies are crucial for memory formation and for encoding new information and, therefore, are beneficial for learning. Our findings suggest that the spatiotemporal pattern from visual and proprioceptive information obtained through the precisely controlled hand movements when using a pen, contribute extensively to the brain’s connectivity patterns that promote learning. We urge that children, from an early age, must be exposed to handwriting activities in school to establish the neuronal connectivity patterns that provide the brain with optimal conditions for learning. Although it is vital to maintain handwriting practice at school, it is also important to keep up with continuously developing technological advances. Therefore, bot...

Frontiers

Show thread

Simon Garnier Jan 31, 2024

2. Gardner, M. J., & Altman, D. G. (1986). Confidence intervals rather than P values: estimation rather than hypothesis testing. British Medical Journal , 292(6522), 746–750. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.292.6522.746

3/6

Confidence intervals rather than P values: estimation rather than hypothesis testing.

Overemphasis on hypothesis testing--and the use of P values to dichotomise significant or non-significant results--has detracted from more useful approaches to interpreting study results, such as estimation and confidence intervals. In medical studies investigators are usually interested in determining the size of difference of a measured outcome between groups, rather than a simple indication of whether or not it is statistically significant. Confidence intervals present a range of values, on the basis of the sample data, in which the population value for such a difference may lie. Some methods of calculating confidence intervals for means and differences between means are given, with similar information for proportions. The paper also gives suggestions for graphical display. Confidence intervals, if appropriate to the type of study, should be used for major findings in both the main text of a paper and its abstract.

The BMJ

Show thread

Simon Garnier Jan 31, 2024

1. Deeti, S., Cheng, K., Graham, P., & Wystrach, A. (2023). Scanning behaviour in ants: an interplay between random-rate processes and oscillators. Journal of Comparative Physiology. A, Neuroethology, Sensory, Neural, and Behavioral Physiology, 209(4), 625–639. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00359-023-01628-8

2/6

Scanning behaviour in ants: an interplay between random-rate processes and oscillators - Journal of Comparative Physiology A

At the start of a journey home or to a foraging site, ants often stop, interrupting their forward movement, turn on the spot a number of times, and fixate in different directions. These scanning bouts are thought to provide visual information for choosing a path to travel. The temporal organization of such scanning bouts has implications about the neural organisation of navigational behaviour. We examined (1) the temporal distribution of the start of such scanning bouts and (2) the dynamics of saccadic body turns and fixations that compose a scanning bout in Australian desert ants, Melophorus bagoti, as they came out of a walled channel onto open field at the start of their homeward journey. Ants were caught when they neared their nest and displaced to different locations to start their journey home again. The observed parameters were mostly similar across familiar and unfamiliar locations. The turning angles of saccadic body turning to the right or left showed some stereotypy, with a peak just under 45°. The direction of such saccades appears to be determined by a slow oscillatory process as described in other insect species. In timing, however, both the distribution of inter-scanning-bout intervals and individual fixation durations showed exponential characteristics, the signature for a random-rate or Poisson process. Neurobiologically, therefore, there must be some process that switches behaviour (starting a scanning bout or ending a fixation) with equal probability at every moment in time. We discuss how chance events in the ant brain that occasionally reach a threshold for triggering such behaviours can generate the results.

SpringerLink

Simon Garnier Jan 31, 2024

Each week, we share research that tickled our brains at our #LightningJournalClub. Fascinating, intriguing, even outright infuriating - these papers got us buzzing. This is the Jan. 29, 2024 edition!

#ShowMeTheSource #Science #CollectiveBehavior #CollectiveIntelligence

1/6

Simon Garnier Jan 29, 2024

The #blob has awaken!

The dried "snot" on the left spent 3 years in the drawer. A little bit of humidity and food turned it into the sprawling yellow goo on the right :-)

#Science #SlimeMold #Myxomycetes

Simon Garnier Jan 26, 2024

Will the #blob wake up? Answer on Monday.

#Science #SlimeMold #Myxomycetes

Lab website	https://www.theswarmlab.com/
GitHub	https://github.com/sjmgarnier
Instagram	https://www.instagram.com/lostintheswarm/
Scholar	https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=4MNHWX8AAAAJ&hl=en