This contribution addresses cochlear implantation (CI) selection criteria as a discussion topic. It expresses a personal viewpoint that challenges the usefulness and necessity of formal selection criteria. Scientifically, it is argued that CI selection must be highly individual, whereas the current criteria are general, not valid, not based on a wide consensus, and not up-to-date. Morally, it i...

We propose that chemical evolution can take place by natural selection if a geophysical process is capable of heterotrophic formation of liposomes that grow at some base rate, divide by external agitation, and are subject to stochastic chemical avalanches, in the absence of nucleotides or any monomers capable of modular heredity. We model this process using a simple hill-climbing algorithm, and...

We investigate how well different information diffusion models can explain observation data by learning their parameters and discuss which model is better suited to which topic. We use two models (AsIC, AsLT), each of which is an extension of the well known Independent Cascade (IC) and Linear Threshold (LT) models and incorporates asynchronous time delay. The model parameters are learned by max...

First-time conversations play an important role as a starting point in building relationships. However, the lack of information about interlocutors makes it difficult to decide what topic take up. In this study, we targeted 10 pairs native Japanese speakers and Sundanese speakers, clarified topics would be selected first-time conversation by university students, examined similarities difference...

Estimates of the fraction of nucleotide substitutions driven by positive selection vary widely across different species. Accounting for different estimates of positive selection has been difficult, in part because selection on polymorphism within a species is known to obscure a signal of positive selection among species. While methods have been developed to control for the confounding effects o...