In this study, the authors address the current climate concern of high CO2 levels by testing solid forms of hydroxide for CO2 reduction and designing a drone to fly it in ambient air!
Read More...Use of drone with sodium hydroxide carriers to absorb carbon dioxide from ambient air
In this study, the authors address the current climate concern of high CO2 levels by testing solid forms of hydroxide for CO2 reduction and designing a drone to fly it in ambient air!
Read More...Deep learning for pulsar detection: Investigating hyperparameter effects on TensorFlow classification accuracy
This study investigates how the hyperparameters epochs and batch size affect the classification accuracy of a convolutional neural network (CNN) trained on pulsar candidate data. Our results reveal that accuracy improves with increasing number of epochs and smaller batch sizes, suggesting that with optimized hyperparameters, high accuracy may be achievable with minimal training. These findings offer insights that could help create more efficient machine learning classification models for pulsar signal detection, with the potential of accelerating pulsar discovery and advancing astrophysical research.
Read More...A natural language processing approach to skill identification in the job market
The authors looked at using machine learning to identify skills needed to apply for certain jobs, specifically looking at different techniques to parse apart the text. They found that Bidirectional Encoder Representation of Transforms (BERT) performed best.
Read More...Pruning replay buffer for efficient training of deep reinforcement learning
Reinforcement learning (RL) is a form of machine learning that can be harnessed to develop artificial intelligence by exposing the intelligence to multiple generations of data. The study demonstrates how reply buffer reward mechanics can inform the creation of new pruning methods to improve RL efficiency.
Read More...The effect of the pandemic on the behavior of junior high school students
Here, seeking to understand how the COVID-19 pandemic affected the social interactions of junior high school students, the authors surveyed students, teachers, and parents. Contrary to their initial hypotheses, the authors found positive correlation between increased virtual contact during social isolation and in-person conflict and disregard for social norms after the pandemic. While the authors identified the limitations of their study, they suggest that further research into the effect of online interactions is becoming increasingly important.
Read More...Reddit v. Wall Street: Why Redditors beat Wall Street at its own game
Here the authors investigated the motivation of a short squeeze of GameStop stock where users of the internet forum Reddit drove a sudden increase in GameStop stock price during the start of 2021. They relied on both qualitative and quantitative analyses where they tracked activity on the r/WallStreetBets subreddit in relation to mentions of GameStop. With these methods they found that while initially the short squeeze was driven by financial motivations, later on emotional motivations became more important. They suggest that social phenomena can be dynamic and evolve necessitating mixed method approaches to study them.
Read More...Assessing grass water use efficiency through smartphone imaging and ImageJ analysis
Overwatering and underwatering grass are widespread issues with environmental and financial consequences. This study developed an accessible method to assess grass water use efficiency (WUE) combining smartphone imaging with open access color unmixing analysis. The method can be applied in automated irrigation systems or apps, providing grass WUE assessment for regular consumer use.
Read More...Changing public opinions on genetically modified organisms through access to educational resources
Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are crops or animals that have been genetically engineered to express a certain physical or biological characteristic and have various benefits that have made them become increasingly popular. However, the public has had mixed reactions to the use of GMOs, with some skeptical of their safety. The purpose of this study was to evaluate how opinions on genetically modified foods can change from exposure to small amounts of information
Read More...A novel filtration model for microplastics using natural oils and its application to the environment
Recognizing the need for a method to filter microplastics from polluted water the authors sought to use nonpolar solvents, palm oil and palm kernel oil, to filter microplastics out of model seawater. By relying on the separation of polar and nonpolar solvents followed by freezing the nonpolar solvent, they reported that microplastics could be extracted with percentages ranging from 96.2% to 94.2%. They also provided an estimation to use this method as part of container ships to clean the Pacific Ocean of microplastics.
Read More...Reimagize – a digital card-based roleplaying game to improve adolescent girls’ body image
Reimagize, a role-playing with decision-making, was conjured, implementing social psychological concepts like counter-stereotyping and perspective-taking. As the game works implicitly to influence body image, it even counters image issues beyond personal body dissatisfaction. This study explored whether a digital role-playing card game, incorporating some of the most common prejudices of body image (like size prejudice, prejudices from the media, etc.) as identified by a digital survey/questionnaire completed by Indian girls aged 11-21, could counter these issues and reduce personal body dissatisfaction.
Read More...